WE may still cringe when recalling comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s remark that the Australian flag was “Great Britain at night”, but the head of the Australian Republican Movement says change will happen – one day.
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The well-known journalist, author and sportsman Peter FitzSimons passed through Bathurst yesterday on his way to Orange to host a talk about the need for an Australian republic.
It followed a forum he chaired in Bathurst last October which attracted 160 people – the vast majority, he said, in support of a republic.
And while a republic and a new Australian flag are separate issues, Mr FitzSimons believes they will both happen, but people need to get involved.
“They are absolutely separate issues, but they’re in similar postcodes for me,” he said.
It is a matter of pride that Australia should become a republic, Mr FitzSimons says.
“We are no longer a colony, we are a country on our own and we need to have a system of government where one of ours is head of state,” he said.
“It is ludicrous that in the 21st century we find that Australians find our heads of state from a family of English aristocrats.”
But Mr FitzSimons said people must get involved in the republican movement to ensure that change does happen.
“It is not inevitable that it will change, because the greatest enemy is the sense of inevitability that this is going to happen,” he said.
“Well, it’s not going to happen unless we make it happen.”
Mr FitzSimons quoted former Australian prime minister Paul Keating.
“I love the line of Paul Keating, ‘a mature nation does not have the flag of another nation as its principal feature’, and it’s as simple as that,” he said.
Mr Seinfeld, meanwhile, offered his thoughts on the Australian flag when he visited during the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
“I love your flag ... Great Britain at night,” the comedian said.
In a referendum held earlier this month in New Zealand, almost 57 per cent voted to keep the country’s current flag.
