Page 2592 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 20 September 2022
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funeral to fully crystallise and bear fruit. Those sorts of resolutions, decisions and turning points are very private, most of the time. They are tied to our own personal connection with the deceased or their loved ones.
Queen Elizabeth’s death, I believe, should be the occasion for similar reflections—private ones, for those who want to, but more significantly and more essentially public ones. It has been 70 years since the British Commonwealth last mourned its deceased head of state and crowned a new one. It would take hours to list in any detail the changes that have happened over that period. My list includes changes in technology, science, geopolitics, social norms, economic theories and planetary health, as well as changes in our perceptions of what equality means, what justice is, how merit should be rewarded, who should pay for the common good, and more. We must acknowledge, as a country, that these immense changes require us to commit seriously to the process of reflection brought into being by the Queen’s passing. It should be a turning point—and it needs to be.
This is a period of mourning and of respect, and we do owe that respect. Whether it be for a lifetime of public service or other reasons, it is clear that the Queen is held in deep respect by many Canberrans and many Australians more broadly. However, we must in time have the mature and respectful conversations about our future as a country, brought into relief by the Queen’s passing. I will not labour them, as the time will come to discuss them in more appropriate fora, but they do bear mentioning.
We do need to talk about becoming a republic. We do need to push back against the growing economic inequality in this country and the inequality of opportunity that we see symbolised in the enormous wealth of the monarchy. We do need to acknowledge the ongoing destructive legacy of Britain’s global colonisation. We must move forward on reconciliation with Australia’s First People, recognise that sovereignty was never ceded and develop a path that recognises the true history of this nation.
Returning to the reflection on funerals, let me quote from the 1998 movie Waking Ned Devine—though you will have to imagine the velvety Irish accent of actor Ian Bannen, who said:
What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself.
I cannot presume to know what Queen Elizabeth would have wanted to grow out of the memory of her long life and reign, but I do think most of us, as human beings, hope that something good will come at the conclusion of our lives, that it will create one of the turning points that I have spoken of, that it will bring our loved ones closer and that it will inspire positive change. The Queen was a human being as much as she was a monarch, so I suspect she might have felt the same.
It is in that spirit, on behalf of the Greens, that I reflect on Her Majesty’s passing and offer my condolences to her family as they grieve the loss of their mother, their grandmother, their great-grandmother and someone they held dear in their heart.
Question resolved in the affirmative, members standing in their places.
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