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An Australian Republic

 

So, now the Queen is gone many are saying it's time to replace our Head of State with one requiring less pomp and circumstance and more relevant antecedents: by removing the present descendent of Princess Sophia as our monarch and replacing our several 'King's Representatives' with Presidents (or some other title, to address the status of State Governors). In reality, this is already the case. So, let's keep the part 'that sort of works' Then it's simply a matter of amending the several written and implicit Constitutions to provide that these figureheads should be agreed to and installed at regular intervals (currently five years, by convention) by our various Parliaments.  

But let's not elect them separately. And when they die let's have a modest memorial, befitting an esteemed citizen.

Travel and life experience has taught me not to support the separate election of Presidents. If it ain't broke don't fix it'.  

Electing a President introduces a competing democratic power to elected Parliaments. Competing candidates need to contrive a 'platform' and, by financial necessity and contest, often fund their campaign agenda through hidden patronage, as in the United States.

Throughout the world there are at least a dozen examples of presidents using their initial success and supposed 'mandate' to seize power over the constitutionally established parliament and to install themselves and/or their chosen successors indefinitely.  The most glaring examples are Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China but the same applies in almost every 'new democracy' in Central Asia, that gained a 'US style' constitution at independence. Even the US itself was recently subject to a coup attempt by a president reluctant to relinquish power.

For the worst example in history, we need only cast our minds back to the Weimar Republic in Germany in 1933, to appreciate the risks that empowering an autocrat entail.

In maintaining Churchill's 'flawed democracy' our leaders should continue to be our democratically elected parliaments alone, because it's the best of: "all those other forms (of government) that have been tried".

Thus, echoing the 1689 the Bill of Rights, our new figurehead needs to continue to be beholding to the Parliament, not an independent power in the land.

In the meantime, we are still a monarchy and so can expect: more ceremonies, pomp and circumstance, and almost certainly, another Royal Visit.

 

 

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Travel

Spain and Portugal

 

 

Spain is in the news.

Spain has now become the fourth Eurozone country, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to get bailout funds in the growing crisis gripping the Euro.

Unemployment is high and services are being cut to reduce debt and bring budgets into balance.  Some economists doubt this is possible within the context of a single currency shared with Germany and France. There have been violent but futile street demonstrations.

Read more: Spain and Portugal

Fiction, Recollections & News

Dune: Part Two

Back in 2021 I went to see the first installment of ‘DUNE’ and was slightly 'put out' to discover that it ended half way through the (first) book.

It was the second big-screen attempt to make a movie of the book, if you don’t count the first ‘Star Wars’, that borrows shamelessly from Frank Herbert’s Si-Fi classic, and I thought it a lot better.

Now the long-awaited second part has been released.

 

Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Screenplay by Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts
Based on Dune by Frank Herbert
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler' Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista
Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem
Cinematography Greig Fraser, Edited by Joe Walker
Music by Hans Zimmer
Running time 165 minutes

 

 

Read more: Dune: Part Two

Opinions and Philosophy

When did people arrive in Australia?

 

 

 

 

 

We recently returned from a brief holiday in Darwin (follow this link).  Interesting questions raised at the Darwin Museum and by the Warradjan Cultural Centre at Kakadu are where the Aboriginal people came from; how they got to Australia; and when. 

Recent anthropology and archaeology seem to present contradictions and it seems to me that all these questions are controversial.

Read more: When did people arrive in Australia?

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