Australia's ex-PM says Harry and Meghan saga boosts republican case

Australia’s former PM Malcolm Turnbull says Harry and Meghan interview bolsters case for breaking away from the British monarchy

  • Turnbull said the royals were ‘clearly an unhappy family’ after the interview aired
  • He said Australia should look to become a republic when the Queen’s reign ends
  • New Zealand’s PM Jacinda Ardern said the country was unlikely to break away  

Australia’s former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has said the tumult in the royal family caused by Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey bolsters his case for breaking from the British monarchy. 

Turnbull, a longstanding champion of an Australian republic, said it was ‘clearly an unhappy family, or at least Meghan and Harry are unhappy’ after the couple aired a series of explosive claims about life behind palace doors.  

It included the suggestion that royals were jealous of Meghan’s popularity during a 2018 tour of Australia and New Zealand. 

‘After the end of the Queen’s reign, that is the time for us to say: OK, we’ve passed that watershed. Do we really want to have whoever happens to be the head of state, the King or Queen of the UK, automatically our head of state?’ Turnbull said on the ABC. 

Malcolm Turnbull (right) and his wife Lucy (left) meet Prince Harry and Meghan at a function at Australia House in London in April 2018 

Turnbull said the tumult caused by Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey (pictured) bolstered his case that Australia should break away from the monarchy 

Turnbull met Harry and Meghan at a function in London in April 2018, but had been forced out as prime minister by the time they visited Australia later that year. 

Harry suggested that members of the royal family were jealous of Meghan because of the ease with which she seemed to be carrying out her duties in Australia.

The revelation drew comparisons to Diana eclipsing Charles during their own tour of Australia in 1983, the subject of an episode in the latest season of The Crown. 

And the monarchy is now embroiled in another public relations crisis after Meghan described a royal life so packed with racism and pressure that she was driven to contemplating suicide. 

In Australia, the Daily Telegraph’s TV editor Holly Byrnes said the royals had ‘learned nothing since Diana died and may well die because of it’.  

Current Australian PM Scott Morrison was not asked about the royal interview in a Tuesday press conference.  

But Turnbull told ABC that ‘it’s clearly an unhappy family or at least Meghan and Harry are unhappy. It seems very sad.’

Turnbull suggested, as others have, that Australia might look to become a republic when the Queen’s reign ends (the Queen is pictured at Windsor Castle last week) 

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured) said the country is unlikely to break away from the British monarchy any time soon 

Turnbull led the Australian Republican Movement from 1993 to 2000, a period which included a 1999 referendum in which voters opted to keep the monarchy. 

The debate has sometimes been beset by divisions among republicans, some of whom want a directly elected president instead of a figurehead chosen by parliament as was proposed in 1999. 

The Queen is currently represented by a governor-general whose role is mostly ceremonial but does have the power to sack the PM, which happened in 1975.   

Meanwhile in New Zealand, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the country was unlikely to break from the British monarchy anytime soon. 

Ardern has expressed republican views in the past but said she had not ‘sensed an appetite from New Zealanders for significant change’ in the constitution. 

Asked about her personal friendship with Meghan since the couple toured the country in 2018, Ardern said she had kept in touch. 

‘But ultimately, the matters that are being canvassed here I see as for Meghan and Harry to respond to directly,’ she said. 

‘These are matters about their personal lives and their personal decisions, and I don’t think it deserves a commentary from anyone else,’ she said.

Source: Read Full Article

Previous post All workers to be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme by mid-2020s, minister confirms
Next post Disney+ pulls iconic movies Dumbo, The Aristocats, and Peter Pan from kids section for 'racist' stereotypes