While I'm talking about the Daily Mail...

... does anyone there know the slightest thing that was going on here in Oz before Prince William got off the fucking plane?

A week ago the monarchy was all but dead in Australia and the march towards republicanism appeared inexorable.

What a load of shite. The situation is more or less this: Kevin Dud leans towards republicanism in principle (just my opinion but it's one of his few good points) and made a few noises before the last election about possibly giving some thought to re-opening the republic/monarchy debate, but if I recall correctly the only thing he committed to was that it wouldn't be a first term thing. We're still in Rudd's first term. Now, ex-(il)Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull was also vaguely pro-republicanism, though again not strongly enough to make a lot of noise about it, but was replaced by the budgie smuggling Tony Abbot. By all accounts Tony Abbot is fairly keen on the monarchy and doesn't want to let Mrs Queen go. Tony Abbot took over the Libs a couple of months ago, not last bloody week. Sure, he's only the opposition leader but it'd be a damn sight easier for Rudd to move forward with cross party support than with the opposition being lead by a strong monarchist, and I suspect Rudd would prefer to fight over the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme that he's already had bounced back out of the Senate once.

But you don't really get that impression when the Daily bloody Mail are saying that last week the monarchy was 'all but dead' here and becoming a republic seemed inevitable. I'm guessing that someone there heard about the Attorney-General here mentioning that there are people thinking about the wording for a referendum question if, and it's a big if, Rudd decides to ask it. Look elsewhere and you can see how up in the air it still is. And that's just to get the fucking question asked in a referendum. To actually become a republic would need not only a majority of the whole country to vote Yes but a majority of the states as well, and although last time more than 45% were in favour of a becoming a republic that's still more than half a million votes short. Worse still, the Yes campaign didn't get so much as a single state, let alone the four they needed (they did get the ACT but that isn't a state and counts only towards the whole country vote). That was a decade ago and while feelings have probably changed I'm not sure they've changed enough for four states and a majority of Australians to vote for a republic. Even here in Victoria, the nearest the Yes campaign came to getting a state in 1999 (less than 5,000 votes in it), I reckon I know about as many monarchists and those who don't care enough to want a change as I do republicans, and that's a long way from the Daily Mail's apparent belief that the monarchy was all but finished here until Prince William came along and won the hearts and minds of a nation, just as his mother did before.

Load of bollocks, and I think strongly deserving of a new masthead.

Google is your friend, fucknuts.