McLaren, John (1994) The Monarchy and Australia. In: Conference on the Monarchy and Australia, 1994, Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. (Unpublished)

Abstract

Contains a draft paper prepared for the Conference on the Monarchy and Australia at Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. John McLaren reminisces when her Majesty Queen Elizabeth came to Australia in 1954. Being one of the loyal troops sent to Canberra to honour, guard and welcome her, he proudly bore the flag of a battalion combatants, the Melbourne University Regiment. It was the height and glory of the first scheme of the military conscription introduced by the Menzies government in the midst of the anxiety generated by the Korean War. Yet the visit itself, for all the enthusiasm with which it was greeted at all levels of society, was rooted in nostalgia and celebrated a social ideal that was already dead. It is the contention of this paper that the seeds of the present republican debate were sown during the Korean War, nurtured by the experience of the Vietnam war, and have come to maturity since the end of the Cold War has left Australia acutely aware of its position as the lonely country at the bottom of the world.

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