Michael Kirby says the monarchy keeps out of Australia's top job "rather unlovely characters". How is this so, says Roy McKeen, when the monarchy itself is full of such "unlovely characters".
Michael Kirby says that the monarchy keeps out of the job (of Head of State of Australia) "rather unlovely characters" (Heads Up - 26/27 March). Kirby forgets that it failed to keep out The Traitor King, the former Edward VIII, the king of Australia who said that Adolf Hitler was "a great man and the saviour of Europe". When he met Hitler in Germany he gave the Nazi salute and cried out "Heil Hitler".
Kirby must also have forgotten that the Australian monarchy also keeps every Australian out of the job of Head of State. Every Australian who has the talent, brains and the work ethic can achieve anything except the job of Head of State. Under the Australian Constitution that job automatically goes to a foreign monarch who must be a member of the Church of England and have German blood. Catholics are expressly excluded from becoming monarch under British law. Now that apartheid has been consigned to the dustbin of history this is the only instance in the civilised western world where religious bigotry is enshrined in law.
Michael Kirby may be a learned lawyer but he suffers from constitutional amnesia.
