REPLAY - The Goss: The Queen, the King, and Should Australia Now Become a Republic

[Music] Get a U-Mob, Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a GOS episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, and Smithson, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world. Okay, and we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in the GOS. So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills. In order to complement that though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time, keep practicing and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbling on a bit, I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird. And let's get into it. What is it again? What's that saying? You always see it in films when the monarch dies and the new monarch is there. The queen is dead, God leave the king. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Or long live the king. Long live the king. God leave the king. God leave the king. I'm only just one sip of beer. It's already getting messy. Pineapple and dragon fruit smoothie. How good is it? Give me this shit. There was no warning involved. It's 6% of panic. It's good. I found this. So this is little creatures, which is a brewery down here in Jolong. That is. Yeah. So yeah, big blender. This beer is single batch. So it's a one off, I guess. One off, never to be seen again. Pineapple's dragon fruit smoothie. It does taste like dragon fruit. Pretty good. with Asian Heritage or who have traveled in Asia. - Dragon fruit is so good. - It's so good. - Oh no, it's great. - Oh my god. - Is this. it's the one that's like bright pink right, it looks like the eggs of a dragon. - Yes. - Like something out of game of thrones, or house of the dragon I guess now. - Mm. - But yeah, they grow on cacti looking things. I don't know if it is actually a cactus, or if it's a succulent kind of plant, but it looks like a cactus and they get to like three or four meters high. And the fruit just grow off the side of that plant. - You can buy the cacti or what, yeah, the plants at nurseries locally. I've got one outside. Although it's tiny, it's about 20 centimeters high. - Yeah, so that's been 20 years before you got up. - I know. - Fruit on it. - I saw it and I was like, oh man, how epic will it be to have dragon fruit? And then I was like, this is gonna take so long. - Yeah, exactly. Your grandchildren will get one off it. - I know. Well, yeah. - Yeah, so the queen is dead, long live the king. - Well, yeah. So how does it feel for you? 'Cause she's been the monarch your entire life. - Well, and yours? - Yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, you know, you've been around twice as long as I have or nearly. - Yeah, she was crowned four years before I was born. So, yeah. And she was actually queen for most of a year before that, before the actual coronation. 'Cause the coronation is just a ceremonial thing. But, you know, King Charles III became King Charles III. The second his mother died by actually inheritance. There is no declaration. There's a whole lot of formal stuff that has to go to have that recognized, but it's instantaneous according to the inheritance of the monarchy. - Yeah. And she was what, early 20s when she became the queen? - Yes. - Yeah, she was, I wish she was 25, I think, but the time she was crowned. - Yeah, 'cause she reigned for 70 years. The craziest thing was I looked this up, 'cause I was like, shit, 70 years. There can't be many other, if any monarchs that have reigned that long, but yeah, it was Louis the 14th. - Louis the 14th, 72 years, I think. - In sanity, and I guess, yeah, it was 'cause he was such a young kid. - He was a child when he was going to assume the throne of France. - But I imagine that was the 161700s. I think that was, he was crowned at the end of the 17th century and into the 18th century, everything. You're like, how the hell did the guy live so long back then? - Well, lots of people did though, and that's one of those weird things that, when you study genealogy or family, history, you realize that the age expectancy is totally biased by two things. Firstly, infant mortality, whereas up until the early 20th century, lots of children, like significant proportion of people died before the age of five. - Dragon the average down. - And men working in manual labor had a much lower life expectancy. But it's sort of like, if you got to 50, you could live till you're 90s. - Just had to get out of the age. - Exactly, there were nearly as many people who once they reached old age, got to really old age. But at three or four hundred years ago. - Surely it must have been a pretty shit version of old age too, because you would imagine your body would be so broken down. - Well, with some, I actually think it's probably the reverse. I think at the moment, yeah, now we, if I live till 100, I'm going to be in severe pain and have a whole lot of bits and pieces falling apart. - You'll be fat. - Because yeah, but I'll be artificially kept alive, artificially in a sense that medical science will keep me alive. - I think people who lived to then, in their 90s, 200, 300 years ago were probably one of the, yeah, the very small people who were fit. And because anybody who had anything wrong with them died before that. - You would surely, like at that point. Your teeth would be fucked, you'd have. - Oh yeah. - Surely you would have, you know, like. - Well, now if you're a king, you're probably not going to have as big a problem, because you'll be eating high quality food. You will, yeah, for better or for worse, and often for worse, you will have had medical people around you keeping you well. - You're using leeches and bleeding you and doing all sorts of horrible. - But chicken you can have a listen. - That's it. - But, but yeah. - I think it helps. - Well, that, yeah, exactly. - I've killed anyone. - Well, I've read one the other day. - Somebody was talking about an ancient cure for malaria was to slice open your abdomen, pull your intestines out, wash them in salt water, and then put them back. Now, it was probably a cure for malaria, because nobody died of malaria after having that done of them. - Yeah, well just disembow, yeah. You'll be swimming up to that. - Yeah, I will say you're up again, you'll be fine. Now, obviously a few people survived, but everybody else who died, it was blamed on the malaria. - Imagine surviving that. - Oh, I know. And this is pre-anesthetics or anything. - How would you survive that? - I know. - I know. - I know. - Any time I watch these TV shows, and again, I take that with the grain of salt and dockos and everything like that, because they probably not that accurate. But you see anyone back in the day, like I'm watching something at the moment about Rome on Netflix, it's about, you know, Caligula and everything in it. If someone stabs you in the stomach, you're effectively fucked. - Yeah. - Yeah, I'm just a slow death. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's a, because you've probably ruptured something in there. - And. - Gonna die of perioditis. Unless they hit an artery when, which case, you're gonna die of internal bleeding. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You're probably not gonna die of just bleeding to death. - Yeah. - You'll die of parotonitis because you'll have opened up your intestines to your inside. - Well, and it must have been such a weird. Like, yeah, I don't know. I kind of imagine running around as a soldier or whatever back then and just being totally paranoid about wounds to the stomach, I guess. Like, I mean, wounds to your. - Just turn off my head, please. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, your head, your chest or your stomach is really the death zone. If you get them anywhere else, as long as it doesn't hit an artery, you're probably gonna survive. - Exactly. - It's a flesh wound. Whereas today, you could stab someone tens of times in the stomach and not kill them because they get medical treatment in their sweat. You know, you hear that all the time about people in jail. It gets stabbed like 40 times or whatever and they're just like, "Ah, and our flesh wound, you know, we're sweet." But, yeah, I don't know how we got on to that topic. - I don't know. Yeah, long lived the king. (laughing) - Long lived king. - Yeah, so did it. I mean, it's. Australia's relationship with the Royal Family is always really, really confused me because you meet people who just don't give a shit, people much like ourselves. And then you meet people who are more avid supporters of the monarch and the Royal Family, the many brits. And you're just like, "What are you smoking?" Like, I can't imagine being, I mean, I guess they're the head of state, right, for Australia. I guess, right? And we have. - We do have a closer history. - Yeah, by our constitution. - We do have a closer history with them. But I can't imagine being, you know, say as loyal or passionate about the prime minister of Great Britain, you know, giving a shit about. - But the thing is, the prime minister of Great Britain actually has nothing to do with Australia. - Yeah, but the queen might as well. - Well, but the queen has always had that head of state. Well, the monarch, the queen for the last 70 years, is always been our head of state. And I understand why some people, particularly those people who come from a British heritage, who will have that, you know, appreciation for the royal family. I have nothing against the Royal Family in particular, individuals aside, the Royal Family in general. I have. It's Andrew? I'm not going to go into individuals. But the Royal Family, as an institution, I have nothing particularly against, but I have nothing for them either. I just think it is as complete and normally now that Australia is now 121 years old. And as a constitutional democracy, and yet we still have effectively the monarch of another country as our head of state, it's a huge anomaly and hence the Republican movement. But I have no real problem with the Royal Family as an institution. Really? I kind of do, don't you? It's just, it's so, it feels to me like it is such a moderately unnatural way to run a country. And I guess most countries aren't being run by Royal Family or not. But at the same time, for it to even be around still when it is so redundant, it seems just so, it just feels like a wank. It's kind of like you're keeping alive this tradition that was unfair and just, I don't know, somewhat disgusting in the past. I guess you did it because it was probably the best way of running a country a thousand years ago and ensuring it's survival. But it was incredibly unfair and the average person in the country probably didn't really benefit from it at all if anything they probably suffered. And it was so arbitrary, right? It was too heavy. I don't think your average sort of peasant farmer or laborer three or four hundred years ago or longer ago or even two hundred years ago would have been any better off in a Republican style democracy where there was no Royal Family. Because I think they would have been corrupt and it still would have been my own. Exactly. And it's just that those people would have been elected by the elite. Now of course, you know, parliaments around in democracies are elected by every adult in the country, notionally, whether they can actually vote or not is a different story. But this is where Royal Families are inherited or taken over by power historically. But you know, notionally they're in there, you just inherited. You know, Charles became king, not because he was worthy of being a king, but because he was the oldest son of a queen. And I think that's the sort of most, for me at least, that's kind of the most, I don't know how to describe it, the grossest part about it is that it's just given to a relative, not based on merit or anything like that. And you keep seeing it in, again, these documentaries I'm watching at the moment about Rome. And I think an example is Mark Orrelius handing over his, you know, the being the emperor to, I've been watching it in, is it commoners? His son? He's watching it in Portuguese. So, his name is called the in Portuguese. But just that this guy was so adept, you know, and the same with like, colligula getting it. And then, you know, just always handing it down to this nepotism. And it just, it always seemed to be, oh, what I'm worried about is really the country and running the country well. But I'll put all of that at stake to make sure that my lineage is in power. And you kind of like, well, what do you care about? You care about your lineage? What do you care about? And now there's, you know, the, you know, certainly in European families, the Royal families, they don't run countries anymore. They are a titular head of state, a head of state with noional powers. But the governments actually run the country. And, you know, in this case, now the king will go and open parliament and sign documents to approve. You know, they, they appoint the prime minister by signature. But the prime minister is already appointed as the elected leader of the party that forms government. It's so weird though, right? Because it feels like they're just mascots for the country. It's pretty wealthy mascots for the country that don't really do anything besides going around and, you know, high-fiving each other and trying to help the poor. Yeah. And you kind of like, what is your purpose now? Like, you kind of, and the annoying thing is because countries are now at least for the most part so stable. It's not like you're going to have that change over. No. It's, these people are effectively locked in for life. Exactly. For forever, right? Effectively now as the royal family. And they don't do anything besides get, you know, income from their huge land titles and everything. And probably as slice of taxes. Although, yeah, although they now certainly Charles, one of the first things he did when he ascended to the monarchy was, as his mother had done beforehand, is signed over the income from the royal estate to the government. Yeah. Now, they still get a salary. Yeah. It's quite a considerable salary. I have no idea what it is. But they're no longer, you know, they notionally own the royal estate, but they're not making money out of it. The government makes money out of those estate. Yeah. And so, you know, that idea of, yeah, and certainly that's a very recent thing. Who's the idea, do you think that was? Do you think the royal family will like, we should probably do this? Or the government will pressure on the royal family. Yeah. Because in the end, the government can't put pressure on them to do anything. That's the government can, you know, can enact laws, but when it affects the royal family, the monarch has to sign off on that. So, I think that's. Man, well, moving on to making Australia a Republican on it, how much, at least in your time too, when you were younger, did the royal family impact life in Australia? Because there was sort of one key event, and I think that's about really it, right? Well, the key event, if you're talking about 1975, the second is the government. And look, that was notionally agreed to by the Queen, but it was the governor general who is the Queen's representatives. Yeah. And ironically is recommended by the Prime Minister to the Queen to, you know, to appoint them. So they're appointed by the Queen, but the recommendation comes from the Prime Minister at the time. And so, yes, there was a royal representative who changed the government in this country. It's the only time it's ever happened in Australia. Other than that, there's. Other just, yeah, royal visits were always popular when I was a child. The Queen came to Australia, I think, 14 times or something. Animal. Over that period of time. And, yeah, when she first came, it was, you know, you'd come out here by ship, the royal yacht. Britannia would bring the royal family out, or whoever was coming to Australia. It wasn't just jump on a plane and you arrive here at 28 years later. It's how long she was. Yeah, raining for. It's not crazy. And. Oh, actually, you could have been. Didn't even have a private jet. Still don't plan. But the royal air force would fly them, you know. Yeah, that's it. This would have been like what, the paper and wooden planes back then, the biplanes, right? Not quite, but the right brothers. So that was always a big thing. And. But other than that, no direct effect. And the Republican movement in Australia has gone through its ups and downs. It got completely white-handed by John Howard. John explain what white-handed means. White-handed means you break it down from the inside. Like termites. Yeah. Like termites. Yeah. When. Because there was a big push about 20 years ago to have a vote, a referendum, which is a vote to change the constitution. Was this around the millennia? Yeah, it was just like. Year 2000. Yeah. And so there was a big push around then from the Republican movement in Australia. To hold a referendum. And John Howard in his infinite. Sinical wisdom. He was our ex prime minister. Yeah. He white-handed. And he broke it down by saying, well, the question he asked, that he should have asked, is, should Australia become a republic? But what he did was say, I'm not going to ask that question. I'm going to ask the Republican movement to come up with a model and we'll vote on whether we accept that model or not. And of course, the Republican movement isn't an individual organisation. Yeah. And so there were two or three models that came up. And so he set it up that no matter which one of them won, they were never going to beat the no vote. So. And it failed. Of course. Because you know, you'd sort of like, well, do you want an apple or an orange? I'm going to choose orange. You have to tell me which sort of apple you're going to have. I'm then five different people. Every other thing. Oh, I'm going to have an orange apple. I'm going to have an orange apple. Exactly. And so instead of putting up an apple against an orange, you put up an orange against three different apples. And of course, they failed. And no even Labour prime ministers after that who were mostly Republicans didn't want to challenge that again. They didn't want to waste the money and the reputation, I think, of having that losing that vote again. I think now there will be a fairly big push by the Republican movement in Australia, whatever that means to have a referendum in the near future, near future being within the next three or four years. Do you think it's just matter of time? I think it is a matter of time. I don't think there is a. At the time, it appeared when in the 1990s, it appeared that about. And 60 and 70% of Australian thought that we no longer needed the Queen as a head of state. What that meant was variable. That was the thing that how it exploited. And I think that would probably still be the same. And there was a, I think, a fair degree of affection for the Queen as a person. rather than the Queen as the monarch. And so that probably boosted the monarchy vote as well. So it's an opportunity now to look at that. And I think there's any more, Charles. - Really? - Yeah, well, I mean, in terms of, as a king, I don't know that, let's face it. He is the most highly trained king in the history of the world. - Yeah, that's it. - He's the-- - You see those lines for the throne for seven years. - So it was like man 72 finally gets job. - Yeah, exactly. Which is a bit of an unreasonable because he's actually had a job at the entire time. And let's face it, for the last few years, he has effectively been the monarch because the Queen's failing health meant that, she met the constitutional requirements of being Queen, but more and more of her duties were being taken over by her offspring, particularly Anne, her daughter and Charles, who took on most of them. - And she took it very seriously, right? The oath where she was never going to give the throne up whilst I'm alive. - No, she did, she was like, this is too dear. - Yeah, the oath is that you do this until you die. - That's what I do have a lot of respect for her in that I know very little about her and her family and the royalty in general, but I do know that she worked, incredibly hard. - Oh, and she was not this. - Yeah, and she never retired. She was going hard the entire, in her entire life. With no, like my grandparents retired shortly, well, my grandfather when he was an engineer, retired. I remember maybe a few times picking him up from the station after work when I was a tiny kid with my grandmother. And then after that, he was retired. So for my entire life and he's about the Queen's age, maybe a few years younger. He's been retired and she was still obviously smashing out work and showing up and traveling. And yeah, I kind of imagined being, the younger you are, the more I feel like you wish you were, like a prince or why wasn't I born into a family that was rich and famous and blah, blah, blah. And the older you get, it kind of like, fuck that. - It's a rich and famous, if you're the heir to somebody else's corporate fortune. - And you don't have to do anything. You're sitting on a, you're sitting on a, - Paris Hilton, you're just bloody. - Exactly. That's very different for being a member of the royal family because you have, - What, you expect things the most constant beauty? See, Charles for his entire life has been doing two things. It's waiting to be king and every other shitty job that his mother didn't want to do. His mother and father, when before his father died. And so he would have been attending any number of things, just representing Britain or representing the royal family. And but in addition to that, he had a whole lot of charities that he ran and a whole lot of environmental work that he used to do. Which is gonna be interesting to see how much of that he can keep doing as king because now, as the monarch, he has a constitutional requirement to not interfere with government. - Okay. - So, and whatever interfering means, because he had some fairly sort of left-wing views of around conservation, both of the natural environment, but also building heritage and those sort of things. - So you think yes. - And he has to take a neutral position now where he's just like I'm not talking about. - Yeah, he can. - Other members in the royal family can, but he can't as a lot. - He can't as the, you know, the Prince of Wales, the air he could come out and he can't paint very heavily against coal and so on and in Britain and was all for ways of overcoming climate change and conservation of natural environments and all those sort of things. He can't necessarily actively promote those anymore. - So it would be so interesting to be a fly on the wall and really get a better understanding of what these people are like. - Well, not just what they're like, but whether or not they actually enjoy these jobs or look forward to it, you're wondering if he was just like the whole time like, please, you know, please outlive me mum, please, but a lover don't make me the guy, I just can't be f*****. - Hand it over to William. - Yeah, I can't imagine, yeah, I just can't imagine what it would be like having that kind of a job because you think from the outside manager just must be all luxury and amazing, but I reckon that must be so, we're not in a support. - But I think the other side of that though is that for all of his adult life, he has effectively been the hand of the queen in a sense that he was already doing a whole lot of that. So now he does that with, yeah. - He's done to the job, but I'm like, exactly. - He's done here. - So now he's allowed to, so do those things if he's only caught. So yeah, it's gonna be an interesting one to see what happens. I also have a soft spot for Charles in a sense that he's been manipulated by being the heir for his entire life. He was-- - Tap at it any time, dude. - He was tap at it. - He was tap at it any time. - But at the same time, if you've grown up and the only thing you know and the only thing that you're ambition is to be the king, not because you want to be king, but because you want to serve your country. But then he was manipulated into marrying somebody he didn't love. Not only that, she was manipulated into getting married. The woman he did love was manipulated into getting married and he was sent off overseas. He was in the Navy at the time. And his family and his uncle, who was the head of the Navy, manipulated it so that he ended up being over in the Caribbean. And they married off the woman he was in love with to somebody else. - Spoiler, he's with her now. - And it's one of the great love stories in the 20th and 21st century that he's been in love with this woman since they were teenagers, we young adults. And they're still together. Despite the fact that they were both married off to other people, and now he's been with every his entire life. Rocking hard places. Yes, and he's had to father a child that is most likely not his as well, right? Yeah, well, yeah, we could question that, but mate. No, I am, I am. Google Prince Harry. Absolutely agree with you. Google Prince Harry with, I've got an 8S guy named, exactly. I've got the guy named exactly. Google Prince Harry and. Harry's mother's bodyguard. Yeah, Harry's mother's bodyguard and tell me they do not look like father and son. But, you know, neither here nor there, ultimately. I'm so amazed that something hasn't been. Like, all you would need to do is follow both of those guys around, wait for them to throw out a Starbucks cup and then just run the DNA test on each of them. But they're never going to. No, nobody is ever going to believe that it's been done. Oh, my God. Anyway. Yeah. But yeah, going back to the Republican movement, one of the challenges I think that we have in the Republican movement in Australia is that I think I honestly believe that the majority and it might only be a small majority in Australia, of people believe that we should drop the royal family as our heads at state. But we have the extremist Republicans whose version of this, the way they push it is to say, yeah, Charles is a complete rat bag. He's a complete race to time. This is our opportunity. He'll never be a good king. This is our opportunity to get away from it. And by the way, all the royal family are completely hopeless. That's never going to win people over. People who are sitting on the fence are going to be offended by that. It's not about individuals. Exactly. It should be saying Australia's constitution needs to be changed so that we don't have the royal family of another country as our head of state. Which is nothing to do with whether they are legitimate. Whether the royals are legitimate people or anything else. And then there is the argument about what sort of republic should we be. The interesting, the one version of a republic that we haven't ever examined in Australia is why do we need a head of state at all? As opposed to just having what a prime minister. Yeah. The prime minister is the elected head of, he might as well be right. But why do we need a head of state? If the argument is how we get a head of state, just don't have one. There is no governmental reason. Other than you need somebody to swear them in, you actually don't. Do you have the head of the electoral commission swears in the prime minister because they're the people who hold the election? Do you think we would end up with a president if the Republican party, the Republican party, the Republican movement ended up winning? Yes. We will because I don't think anybody would find the no head of state as a legitimate, palatable option. What would that mean though? Then it would be, how do we get a president elected, created, by the law? We just need to follow the American version. Oh, yeah, that's really, that's really work for them. We have like, there's a lot of electorate. There was never, there was never an. Pollege, what is it called again? No. The Electoral College, yes. Don't, don't get me started on that. There's, there was never an intention, certainly in the Republican movement that was pushing in the 1990s. There was never an intention to have the president of the country as another level of government, which is what it is in the United States. Above, what about ministers? Yes, exactly. I mean, if you're looking at the equivalent of the king, that in the, they're effectively rubber stamping things that government wants to do. They're representing the country from a ceremonial point of view. But they're not an arm of government. They don't have veto over laws, they don't get to create laws, they don't do any of that sort of stuff. Whereas in the United States and other, some other countries that have an elected president, the president is effectively the single head of the highest level of government. What if we had our own monarch? Yeah, just, we could just elect a queen. Yeah, a king. A king. It's funny how natural it is to just keep saying queen. Because if you still. No, no, I did it deliberately because it shouldn't have to be. - Who did you reckon if we had to do that? - I vote on a family and a person at the head of that family to run the country. If it was just opened up tomorrow and besides obviously being able to nominate yourself, who do you think as a family or a person would get the most votes? - Yeah, see I don't know, because once you're creating a monarchy effectively, then you get one vote because after that, assuming it's an inherited monarchy, as opposed to if we have a popular vote for president. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's every four years or so. - Then we get it every, and I think it would have to be a longer term. I think it would have to be something like eight years so that it is not in the cycle of normal elections, so that it is removed from the election process. - But if we got a king or a queen or a, you know, royal family, who out of all the popular families in the country, who do you reckon would end up? - No, I think nobody would ever vote. - It's a banzy. - It's banzy. - Nobody, yeah. - It should be banzy, right? - It should be banzy, good as a king. - But again, depends on what you want. He wasn't born in Australia. - Yeah, he's an Australian citizen. - And instead of calling him king, what title do you reckon you'd get? Drinking old mate? - Old mate, banzy. (laughing) - How could that be old mate? - Banzy, and he's made banzy, can be the vice king. - And what's a name? - What's a wife here? - Well, wife would be what's a name or what's her face or something. - Yeah, old mate, what's a name? - What's a husband? - No, but more seriously, 'cause I don't think that, obviously that was a-- - Never gonna happen. - For ceaseless discussion. But I think in terms of if we would have a president, I know who I would want as president of this country at the moment, whether or not they would be, they probably wouldn't accept, I'll say they, because I'm keeping a gender non-specifically at the moment. - Yeah. - Whether they would even accept-- - Progressive of your term? - Whether they, well, I was just-- - Turns out the person actually not a minority. - Point for the discussion of this person is particularly binary, I'm sure, but-- - Clav Palmer. - No, Pat Dodson. - Pat Dodson, I know the name, but I can't. - He's an indigenous color, right? - Yeah, and Professor at a university. - He's the one who actually at the moment has, he's a senator as well, I think, as a specific representation of indigenous views as a senator, it's not a portfolio, but it's a sort of super portfolio. And I think he would be brilliant. Not only recognizing indigenous, that would be the first person you create as a president or a, yeah, - From a man, I imagine doing that. - It would have to be an indigenous person. - You would hope so. - And if you do that, you want somebody who's-- - Cassie Freeman. - Well, here in chat, actually. But respected for their views on the world, their intellect, their contribution over a long period of time, he would be brilliant. - Yeah, that'd be interesting. - Yeah, so. - And I'm sure there are hundreds of other indigenous people, and non-indigenous people, that would fit those same criteria if you remove the indigenous criteria. - Paul Hogan. - Paul Hogan. - Maybe not. Hugs. - Hugs. - Yeah, that's a lot of people you do. - And the thing is that you don't want it to be a celebrity, in a sense. Now, famous people, whether they're famous because of their political contributions or their business contributions or whether they're sports people or whatever, are already going to be celebrities. But you don't want it necessarily to be the popular vote just because you can get it. - You have to go around. - You know, she's one of the most popular people in Australia, but is she gonna be president? Probably not, with all respect to Del. - I think you have to go around and find the person in Australia who least wants to be the president, and that's the person that has to be. - Well, that the president. - Agree, but that depends on the role. - Yeah. - And that whole argument of, do we have another layer of government, or do we just have a head of state, the equivalent to the monarch, which is my preference. If we're going to have a president, and we're only calling a president, because that's the obvious thing to call it, we're gonna have a president, then we don't want them to be an extra layer of government. I also don't think they should be elected, because as soon as they're elected by popular votes. - You mean, so have it like a Prime Minister here in Australia where it's the party gets elected and then they sort it out? - Yeah. - Or that we have an independent panel of people who choose. - Yeah. - Yeah. - After the party's won. - Yeah, well, but an independent panel whose role it is, it's not about, yes, you might have representatives of government and the opposition and independent and whatever, but you'd also have business people. - Yeah. - So on, a panel of people decide, and Australians citizens can nominate people and you might have to have a petition that said, I've got 20,000 votes to say Pat Dodson, and I have to have Pat Dodson's agreement. And that's so he goes into the pile. We could then have a handful of those people and then they go, yeah, Pat's the best person. Because as soon as we haven't been elected, so anybody then nominates to be president and then we have an election, what's it gonna be? It's that by definition is politics and then you will have people competing. I want to be president because anybody who answers that question should be automatically disqualified as you inferred in the beginning. So it shouldn't be a personality election, I think it should be a sort of an independent appointment in one way or another. Much like most people don't even know who the governors general have been in the past. Before they become governor general, a few of them have been relatively famous people, often the military people are well known because they're senior military people. But most of the others are just good, hard working service people for a long time. And the prime minister says, yeah, we think that person's the right person. David Hurley, David Hurley had a long history and the military, I believe. But others haven't. So whereas often it had been, I think the last, I'm trying to remember the last non-Australian to be governor general in Australia, it was probably Lord Casey who was English. - You look at me as if I would know. - No, he lived in Australia for a long time. But yeah, anyway, that's an interesting idea of how you get around the arguments that are really detailed. And the only way you can do that is to ask that one question, it should Australia become a republic. And you define what republic is, but you don't define how ahead of state is part of, 'cause that's a secondary question. As soon as we do that again, we're screwed. - Yeah, I don't know. It's just really funny because I did, I think the royal family probably was more popular with the queen as the head of it than it will be with the King Charles as the head of it because the queen just seemed to be much more likable and sort of like your old Nana. - But she'd been an institution. - Yeah, and she'd been around the entire time. - Charles has been around that the whole time that she's been queen. He was at her coronation. He was three years old. But he was at her coronation. So he has been there as the Prince of Wales, the person who will inherit the crown for 70 years. So we've known him, but he was always the son. - He just seems disingenuous and unlikeable. I don't know, it comes across in the media. All the interactions that I guess they probably just highlight the negative. - Of course they do. - But you never really saw the queen being an asshole to people or being rude. Or it seems like every other day there's video footage of Charles coming out of him just being a douchebag. - Yeah, but then there, I don't know what I would be like in the same circumstance. - They're highly selected. Because if you look at the broad footage and the footage that came out after the queen had died, and up to the funeral, there were many occasions where he traveled from, he was at Belmoral when she died. He traveled from Scotland down to London and crowds outside Buckingham Palace when he drove in. He got out of the car and walked around shaking people's hands and talking to them. The queen probably would have done that as well. But you just sort of think, no, he didn't go, this is at a time when he looked and go, he's mourning his mother's death, ignoring everything else. He's now the king of the country that he has expected to be king for the last 70 years. And yet he says, I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna talk to the people who are here mourning my mother as well. And so you, I think there are some really good things, but nobody, they showed that. But then they go, oh, he's flippant to somebody, he waves his hand at somebody and he goes, oh, what did he actually say to him? - Yeah. - And a lot of that is, yeah, the royal, the queen has always been the hesitate to use the obvious. She's been the queen of the royal family from the public point of view. She could never do any wrong. Whereas every other member of her family. - It's targeted. - The only way they ever got into the media was were they getting married or did they do something wrong? - I can't wait to know longer here about it, to be honest. Like it seems like our tabloids and those magazines, the women magazines, the always that they're so good. - You know what, you know, we're gonna be starting a bad place. - You're just like, can you guys, that's a whole different topic. - That's talking about the royal family and that. - But there's nothing else to talk about. - No. - Royal family and movie stars. - Just over it. - Yeah. - Celebrities. - Anything else you want to mention about the queen or the king before we wrap up? - No, no. - No, we're at the thousand things, but I think it'll do. - We can just keep going. - One of my favorite stories. I heard one of these stories from some knight or something that knew the queen and was friends with her, but he was like an old military dude in the UK and apparently he used to go up to, was it Balmoral? - Balmoral. - He was saying in Scotland and go hiking with her. - He was one of the guards. - Was it okay. So yeah, she would go hiking with him and apparently they were out one time and this American couple were hiking the same place and walked up to them and started changing to them but didn't recognize them and was chatting to the guy and he was like, oh yeah, I've met the queen. You know, they would, That was actually the queen who threw that line. She, they said, "Oh, see some of the stories you must know the queen." You must have met the queen. And the queen said, "No, I've never met her." But he has, and he's met her a lot. And he played along with it. Yeah, yeah. And then they took photos. They got the queen to take selfies of the couple with his guy. And then he took one of the queen with them. And her line was, "I would just love to be a fly on the wall when they take them home and somebody recognizes me in the fight of the queen." See, that's why I don't know. Those sorts of stories coming out, and I guess, you know, people are only going to share the positive when she's passed, but made me think, "Oh, man, I would love to have known this person." Well, she literally had a really tricky sense of humor in private. But I think she also, and we're going to wind this up, but you've wound me up again. I think there's another side of Charles. And not to do with Charles as the person, but Charles as the institution, that he has been allowed to be much more public than his mother. The queen made herself a very, she was publicly out there, but she was a very private person. Yeah, there was all these protocols around even people, yeah, which you do the line up and she'd go and shake hands and have a chat with people. And there was always this protocol that you never spoke about, what you talked about with the queen, that she would never have an opinion about anything publicly. Yeah. Because Charles, for his entire life, has always been out in the public, having his opinion out there for better or for worse. And it's going to be interesting to see how that goes when it now that he's king, as to whether he's still. Wait, I'm going to shut up. Yeah. And the whole idea of, you go and shake the hand of the queen or the king and anything you say will never become public. One story I really like, you're talking about those odd stories about the queen and her sense of humor. And I remember the centenary cricket test match between England and Australia celebrating 100 years since the first ever test match. And this is in 1977. And the queen came out to. I think she was there for the second day of the test match. So she wasn't there for the opening, but she was there for the second day. And at lunch, and for those of you who don't understand test cricket, test cricket goes for five days. And they have two breaks in a day. They have a lunch break and a tea break. Lunch is after the first two hours. And tea is after the fourth hour. And so during the lunch break, they had the Australian team and the English team line up and the queen went along and shook their hands and had a chat or whatever. And Australia's opening fast boulder. And we can have this discussion about cricketers later on. Dennis Lilley, who is probably the most famous cricketer in the world at the time, certainly non-English cricketer. He brought his autograph book out and asked to sign the autograph. And she shooked him and she just said, "I'm not allowed to sign autographs in public." And he put it back in his pocket and I think further it said. And I remember him talking about this years later and he said, "A couple of weeks later, I got a letter saying, I'm very sorry, Dennis. I would have loved to have given you this, but if I sign one autograph, here is an autograph book opened with my royal stamp and my signature on the first page for you." And you sort of think, "Here we go." She sort of gets it. And that's the pressure that somebody is on under those circumstances where you think, "Yeah, she's got hundreds of public appearances a year and you're going in, you're shaking hands or whatever. You can't." She couldn't have signed Dennis Lilley's autograph book because every person after that would have had an autograph book. And then it's not the shake of hands, it takes not five seconds, but two minutes every time. Well, I remember we went to the Atheist conference back in 2010 and met Richard Dawkins. And I remember lining up. He did. I remember lining up though to have my book signed. And there were probably a thousand people lined up, literally. Like it was straight after the conference had finished for the day or whatever and he was just sitting there and he signed every single book. And you just like, "My God, I'm going to see Hitchhs as a lady." He was there for hours. He was literally there for hours and he would have a chat with each person. The irony is that it's not like he was selling his books at the conference, so he's not making any money on your own. He probably was. Well, they're probably worse somewhere, but yeah. I didn't see them. Yeah. But I remember thinking that and being like, "Jesus, so yeah, imagine if you were the queen doing signatures." I look at some people. I know I've seen a harp on about Canadian TV show and one of their stars, but I sort of. You want to tell everyone what show it is so they can go check it out? Heartland. And the. And the Marshall Shambler. She should. I should be a Australian publicist. But I remember seeing a video of her. Because she's a horsey sort of person anyway and she plays a now a young woman, but a girl originally. But she was a really good woman. Well, she started off playing a 15-year-old when she was 18 and it's 16 seasons later. But I remember seeing a few years ago, a video of her at a public event. It might have been a rodeo or a show somewhere. And she was out riding horses and things doing an M-seeing, I think, the event. And at the end of the show, she was sitting on a horse at the side of the thing with people lined up. And you could, in the initial shot, you could see about 20 people lined up to have a chat and get a signature. And then the person who was taking the video panned around and the entire stadium, the circle around the stadium was lined up with people waiting there and at the bottom they said and she waited and talked to every person. I imagine the sense of responsibility. But I imagine that it gets tiring after a while. But she makes nothing out of that. Well, she does. She gets good will from a fan. She gets good, and yes, people go to website and buy merchandise and stuff. But in the end, it's not like she's charging $10 a person or whatever. She would have sit there for hours. It's the long game, dad. It's the long game. Every single one of those people is probably worth $100. Anyway, anything else to add or are you all done? No, I'm done. Once we get to Amber Marshall, we're finished. All right, well, thanks for indulging us guys. Hopefully you got something out of this episode. If nothing more, then just a little bit of entertainment. Yeah. See ya. Yeah. See ya later. [MUSIC PLAYING]