Transcript of AE 1181 - The Goss: The Queen, the King, and Should Australia Now Become a Republic?

G'day, you 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 Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father Ian Smissen, 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.

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 Goss. 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 www.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. So if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time, keep practising. And that is the quickest way to level up your English.

Anyway, I've been rabbiting 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, like, 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 live the king.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Oh, yeah. Long live the..

Long, live..

Long live the king.

God live the king?

God live the king.

I'd only .. money. Just.. I had one sip of beer.

It's already getting messy.

Pineapple and dragonfruit smoothie.

How good is it?

He gave me this shit. There was no warning involved.

It's 6%!

I panicked.

It's good. It's good. I found this. So this is Little Creatures, which is a brewery down here in Geelong, right?

It is, yeah.

Um, so, yeah, Big Blender. This beer is single batch, so it's a one-off, I guess.

One-off. Never to be seen again.

Pineapples. Dragon fruit..

It does taste like dragon fruit.

It's pretty good.

For those with Asian heritage or who've travelled in Asia.

Dragon fruit is so good!

I know, it's great!

Oh my God, it- 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. Hmm. 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 metres high and the fruit just grow off the side of the plant.

You can buy the, the cacti or what. Yeah, the plants at nurseries locally I've got one outside, although it's tiny, it's about 20 centimetres high so it's got a.

.. 20 years before you get a fruit on it.

I saw it and I was like oh man, how epic will it be to have dragonfruit? And then I was like, This is going to 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.

Wow. Yeah. So how does it feel for you? Because she's been the monarch your entire life.

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, um. She was crowned 4 years before I was born, so. Yeah. And she was actually queen for most, most of a year before that, before the actual coronation, because the coronation is just a ceremonial thing. King Charles III became King Charles III the second his mother died by natural inheritance. There is no declaration. There's a whole lot of formal stuff that has to go to have that recognised. But it's instantaneous according to the inheritance of the monarchy. So..

Yeah. Oh, and she was what, early twenties when she became the queen?

Yes. Yeah she was when.. She was 25, I think at the time she was.

Yeah. Because she reigned for 70 years. The craziest thing was I looked this up because I was like shit, 70 years. There can't be many other, many other, if any, monarchs that, that have have reigned that long. But yeah, it was Louis XIV..

Louie XIV, 72 years of..

Insanity! And I guess yeah, it was because he was such a young kid when..

He was a child, when I mean when he assumed the throne of France.

But, but I imagine that was the 1600s, 1700s. I think that was he was crowned at the end of the 17th century and into the 18th century, obviously. And 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 realise that the age expectancy is totally biased by two things. Firstly, infant mortality.

Yeah.

Whereas up until the early 20th century, lots of children, a significant proportion of people died before the age of five.

Dragging the average down.

And men working in manual labour had a much lower life expectancy. But it's sort of like if you got to 50 you could live till your nineties.

You just have to get out of the danger zone.

There were just nearly, exactly, there were nearly as many people who, you know, once they reached old age, got to really old age, but it's three or 400 years ago.

Surely it must have been a pretty, a pretty shit version of old age too, because you would imagine your body would be so broken down. Rich or poor..

With some. I actually think it's probably the reverse!

You reckon?

Yeah, I think at the moment, yeah. Now we, you know, if I live to 100, I'm going to be in severe pain and have a whole lot of bits and pieces falling apart.

You'll be fucked.

Because- yeah, but, but I'll be artificially kept alive. Artificially, in a sense that medical, medical science will keep me alive.

You're not dying yet, bitch.

So I think- yeah. I think people who live to their, you know, in their 90s, 200, 300 years ago, were probably one of the. Yeah. The very small..

We're the only ones left were fit.

Who were fit and because anybody who had anything wrong with them died before that.

Yeah. But surely like at that point..

.. in my life..

Your teeth would be fucked. You'd, 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...

I don't know, you'd be eating high quality food. You will, for better or for worse, and often for worse, you will have had medical people around you keeping you well..

Using leeches and bleeding you..

.. bleeding you and doing all sorts of horrible..

Put chicken in..

.. you animals.

And that's it.

But, but yeah..

I think it helps.

That- yeah, exactly.

I haven't killed anyone yet.

Yeah. 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 saltwater, and then put them back. Now, it was probably a cure for malaria because nobody died of malaria after having that done to them.

Yeah, we'll just disembowel you. You'll be sweet after that.

Yeah, I will sew you up again. You'll be fine. Now, obviously, a few people survived, but everybody else who died, it was blamed on the malaria.

Yeah, imagine surviving that.

I know. And this is pre-anaesthetics or anything.

How would you survive that? I feel like any time I watch these TV shows and again, I take that with a grain of salt and doctors 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. You dead.

Yeah. It's just a slow death.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because you've probably ruptured something in there.

You're going to die of peritonitis unless. Unless I hit an artery, when- which case you're going to die of internal bleeding.

Yeah.

Yeah. You're probably not going to die of just bleeding to death quickly. You'll die peritonitis because you'll have opened up your intestines to your insides.

Well, it must have been such a weird. Like yeah, I don't know. I can't 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..

Cut off my head, please.

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 going to survive it. 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 and they're sweet. You know, you hear that all the time about people in jail. They get stabbed like 40 times or whatever. And they're just like, 'Yeah, nah, flesh wound, you know.' It was sweet. But yeah, I don't know how we get on to that topic.

I don't know. Yeah. Long live the king. Yeah, long lived king.

Yeah, so did- I mean, it's Australia's relationship with the royal family has 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 than many Brits. Yeah, 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 place of history..

Yeah. By our Constitution.

We do have a closer history with them. But I can't imagine being, you know, say as, as loyal or passionate about the prime minister of Great Britain, you know, giving, giving a shit..

I'll just say that. But the thing is that..

Like, Tony Blair or..

The Prime Minister of Great Britain actually has nothing to do with Australia.

Yeah, but the Queen might as well..

Well, The Queen- but the Queen. The Queen has always had that head of state. Well, for the monarch, the Queen for the last 70 years, has always, has 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. Yeah, I have nothing against the royal family in particular. You know, individuals aside, the royal family in general..

Prince Andrew?

Well, I'm not going to.. I'm not going to go to individuals, but yeah, the royal family as an institution, I have nothing particularly against. But I have nothing for them either. I just think it is, is complete anomaly now that Australia is now 121 years old and as a, as a constitutional democracy.

Yeah.

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? Like in terms of- it's just, it's so- it feels to me like it is such a modern-ly unnatural way to run a country. And I guess most countries aren't being run by royal family..

They're not, yeah.

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, right? Like, 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. Like, I guess. I guess you did it. You did it because it was probably the best way of running a country a thousand years ago and ensuring its 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?

But they would..

Whoever took power .. Queen or whatever.

I don't think your average sort of peasant farmer or labourer, three or 400 years ago or longer ago, or even 200 years ago, would have been any better off in a, a Republican style democracy where there was no royal family because I think..

Would have been corrupt and it still would have been...

Exactly. And it's just that those people would have been elected by the elite.

Yes.

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, it's a different story. But whereas royal families are inherited or taken over by power historically, but notionally they're there, you just inherit it. 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 Marcus Aurelius handing over his, you know, the, being the emperor to. I've been watching it in. Is it Commodus? His son. I've been watching it in Portuguese. So, Commodus. His name is Commodus in Portuguese.

But just that this guy was so inept, you know, And the same with like Caligula getting it and then, you know, just always handing it down, this nepotism. And it just it always seemed to be, oh, what I'm worried about is really the country. I'm running the country well, but I'll put all of that at stake to make sure that my lineage is in power. And you're kind of like, well, what do you care about? You care about your lineage, or do you care about.

Yeah. And now there's, you know, the you know, certainly in European families, their royal families, they don't run countries anymore. They are a titular head of state. They're a head of state with notional powers. But the governments actually run the country. And in this case, now the king will go and open parliament and sign documents to approve of, 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..

Yes, pretty much.

.. 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. 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 it changeover.

No.

It's- these people are effectively locked in for life, this family..

Yes, 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 is, slice of taxes.

Although- yeah, although the- 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 estates to the government.

Yeah.

Now, they still get a salary. 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 estates, but they're not making money out of it. The government makes money out of those estates.

Yeah.

And so that idea of- and certainly that's a very recent thing.

Whose idea do you think that was? Do you think the royal family were like, Oh, we should probably do this, or the government put pressure on them?

I think the Royal Family.

Yeah.

Because in the end the government can't put pressure on them to do anything. You know, that's, yeah, the government can, you know, can enact laws, but when it affects the royal family, the monarch has to sign off on those. So.

Man. Well, moving on to making Australia a republic or not, how much, at least in your time, too, when you were younger, did the royal family impact life in Australia? Because that was sort of one key event and I think that's about really it, right?

Um. Well, the key event, if you're talking about 1975,

Gough Whitlam, yeah

.. sacking of the government, and that was notionally agreed to by the Queen, but it was the Governor-General who is the Queen's representative and ironically is recommended by the Prime Minister to the Queen, to, you know, to appoint them.

So they were appointed by the Queen. But the recommendation comes from the Prime Minister at the time. And so yes, there was a, a royal representative who changed the government in this country. It's the only time that's ever happened in Australia. Other than that, there's- other just, you know, royal visits were always popular when I was a child. Um, you know, the queen is- the queen came to Australia, I think, 14 times or something.

Animal.

Over that period of time. And 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 twenty..

That's how long she was, you know, reigning for. Isn't that crazy?

I know. And oh, she..

Didn't even have a private jet.

Didn't even have a private jet. No. Still damn..

Plebs! So the Royal Air Force would fly them, you know.

Yeah, that's it. So this would have been like what, the paper and wooden planes back then, the biplanes, right?

You know, it's not quite..

The Wright brothers.

So that was always a big thing. And, but other than that, no direct effect. And look, the Republican movement in Australia has gone through its ups and downs. It got completely white-anted by John Howard.

Do you want to explain what white-anted means?

White-anted means you break it down from the inside.

Like termites.

Yeah, like termites. Um, when- because there was a big push about 20 years ago to have a vote, you know, a referendum, which is a vote to change the constitution.

Was this around the millennia? The...

Yeah, it's just, it was like...

Year 2000? Yeah.

And, um, and so there was a big push around then from the Republican movement in Australia to hold a referendum and John Howard in his infant- infinite cynical wisdom.

He was our ex prime minister.

Yeah, he, he white-anted it. He broke it down by saying- well, the question he asked, or what he should- 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. 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, you know, and it failed, of course, because, you know, it's 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. And then five different people.

Everyone's like..

Oh, I want a Granny Smith!..

.. I want that one. I'd rather have an orange and an apple...

So instead of putting up an apple against an orange, he 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 a 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 between 60 and 70% of Australians thought that we no longer needed the Queen as our head of state. What that meant was variable, and that was the thing that Howard 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 bumped up, boosted the monarchy vote as well.

So it's an opportunity now to look at that. And I don't think it's anything wrong with Charles.

Really?!

Well, I mean, in terms of, you know, as a king, I don't know that. Yeah. Let's face it, he is the most highly- he is the most highly trained king in the history of the world.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah. He's- he's..

You see those- those on line to the throne.. For jokes. It was like, "Man, 72, finally gets job".

Yeah, exactly. Which is a bit of a an unreasonable because you actually had a job 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.

When- and she took it very seriously, right, the oath. Where she was never going to give the throne up whilst alive.

No, she did.

She was like this- "This is to death".

The oath is that you do this until you die.

That's like- I do have a lot of respect for her in that. I know- I know very little about her and her family and, you know, royalty in general. But I do know that she worked incredibly hard.

Ah, into her 90s!

And she, she never retired. Like 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, of 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 travelling and yeah, I can't imagine 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? The older you get, you're kind of like, Fuck that.

But see, rich and famous, if you. Yeah, if you're the heir to somebody else's corporate fortune,

And you don't have to do anything.

And you don't have to do anything, you're sitting, you're sitting on a..

Paris Hilton. You just party.

Exactly. Yeah. That's very different from being a member of the royal family because you have..

What? You expect things of us?

Constant beauties. Yeah. Charles, for his entire life, has been doing two things: waiting to be king, and every other shitty job that his mother didn't want to do. You know, his mother and father went before his father died. And. And so, yeah, he would have been attending any number of things just representing Britain or representing the royal family.

And, and, but in addition to that, he had a whole lot of charities that he ran and and a whole lot of environmental work that he used to do, which is going to be interesting to see how much of that he can keep doing as king because now as the monarch, he has a 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. And the work around that..

.. he has to take a neutral position now where he's just like, I'm not talking about other .. He got- other members in the royal family can, but he can't.

He can't as the, you know, the Prince of Wales, they yeah, the heir he could come out and yeah, he campaigned very heavily against, 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, not just what they're like, but whether or not they actually enjoy these jobs or look forward to it. You wonder if he was just like the whole time, like, please, you know, please outlive me, Mum, please. For the love of God, don't make me the king. I just can't be fucked..

yeah, he handed over to William. Yeah,

I can't imagine. Yeah, well, yeah, I just can't imagine what it would be like having that kind of a job. Because you think from the outside, man, it just must be all luxury and amazing. But I reckon that must be so monotonous and boring.

But I think the other the other side of that though, is that for all of his adult life, he's effectively been the hand of the Queen in a sense that, you know, yeah, that he was already doing a whole lot of that. So now it's just he does that with..

.. this job that I like!

Exactly!

Get out of here!

So...

I'm playing with the Corgis!

Yeah, now he's allowed to sort of do those things of his own accord. So yeah, yeah, it's, it's going to 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 out at any time, dude. You can tap out at any time.

But..

You know.

But at the same time, if you, if you've grown up in the only thing you know and the only thing that you- your ambition is to be the king, not because you want to be king, but because you want to serve your country. But then he's, he was manipulated into marrying somebody he didn't love.

Yeah.

Not only that, she was manipulated into getting married. The woman he did love was married, 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, you know, being over in the Caribbean. And they married off his, 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 or young adults. And they're still together despite the fact that they were both married off to other people. And now he's, he's been with her for his entire life. Yeah..

Rocking a hard place. Yeah. What, and he's had to father a child that is most likely not his as well, right?

You know. Well, yeah, we could question that. But..

Mate!

I know I, I..

Google Prince Harry!

Absolutely agree with you.

Google Prince Harry with..

.. there is this one DNA...

..the guy's name..

..going to be done.

Yeah, exactly. Google Prince Harry.

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, that's 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.

They're never going to know. Nobody is ever going to believe that that has been done. So.

Oh God. Yeah.

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 if people believe that we should drop the royal family as our heads of state. But we have the extremist Republicans whose version of this, the way they push it, is to say Charles is a complete ratbag. He's a complete waste of 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. And it's- 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 the, as our head of state, which has got nothing to do with whether they are legitimate. Yeah. Whether the royals are legitimate people or anything else. It's just. And then there is the argument about what sort of republic should we be.

Yeah.

The- interestingly, 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.

Yeah. The Prime Minister is the elected head of.

He might as well be, right?

Yeah but, 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, there's no governmental reason other than you need somebody to swear them in. You actually don't. Yeah. Effectively, you have the head of the electoral commission swears in the Prime Minister because they're the people who hold the election. So.

Do you think we would end up with a president if the Republican Party..

We will.

Republican Party- the Republican movement ended up winning.

Yes. Yeah, we will, because I don't think anybody would find the 'no head of state' as a legitimate, you know, palatable option.

What would that mean, though? If was so imagine then it'll be..

.. then how do we- how do we get a president elected, created,,

Oh, we just need to follow the American version.

Oh, yeah. That really- that's really worked for them.

Well, we have like..

We won.

.. electorate..

There was never a- there was never..

.. an electoral college? What is it called again?

No. The Electoral college is- don't get me started on that. There's- there was never any 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 the Prime Miniters.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you're looking at the equivalent of the king that in, they're effectively rubber stamping things that government wants to do. They're representing the country from a ceremonial point of view, but they are 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, it just.

We could just..

Elect a queen.

Yeah. Or king.

Or king.

It's funny how natural it is to just keep saying 'queen' because..

No, I did it deliberately.

Okay.

It shouldn't have to be. It shouldn't..

I reckon if we had to do that, and Australia to 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 you know, besides obviously being able to nominate yourself, who do you think is a family or a person would get the most votes?

Yeah, see, I, I don't know because once you're if you're creating a monarchy effectively, then you get one vote. Because after that, assuming it's an inherited monarchy, that it as opposed to, if we have a popular vote for president.

Yeah. Um yeah. That'd be every four years or whatever..

We get it every out- and I think it would have to be a longer term, I think it would have to be something like eight years.

Yeah.

So that it is not in the cycle of normal elections. So that it is removed from the election process.

But if we've got a king or a queen or a, you know, a royal family who, out of all the popular families in the country, who do you reckon would end up being..

And I think- nobody would ever vote.

Barnesy. Barnesy.

Nobody. Yeah. Jimmy Barnes would be all right...

Jimmy Barnes would be good as a king!

But again, it depends on what you want. He was- he wasn't born in Australia. Yes, he's an Australian citizen, but.

And instead of calling it, instead of calling him king, what title do you reckon he'd get? Do you reckon "old mate"?

Old Mate Barnesy.

How good would that be? Old Mate.

Barnesy. And he's mate Farnsey can be the vice king.

And 'whatshername' wants a wife. Yeah. Her wife would be 'what's her name' or 'what's-her-face' or something.

Yeah. Old Mate and What's-her-name.

What's-her-face.

No. But I- more seriously, because I don't think that- obviously that was..

.. never going to happen.

A facetious discussion. But I think in terms of if we were to 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've say they because I'm keeping a gender non-specific at the moment, whether they would even accept.

.. progressive have you done.

Whether they- well, I was..

Turns out the person actually non-binary..

.. point for the discussion of this person is particularly binary, I'm sure, but..

Clive Palmer.

No! No! Pat Dodson.

Pat Dodson. I know the name, but I can't..

He's an...

He's an Indigenous guy, right? Yeah.

And you know, a professor at a university and he's the one who actually at the moment has, he's a senator as well. He is 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, you know, recognising indigenous, and that would be the, the first person you create, as a president or a...

Oh man. Imagine doing that.

It would have to be an indigenous person.

You would hope so.

And, and if you do that, you want somebody who's perspective. Yeah, well, exactly but respected for their views on the world.

Yeah.

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. Well, maybe not.

Hogs!

Hogs!

Yeah, there's a lot- a lot of people you don't want to..

And the thing is that you don't, you don't want it to be a celebrity.

Yeah.

In a sense. Now famous people, whether they're famous because of their political contributions or their business contributions or whether they're sportspeople or whatever, are already going to be celebrities. But you don't want it necessarily to be the the popular vote just because you can get it.

You have to go around.

Delta Goodrem.

Yeah.

She's one of the most popular people in Australia. But is she going to be president? Probably not. With all respect, Adele,

.. said 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.

On that whole argument of do we have another layer of government or do we just have a, you know, a head of state, the equivalent to the monarch, which is my preference if we're going to have a president and we only call it a president because that's the obvious thing to call it.

Yeah.

If we're going to 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 are elected by popular vote..

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 or..

Or that we have an independent panel of people who choose, you know.

After the party's won.

Yeah, well but an independent panel whose role it is that it's not about. Yes, you might have representatives of government and the opposition and an independent and whatever, but you'd also have business people. 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. 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 have an elected, so anybody then nominates to be president and we, and then we have an election, what's going to be? It's all about- 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.

I wouldn't be..

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, you know, good, hardworking service people for a long time. And the prime minister says, yeah, we think that person is the right person. David Hurley. David Hurley had a long history in the military, I believe, but you know, it's but others haven't. So whereas often, it had been, I think the last time I remember the last non-Australian to be Governor-General of Australia was probably Lord Casey, who was English, but...

You look at me as if I would.

Know. No, he lived in Australia for a long time, but yeah, anyway, that's a it'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 is should Australia become a republic? And you define what republic is, but you don't define how a head of state is part, because that's a secondary question. And as soon as we do that again, we're screwed. Yeah, that's..

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, King Charles as the head of it. Because the queen just seemed to be much more likeable 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 whole time that she's been queen. He was at her coronation. He was three years old. But, yeah, he was at a 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 also always the son.

But he just seems, he seems disingenuous and unlikeable. And it comes across in the media. All the interactions that I guess they probably just highlight the negative.

Yes, they do.

But you never really saw the Queen being an arsehole to people being rude or and it seems like every other day there's video footage of Charles coming out of him just being a douche bag.

Yeah. But then they're..

I don't know what I would be like.

They are.

.. same circumstance, circumstances.

They're highly selected.

Yeah.

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, well, he travelled from, he was at Balmoral when she died. He travelled from Scotland down to London and, you know, 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, but that's know, you just sort of think, no, he didn't go- this is, this at a time when you look at it and go he's mourning his mother's death, ignoring everything else. He's now the king of a country that he is expected to be king for the last 70 years. And yet he says, I'm going to get out and I'm going to talk to the people who are here mourning my mother as well. And..

Yeah.

So yea-.

Fair enough.

I think there are some really good things, but nobody -they showed that. But then they go, Oh, yeah, he's flippant to somebody. He waves his hand at somebody and you go, Oh, what did he actually say to him? You know, And yeah. And a lot of that is yeah. The, the royal, the queen has always been the- I 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.

Yeah.

Whereas every other member of her family..

Is targeted by the media..

The only way they ever got into the media was where they're getting married. Or did they do something wrong?

I can't wait to no longer hear about it, to be honest. Like it seems like our tabloids and those magazines of women magazines that are always at the supermarket.

Don't get me started on that.

I'm just like, Can you guys..

That's a whole different topic!

Talking about the royal family and..

But they've got nothing else to talk about.

I know.

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?

I got to say thousand things, but I think we could just keep going.

One of my favourite stories I saw- 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 at Balmoral. He was staying in Scotland and and go hiking with her.

He was one of her 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 chatting to them but didn't recognise them and was chatting to the guy and he was like, 'Oh yeah, I've met the Queen, you know'..

Well, that was actually the Queen who threw that line she- they said, Oh, 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..

And then they took photos. They got, they got the queen to take selfies of the couple with this guy. And then he took one of the queen with them. And her line was- her line was, I would just love to be a fly on the wall when they take them home and somebody recognises me in the photograph. Yeah.

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, when she's passed, but made me think, Oh man, I would love to have known this person.

Well, she allegedly had a really cheeky sense of humour in private, but.

Yeah.

But I think she also- and we were going to wind this up, but you've wound me up again. I think there's, 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. You know, 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. Whereas 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 now that he's king As to whether he's still..

.. going to shut up?

Yeah. Yeah. And the whole idea of, you know, you go and shake the hand of the queen or the king and anything you say won't be, will never become public. One story I really like- you're talking about those odd stories about the Queen and her sense of humour. 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 the day. They have a lunch break and a tea break. Lunch is after the first 2 hours and then tea is after the fourth hour.

And so during the lunch hour, a 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 to them or whatever. And Australia's opening fast bowler and we can have this discussion about cricketers later on. Dennis Lillee, 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 her to sign the autograph and she shushed him and she, and she just said, 'I'm not allowed to sign autographs in public.'

And he put it back in his pocket and nothing further was said. And I remember him talking about this years later, and he said, and 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, yeah, here is an autograph book opened with my royal stamp and my signature on the first page for you. And you sort of think they're a guy, she sort of gets it like, you know, and that's the pressure that somebody is on under those circumstances where you think, 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 Lily's autograph book.

Because every person after that would have had an autograph book. And, and then it's not the shake of hands. It takes not 5 seconds, but 2 minutes every time.

Well, I remember we went to the atheist conference, right?

Yeah.

Back in 2010 and met Richard Dawkins. And I remember lining up to him. I remember lining up, though, to have my book signed.

Yeah.

And there were probably a thousand people lined up literally because 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're just like, Oh my God, did you see him? He was there for hours. He was literally there for hours. And he would have a chat with each person.

The irony is that these are, it's not like he was selling his books at the conference, so he's not making any money..

.. brought your own. Yeah..

You brought your own...

Probably were somewhere, but yeah.

I didn't see them. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. So.

But I remember thinking that and being like, jeez. So yeah, imagine if you were the queen doing a signature. You'd be like, (snoring sound).

You know, some people, I know I've seen, and I harp on about a Canadian TV show on one of their stars, but I was sort of..

Do you want to tell everyone what show it is so they can go check it out?

Heartland. And the maybe the master of money. She should I should be her 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 it'd be weird if she was still playing horses..

.. it would be.

Season seven...

Well, she started off playing a 15 year old when she was 18 and that's 16 seasons later. But yeah, 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, you know, out riding horses and things, doing and emceeing. I think the event And at the end of the show, she was sitting on her horse at the side of the thing with people lined up. And 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 talk to every person.

Kind of- I can't imagine the sense of responsibility you would have. Like, I imagine that it gets tiring after a while.

But she makes nothing out of that.

Yeah. Well, she does.

She gets goodwill, she gets good fans, she gets goodwill. And yes, people will go to a website and buy a merchandise and stuff. But in the end, it's not like she's charging $10 a person or whatever. She'll just sit there for hours.

It's the long game day. It's the long game. Every single one of those people is probably worth 100 bucks. Anyway. Anything else to add or you're 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 than just a little bit of entertainment.

Yeah. See ya!

Yeah. See you later!