King Andrew for an Australian Republic

 The release this week of the so-called "Palace Letters", correspondence between Australian officials and the British Monarch leading up to the 1975 dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, has been an absolute bombshell of nothing we didn't already know.

Historian Jenny Hocking campaigned for years to have the contents of the letters released to the Australian public and she is to be commended for her efforts but really, the letters contain no startling revelations. We already knew the gist. John Kerr was a bit of a bastard, the Royal posterior was protected at all times, and there is no good reason why the Australian Governor General should need the input, assent or advice of the British Crown to change the government (whether the Governor General should have that right at all is a topic for another day). But the events of the dismissal have reignited once again talk of the need for an Australian republic, because there's nothing to fire up the punters and get the attention of the person in the street like the finer points of constitutional law. 

I've got a better reason we should become a republic.

This guy.

No, not the dead one. The bloke on the left.

Australia must become a republic, and Prince Andrew is why. The realisation that Australia is one accident of chromosomes away from having the BFF of a convicted sex offender who has himself been credibly accused of rape should be enough to make even Tony Abbott into a republican. 

Because that's the thing with a monarchy. We get what they give us. We have to put up with whatever quirk of DNA they give us, whether it's someone who gives 65 years of devoted ribbon cutting, or a loser drongo who lucked out on the primogeniture. We don't even get to have our own drongos. And it should sober up a champagne brunch at the ACM to realise that if Prince Charles hadn't been first born, if those two smitten globs of 23 strands of DNA hadn't united first, we'd be facing the very real prospect of Prince Andrew becoming King when the Queen dies in another 47 years. We'd have no say in the matter. That's how monarchy works. You take the good with the bad. Prince Andrew could well hope that with Epstein dead, everyone will move on and he can get back to royal life, which if he was next in line to the throne, might have meant taking the Crown.

What if Prince Andrew had been the oldest son? (Women didn't get to take equal place in line to the throne until recently; Princess Charlotte outranks her brother Louis). Some may argue that Andrew's sense of responsibility and duty would have tempered his behaviour, much as William has always been more restrained than Harry. Well, maybe. But I know lots of people who aren't in line to the British throne, and none of them have been credibly accused of sexually assaulting underage women on a private island owned by their billionaire mate. And all of them sweat a normal amount*. The point is, even if Andrew is the biggest shit in the world, and he seems pretty shitty, if the wheels of fortune had spun on his number in monarchy roulette**, we'd be stuck with him as King to be. 

Luckily, we don't need to worry about this. Our future is in the safe hands of a man who once wanted to be his then-lover's tampon***, and two people living on the public purse who keep having more kids. That's enough of a worry itself. Because as long as we're a monarchy, we have to accept whatever the Windsors give us, our constitution is actually an act of the British parliament, and even though he only came third in the royal race for the nappies, protocol dictates that Prince Andrew if he shows up here is still entitled to pomp, ceremony, curtsies and bows. And that's just gross.

* Except for Ursula but that's an unpleasant subject we don't need to discuss here.

** Is this how roulette works? I don't gamble. 

*** As if things weren't bad enough right now, I've made you remember this.