Enter HRH Queen Elizabeth II
Usual suspects, ratbags and misfits, friends and lovers … of the Australian Constitution,
Thank you for your almost sincere welcome to Sydney. It is rare indeed for the monarch to travel so far for such an insignificant occasion, but I am happy to patronise you all, and to lend Majesty to what might otherwise be a very dull affair.
Prince Philip could not be with us today as he is dining with relatives in Cabramatta.
As I look down on you all today … I can’t help thinking that my whole family used to enjoy visiting your shores, since it was discovered in the ’70s by Thomas Cook: the Wales, the Yorks, and of course, our kesins the c … our cousins the Kents.
We were the most prominent of boat people ever to come here, and there was no period of detention with the exception of having to be hosted by the former Re/pub/lican (coughs, splutters) Bill Hayden and Dallas. We just got away with it. Goes to show what a valet, a butler and a couple of feetman can do for your ego.
It is now over 50 years since Prince Philip and I first visited your shores. This was to celebrate the event when I was crowned and given a sash for my interest in travelling, horse-riding and meeting people.
In that time, I have dined with kings, lunched with presidents, picked nervously at my plate with New Guinea Highland head-hunters. And I have spoken in English with Pauline Hanson.
Your future monarch, who will be known as King George VII, is becoming more anxious that he doesn’t have a proper position. Only last week Charles said to me: ‘Mummy, when do I get the head job?’
And I said: ‘By the look of those ears, you’ve already had it.’
He and Camilla (screeches) are visiting the US, where they’ve met with George and Laura. Charles’s father will be pleased, because at the time of the wedding he said: ‘You really should bring her out in front of the bushes.’ Charles has two sons an heir and a spare. And now he will have had two wives an airhead and a spare head.
I am not one given to looking back; though it is hard to believe that it was on Remembrance Day 30 years ago that my Australian Government was dismissed as I lay asleep in bed. Yes, Queens do sleep when they’re not at dance parties, eckied off their chops.
That November night in 1975, my private secretary woke me saying, ‘Whitlam’s out, Fraser’s in.’ I thanked him very much, but asked him not to wake me with the cricket results again.
Then, of course, we saw Mr Whitlam on the electric television, speaking on the steps of the Provisional Parliament House (as Gough Whitlam): ‘Well may we say God save the Queen … (that’s me) … Because nothing will save the Governor General.’
And it didn’t.
I would’ve installed Al Grassby, proving that anyone can be PM, and today in 2005 anyone is.
At this year’s Remembrance Day, the current Prime Minister led the nation in mourning at the Australian War Memorial. Quite frankly it is not his job so to do he is the head of government, not the Head of State. It is the Governor General’s duty like it was, eventually, to open the 2000 Olympics.
If ever there was an act of sedition or treason, it is the attempted supplanting of and blurring the lines by and between the political and the vice-regal. It’s all vice and no regal.
So I have come today from Canberra which I have declared shut and I personally visited Yarralumla in order to find out, once and for all, who the fff…, where the Governor General is. The whereabouts of Governor General, Major General, Michael Jeffrey is a mystery.
You will notice that I’m wearing my tiara this afternoon; it is a personal statement to fly in the face of my Australian Government who have posted a medium-level security warning and rushed through the parliament anti-tiara-ist legislation.
The health of any nation is surely to be found in its ability to conduct a mature conversation between her many constituent parts and diverse institutions. As your titular Head of State I have strived to serve this vast continent of yours well I have two million Qantas frequent flyer points to prove it.
Sadly, the PM has three million frequent liar points the Rodent.
Acting in not particularly good faith, he has managed singularly to risk bringing the Sovereign and the Governor General into hatred or contempt, and may (along with Rodney Adler), even bring about the collapse of HIH/HRH.
Therefore, under the Reserve Powers, I am retaliating by giving Royal Assent to legislation this very day, so that arrests can be made in the full glare of the media, which acknowledges me not as The Queen, but A Queen.
I solemnly declare this ‘SEDITION!’ Concert open. And let the piss-taking commence.
This is an edited version of a speech delivered by Gerry Connolly (as HRH Queen Elizabeth II) at ‘SEDITION!’ at the Sydney Theatre, on 13 November 2005.