The british empire ended and was replaced with the commonwealth.
Perhaps also about the union of the states.
First line
Of the constitution
WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established:
The words of the contitution can’t be read alone without reference to the ensuing acts of the UK and Australian parliaments which altered the constitutional arrangement. In 1973 an Act made the Queen the Queen of Australia.
I was thinking of commonwealth realm!
Hong Kong was part of the empire. Ireland was one of the United Kingdoms. Wasn’t it ruled by the Crown even earlier than Scotland?
There does seem to be a kind of Brit to whom the empire is more important than the United Kingdom. For them, the loss of Hong Kong might well be more important because it probably ended the last illusions that there was still a British Empire.
Also, the trauma of Ireland was so profound that it has largely been repressed from modern Brits’ historical memory. So it might seem less profound. But it is lurking there in deep waters.
I was referring to the federation in 1901 not 1973
The constution also says only a british subject can stand in the Australian parliament…but that had to read nowadays as Australian citizen.
That also did not happen in 1901.
And actually it says that those with allegiance to a foreign power are ineligible to stand for elections. Prior to the Australia acts both British and Australians could stand for election to the Australian parliament.
After the passing the Australia acts the UK was interpreted to be a foreign power. And it wasn’t instant, it was a High Court case
Yes, but only longer in personal union in the monarch not national union. The act of union for ireland wasnt until 1801.
Yes, British could stand in australian parliament up to 1986… also there are still a class of British citizens in Australia who can to this day vote in Australia.
You know the history of Ireland very well I’m surprised. I was going to to go into the history of the free state and how it was another compromise on Ireland’s road to full independence but I thought it might bore people.
So Ireland couldn’t just declare itself a republic, even though all the new state founders were militant republicans the country really didn’t need another war kicking off. So they bit the bullet on the North and the Free State (this is a gross simplification there was a nasty civil war right after independence on these issues).
The compromise on Northern Ireland and the Free State were supposed to be temporary but Northern Ireland is still with us today (Churchill was on the other side of the negotiations and he didn’t play nice, he is no hero in Ireland).
Not that I think a united Ireland wouldn’t have major problems in the North either. These things are all messy compromises. The difference between Ireland and Taiwan situation pre ‘independence’ is mainly that the UK is a democracy and not as militantly nationalistic and ethnocentric as China. We know China would have not compuction to wipe out a state and huge numbers of their ‘own people’ to achieve a goal. The UK actually did this in Ireland hundreds of years before, at least twice, but I’m talking about Ireland in the 1900s here.
At the time Ireland broke away from the UK the UK was still one of the most powerful countries in the world. Also interestingly it was US political backing for a free state that helped get it over the line.
I know. I never said anything contrary.
This is not correct and not true.
When the australian contitution was writen there was no such thing as an australian citizen so one had to read at that point of time foreign power as being not british.
Ok? I never said anything contrary.
This is still not true. And it matters that this is not what the constitution says. If it said this then British citizens would still be eligible to stand for election to the Australian parliament.
The UK and Ireland have the common travel area as a compromise
Taiwanese can live in China due to China’s position on Taiwan.
Australians and NZers can live in each others countries due to mutual trust and understanding.
North Korean can defect to South Korea to their positions.
Europeans can live in each others countries due to mutual trust and understanding (including Ireland)
Brits and Australians can not live in each others countries despite mutual respect and understanding.
Interesting how the world changes.
Huge difference. And one that does not bode well for poor little Taiwan. China has refrained from attacking Taiwan because of US power. But …
Until now, the independence of those countries has been guaranteed by the intercession of a more distant great power — the United States. But that once-mighty nation is increasingly not in a condition to resist the Chinese empire — or even the far weaker Russian one.
A decade of roiling social unrest and three decades of increasingly intractable political division have turned the country inward; Americans are too afraid of the enemy next door to worry about a friend six thousand miles away. And decades of pro-stasis policies — a toxic bargain between progressives who wanted to shackle industry and conservatives who wanted to shackle government — have paralyzed the country’s ability to respond to new challenges and threats. While China leaps from strength to strength in robotics, drones, shipbuilding, AI, and a thousand other products, America’s progressive intelligentsia view new technologies and the companies that build them with suspicion and distrust. While China dominates global manufacturing, America forces companies to hold a block party before building an EV charger.
And whether the U.S. is even committed to global freedom in the abstract is now an open question. The fabulously wealthy businessmen who have the greatest influence in the new administration openly mock the courageous Ukrainians who stayed and risked death to defend their homes and families from the rape of Russia’s invasion — even though if war ever came to their own doorstep, they would be the first to flee, clutching their Bitcoin to their chests like sacks of gold. An aging Donald Trump indulges in idle fantasies of staging his own territorial conquests in the Western Hemisphere, LARPing the new fad for imperialism even as his peers practice the real thing overseas.
At the time of the constitution there were only british subjects… there is another section which states requiement of alligence back then that meant british subject, also back then britain wasn’t a foreign power as we were part of british empire… it is only in 1997 that high court decided britain was a foreign power, in a 1980s case they refused to rule if britain was a foreign power.
So many similar things in Taiwan…the KMT insisting that the territory ruled by the PRC is part of Taiwan/ROC, that PRC citizens are not foreigners, old admin orders to that effect that courts were relying on…etc.
Its a bit like how taiwan is changing the goal posts on what is meant by ROC National.
Where?
All parliamentarians swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch. That’s it.