Ian Smithson
speaker
851 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 10 May
Ian Smithson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
But I have nothing for them either.
I just think it is a complete anomaly 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 don't think your average sort of peasant farmer or labourer 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.
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, you know, notionally, they're 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.
Yeah, and look, now there's, you know, certainly in European families, 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, you know, in this case, now the king will go and open parliament.
and sign documents to approve of... You know, they appoint the Prime Minister by signature, but the Prime Minister is already appointed as the elected leader of the party that forms government.
Although- Yeah, although the- They now-
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