Australians for Constitutional Monarchy

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Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM) was founded in June 1992 to defend the Australian Constitution, the role of the Crown in it, and to preserve the role of the Queen of Australia, represented by the Governor-General, as Australia's constitutional head of state.

The original Foundation Council included Charter signatories of eminent Australians from across the nation. These included Michael Kirby (now a Justice of the High Court), the Rt Hon Sir Harry Gibbs, Justice Lloyd Waddy, Neville Bonner AO, Dame Leonie Kramer, The Hon Barry O'Keefe, Sir John Atwill, Dr Margaret Olley, The Hon Helen Sham-Ho MLC and others. The first national executive director was Mr Tony Abbott and he served between 1992 and 1994, with Justice Waddy serving as the organisations first National Convenor. When Mr Abbott entered Australia's Federal Parliament in 1994 he was succeeded by Mrs Kerry Jones, with Justice Waddy later being succeeded by Professor David Flint.

The ACM played a key role in the 'No Republic' campaign during the lead up to Australia's 1999 Republic Referendum. The organisation also played a leading role in forming a coalition of government and opposition parliamentarians opposed to the proposed republican model. The ACM's member-base has grown since 1992, surpassing 50,000 paid subscribers during Australia's 1999 republican referendum, which 54.4% of Australian electors voted against.

Current Activities

Today, the organisation, which describes itself as a "grassroots community organization", continues to advocate the retention of constitutional monarchy as the preferred model of governance for Australia. To this end, they pursue many activities.

Primary amongst these is the publication of news and information about Australia's constitution, government and Crown. Such information is published largely on their [official site] in the form of information sheets or by way of an opinion column from their National Convenor. ACM also publishes materials and has been responsible for many books discussing a variety of topics related to Australia's Crown.

ACM also holds many events across Australia each year. Their main event is an annual National Conference that typically runs for three days with many invited speakers from the Australian community. In the past speakers have included the likes of Australia's Prime Minister The Honourable John Howard and former official secretary to the Governor-General of Australia Sir David Smith. The most recent National Conference was held in Sydney in August, 2005. ACM's State Convenors are also responsible for the organisation of events that occur in each of the Australian states.

With another referendum on an Australian republic unlikely in the immediate future, ACM currently makes a point of fighting what Michael Kirby called 'a republic by stealth', which they define as the subtle removal of the Crown from Australian life. These include removals of references to the Crown from oaths and legislation, the replacement of the position of Queen's Counsel in some states with that of Senior Counsel. More recently, one of their key campaigns has been opposing the removal of the Governor of New South Wales from Government House by the Carr government.

In August 2005 ACM relaunched their official website as a means of providing news, resources and opinion columns to the Australia community. The new site was designed and continues to be maintained by two Young ACM members.

At present, Professor David Flint remains the National Convenor of ACM.

External links

[Australians For Constitutional Monarchy]

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Australians for Constitutional Monarchy

Current Activities

See also

External links