Monthly Archives: January 2025

Abbott’s Knightmare ‘Captain’s Pick’ – 10 years on

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It was 10 years ago today then Prime Minister Tony Abbott used the Australia Day’s honour list to award Prince Philip with a resurrected Australian knighthood.

Editorials of newspapers across the country on 26 January 2015 slammed Prime Minister Abbott’s bizarre decision to hand Prince Philip a Knighthood, an imperial bauble, labelling the move “ludicrous” and “flabbergasting”.

On 27 March 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the former director of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, announced the return of imperial honours for Australians.

At the time, the PM said he believed this was: “… an important grace note in our national life.”

Tony Abbott’s ‘Captain’s Pick’ of Prince Philip for an Australian Knighthood on the day we should be celebrating Australia’s national identity resulted in the people of Australia being dragged by our elected leader into a cultural cringe so remarkable that it was almost beyond comprehension.

Abbott’s ‘Captain’s Pick’ of Prince Philip for a knighthood was to become a ‘Knightmare’ that has never been repeated since.

There’s no place for any Downton Abbey play acting in Australia. Aristocratic titles and imperial baubles have no place here. They belong over 9000 kms away on the other side of the world with the North and the Past. 

Henry Lawson wrote true in his 1887 ‘A Song of the Republic’:  

Henry Lawson

Sons of the South, awake! arise!
       Sons of the South, and do.
Banish from under your bonny skies
Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies.
Making a hell in a Paradise
       That belongs to your sons and you.

Sons of the South, make choice between
       (Sons of the South, choose true),
The Land of Morn and the Land of E’en,
The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green,
The Land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,
  And the Land that belongs to you.

Sons of the South, your time will come —
       Sons of the South, ’tis near —
The “Signs of the Times”, in their language dumb,
Foretell it, and ominous whispers hum
Like sullen sounds of a distant drum,
       In the ominous atmosphere.

Sons of the South, aroused at last!
       Sons of the South are few!
But your ranks grow longer and deeper fast,
And ye shall swell to an army vast,
And free from the wrongs of the North and Past
       The land that belongs to you.

Thankfully, for the past 10 years, it has been Goodnight to knights and dames.

The Bushwackers – Republic Day

Janus – the god with two faces

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The first day of January can be a time of regret and reflection mixed with hope and optimism for the future. This January ritual of looking forward and backward is fitting for the first day of a month named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings.

In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus was the god of gates and doorways, as well as beginnings, transitions, time, duality, passages, frames, and endings.

Janus held the key to the metaphorical doors or gateways as we transition from what was and into what is to come.

Janus had two faces so that he wouldn’t get a kink in his neck from constantly looking forward and backwards.

The ancient Roman poet Ovid wrote in his Fasti about Roman Festivals. These are ten things ancient Romans might have done on the first of January.

1. try to think good thoughts all day long
2. greet each other cheerfully, avoid gossip or negative speech
3. sprinkle saffron on the hearth, as incense
4. sacrifice to Janus before any other god in household shrine
5. join or watch a procession to the Capitoline hill, where
6. priest would sacrifice a heifer and
7. swear in the officials elected to serve in that year
8. do a bit of business
9. give honey, dates, coins to friends, family, patrons, clients
10. pray to the god Janus for peace  

It’d be neat as history teachers if we also could have two faces so that we can always be looking both forwards and backwards without getting a sore neck.