‘The Queen is dead, long live the King.’

Fellow Spokesperson Alessandro Rosini woke me with these words in Friday’s small hours. We’d been on a conference call with available members of the Australian Monarchist League’s National Council until around 3am, by which point the Changing of the Guard had been suspended and the media was already contacting us for comment. I’d gone to bed with my phone on ring for when it happened. So, after I heard those words, I simply said, ‘Long live the King,’ hung up, and blacked out.

I slept terribly for a couple of hours more until my alarm went off at 6:00am. I was lying in this moat of sweat, which still seems unusual; anyone from Brisbane will never forget the completely abysmal start to spring’s ninth day. It was a cold, rainy morning, and the sky was a horrific murk. It was as if even the heavens above Queensland were grieving.

By 6:30am, I was dressed in black and speaking via Zoom to ABC News Breakfast. As Michael Rowland quizzed me, I remember thinking how sensible it was to pour my tears the night before. Neither I nor any of the League’s Spokespersons can afford to break down. We have a job to do now. To that end, Her Late Majesty’s legacy of sacrifice blazed an inspiring model in my mind.

By 10:00am, I’d purchased a proper black suit and found time to post a brief tribute on Facebook:

‘A great lady has today passed from her realms into a higher kingdom, and with her departure all the world is poorer; a family mourns its most cherished mentor, a Commonwealth grieves its wisest counsel, and all peoples in their hearts know that our Queen’s majesty, bravery, and service shall reign immortal.’

Fast forward to now. Between the six of us, the Australian Monarchist League Spokespersons have covered scores of interviews across a plethora of outlets and platforms, both here in Australia and abroad. In addition to his many media appearances, Alessandro, 21, is virtually singularly responsible for the League’s polished press releases and social media. He’s just produced a new video, Elizabeth the Great, Queen of Australia in which he, other Spokespersons and League members pay tribute to Her Late Majesty. His foresight and stamina has invigorated us all.

Alessandro and I were last night talking of the magic of constitutional monarchy. ‘Yes, one reign has ended,’ he said, ‘but another has begun. That is the magic of our system. I am more optimistic now, perhaps than ever before, for our institution, democracy and King.’

Despite juggling her responsibilities as a mother of two young and beautiful children, Rachel Bailes, 29, has been just as flat out. A veteran Spokesperson, she sat at The Project’s desk on Friday with Lisa Wilkinson opposite her. Under all the circumstances at play, I consider Rachel’s appearance that night the height of courage.

Because you have to remember there’s a certain general anxiety in all this, too. On live television or radio, you might falter when a question you’d rather not answer is asked of you. You might be misunderstood or mischaracterised. In a pre-recorded statement, a less-refined response might be used in the final cut, rearranged, or taken out of context. I’m actually on The Project tonight in a pre-record (unless the programming schedule has changed), and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. Ultimately, the only thing we Spokespersons want is to be honest in our speech and to provide interested Australians with mature and thought-provoking commentary. In Rachel’s words, I really do believe we strive to be ‘diligent and self-forgetting’ servants, just like Her Late Majesty.

Jarrod Bleijie, 40, who was a Spokesperson and Life Member of the Australian Monarchist League long before he was Queensland’s Deputy Leader of the Opposition, yesterday launched a private petition to see Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project renamed The Elizabeth Line.

‘Renaming the project is a magnificent way to remember Queen Elizabeth II,’ says Jarrod. ‘It would also be a fantastic opportunity for the Royal Family to come to Queensland and officially open The Elizabeth Line, just like The Queen did earlier this year in London.’

Social media suggests that the ratio of support to opposition for The Elizabeth Line is 3:1. That figure is roughly consistent with Roy Morgan’s recent poll, which finds 60 per cent of Australians want to retain constitutional monarchy. If you’d like to sign Jarrod’s petition, please do – I know he’d appreciate your efforts.

Jeremy Mann, 20, has served a very useful yet unforeseen function: a somewhat ill-timed European holiday accidentally placed him in an alternate timezone. Jeremy has already spoken to British and German media, affording his fellow Spokespersons just that little extra sleep. He’s even heading across to London to represent the Australian Monarchist League – as well as the millions of Australians mourning our Queen’s passing – at Her Late Majesty’s funeral.

When I mentioned how fortunate both the League and the nation were for his travels, Jeremy said, ‘Like so many others, I feel a great sense of loss. But I also feel optimism when I reflect on the wonderful life that Her Majesty led, as well as the rallying support for our new king, Charles III.’

Recently-announced Vote No Republic Campaign Chairman Eric Abetz, 64, is due to join the Q+A panel tonight. I encourage you all to tune in; I’ve just got this feeling he might be the episode’s only monarchist!

Eric and I agree that the effortless transition from Her Late Majesty to His Majesty King Charles III has demonstrated the stability and certainty of our enviable constitutional monarchy.

‘Yet,’ Eric notes further, ‘those who would destroy our proven system have shown themselves in their truly destructive, negative, and insensitive worst by using the sad passing of Her Majesty to denigrate both her personally as well as our system of government.’

And God knows he’s not wrong. Adam Bandt gave us only five hours before he called for a republic. Mehreen Faruqi designated Her Late Majesty as ‘the leader of a racist empire’, and Lidia Thorpe event went so far as to use the term ‘our oppressor’.

Moreover, university campuses did not fly the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander flags at half-mast, the Australian Football League women’s competition paradoxically refused to observe a minute’s silence, business leaders slammed the principle of a public holiday to mourn Her Late Majesty, and a move is on to block His Majesty’s effigy from replacing The Queen’s on our five-dollar note.

I even know of one instance where students of The University of Queensland held a party on campus to celebrate Her Majesty’s passing. Not to mention that the university’s student newspaper, funded by students’ compulsory union fees, actually wrote an article entitled ‘Goodbye the Queen of nothing, really’ which included the following:

‘This sickening display of solidarity for one of the richest people on the planet, who literally inherited her title, and who wielded little genuine authority or power, seems to be nothing more than a collective delusion or mass hysteria. We are supposed to believe that a person whose entire existence was predicated on being a purely token, empty symbol of the British nation, was somehow “extraordinary” or that there is any way whatsoever that her life of idle luxury can be compared to the vast majority of humanity … In reality, there was nothing extraordinary about the ex-Queen at all. Her entire life was an example of the banality of evil, of a person whose personality and agency were absolutely irrelevant to history. While the ex-Queen presided over innumerable symbolic events and as head of state for multiple nations, her entire role and social position – the immense assets of the Crown Estate, valued at over 15 billion pounds, for example – was and will continue to be predicated on the total inactivity of the monarch. The monarchy as an institution is nothing more than a monument to social parasitism, of the concept that immense wealth and privilege belongs to a few due to god-given rights while the majority of us scrape by with whatever we can.’

I am truly astonished when I read such vitriolic propaganda, and my heart truly does weep. I have always been so grateful, so honoured, to have lived in the reign of our great Sovereign lady, and in the Commonwealth of Australia. As a person who has read history since primary school, it is simply incomprehensible to me that anyone, let alone someone purporting to study at a tertiary institution, could hold such shallow and nihilistic beliefs. And it is completely and utterly disgraceful that the university administration allows the publication of such material, material that brings its aged name into total disrepute.

Where is the decency we once so valued and aspired towards, the seventy years of immaculate decency exercised by our Queen?

In these bizarre and uncertain times, Her Late Majesty’s words do reassure me: ‘When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.’

The last of the Australian Monarchist League’s loyal, volunteer media order wouldn’t want me to mention him, so I won’t. He no longer lists himself as a Spokesperson, but you’ll no doubt have heard much of him over these last few days. He knows who he is; I just hope he knows how grateful the rest of us are for his guidance, his resilience, and, above all, his friendship.

Monarchists do, I think, make the best of friends; after all, one of monarchism’s fundamental principles is loyalty in perpetuity.

My hope is that there will soon be an opportunity for us, the Spokespersons of the Australian Monarchist League, to take stock of what it is that has transpired, and to grieve. I am beyond counting the number of times Alessandro has said to me, ‘I still can’t believe she’s no longer with us.’ It’s an incredulity I share.

In having had the honour to be the humble and obedient servants of Her Late Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, our lives have truly been changed for the better. Now we look to the fortification of her legacy, her son The King, and the ensuing battles ahead. So too may this be your journey; whatever your identity, circumstance or beliefs, we invite you to walk with us.

In the words of Simon Armitage: ‘A promise made and kept for life – that was your gift – because of which, here is a gift in return.”

Elizabeth the Great

21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022

Alexander Voltz is a composer and Spokesperson for the Australian Monarchist League. 

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