The announcement that Catherine, Princess of Wales, is undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer has left many across the world, especially in those realms and territories that His Majesty reigns over as sovereign, stunned. This terrible development is yet another reminder that the Royal Family is, at its core, a family, susceptible to any number of life’s great cruelties. Cancer is an evil that no one is immune to, including kings and princesses. Our thoughts and prayers must now be with the Princess of Wales, as well as the Prince of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, and also the King as he too battles his illness.

Families can be fragile, for they are human, but crowns, as symbols and instruments of power, are not. Despite the King’s cancer, and now the Princess of Wales’ cancer, our Crown and our Constitution are continuing as intended. The operation of Australia’s governance has not been disrupted. Our Governor-General, as His Majesty’s representative, has continued to discharge his constitutional duties successfully. In a world where the fragility of leaders, both physically and mentally, is deciding the fates of whole nations and their peoples, we in Australia can be so thankful that our Crown protects and perpetuates an invincible continuity. Whilst the King is weakened through illness, our Crown remains strong, denying ultimate executive authority to those who would usurp it to service themselves. This Australian constitutional monarchy, as an idea that has evolved healthily over centuries, and then as an idea that finds its ultimate genesis in the days of the Anglo-Saxons more than one thousand years ago, is working as it should.

Much of the media’s intrusive and, at times, conspiratorial coverage of the Princess of Wales now looks embarrassing. A responsibility exists, especially among domestic broadcasting services, to truthfully report the Crown’s constancy at this difficult time for the Royal Family. Commercial motivations should not now supersede the basic compassion that many of us have for those afflicted by cancer. Outlets must respect the privacy of both His Majesty and the Princess of Wales, if only because three young children and grandchildren are now living through a horrid nightmare. Mastheads that have used the Princess of Wales’ illness to further republican agendas are beyond shameful.

The Australian Republic Movement (ARM), too, has disgraced itself. Its newly appointed chief executive, Isaac Jeffrey, said only yesterday that the Royal Family had ‘zero transparency’ and that the Princess of Wales was just a ‘rich person on the other side of the world’. But now we know that a mother, like any mother would have done, was simply trying to best break the stark reality of cancer to her three young children, particularly as their grandfather is already suffering from the disease.

We can be certain that, after a failed referendum in 1999 in which too much detail was provided, and after a failed referendum in 2023 in which too little detail was provided at the expense of manipulative, emotional rhetoric, the ARM is now seeking bipartisan support to force an Australian republic. Fortunately, it was Menzies who described the Crown as ‘the enduring embodiment of our national unity’. We must watch the ARM’s behaviour closely. In response to the Princess of Wales’ revelation, republicans must be appropriately sympathetic, not dishonourably opportunistic – lest they reveal the true quality of their collective character.

Further, we should reiterate our calls for the Albanese government to abolish the Assistant Ministry for the Republic. There can be no place for an Assistant Minister for ‘the’ Republic who, in the shadow of night, works the corridors of Canberra at the taxpayer’s expense. Mr Thistlethwaite, the Member for Kingsford Smith, is a Minister of the Crown striving to dismantle the Crown. Now, both his King and the wife of his future King have cancer. Mr Thistlethwaite should show integrity and resign his portfolio, recommending to Anthony Albanese that, at this difficult time, national stability trumps any private ambitions of the republican movement. The ministry should forever be disposed of. It was a ministry that was never put publicly to the Australian people at an election, and it is a ministry that unnecessarily mocks our present, secure constitutional arrangements. Australians will never benefit from a divisive, presidential Head of State who is more concerned with vote-getting than service. History definitively proves as much, as do leading economic studies and democracy indexes. The Prime Minister, as an ardent republican, must set aside whatever clouds his judgement and recognise reality.

Let us rally behind our Crown, our Constitution, and one of the world’s most beautiful and service-driven women as she fights the cruel evil that is cancer.

Alexander Voltz is a composer and Spokesperson for the Australian Monarchist League. He is a member of the Liberal Party.