One of  President Trump’s charms is that, like the late Prince Philip, he will readily engage in vigorous public banter. This is despite the fact that to incite outrage, some media  fail to report this for what it is – good-humoured teasing.

So, when Prince Philip jokingly asked an Aboriginal man holding a spear, ‘Do you still throw those things at one another?’ even Time magazine displayed confected outrage.

As a Eurasian boy long ago in a very white society, I soon detected the crucial difference between friendly banter and racist abuse. I thought of all this while looking at a recent  UK Telegraph cartoon, which shows two processions led by crowned kings in royal regalia, confronting one another at the Canada-US border. One king, who looks like President Trump, says, ‘No. I am the King of Canada.’ This started out as banter by Donald Trump.

Gerald Butts, former leading advisor to Justin Trudeau, says that from his first term, Donald Trump frequently used the ‘51st state’ line with Justin Trudeau as a way to ‘rattle Canadian cages’. When Trudeau recently visited Mar-a-Lago, Canadian Minister Dominic LeBlanc says reference there to the 51st state was ‘light-hearted’ with the President ‘telling jokes’ and ‘teasing us’. At a practical level, Donald Trump of course knows that until Canadians change their minds, it will not happen.

Actually, from 1775, when the Continental army invaded Quebec, the United States has demonstrated a strong interest in taking Canada. The original 1777 constitution included an invitation  to  Canadians to join the US, and in the 1812 war, the US actually invaded Canada.

As to President Trump’s invitations to Canada to be the 51st state, this might prove more attractive, indeed feasible, if it were agreed that the constitutional requirement (Art. IV, Sec. 4) that the US guarantee every state a ‘Republican form’ of government would allow Canada (and other realms) to remain crowned Westminster-style republics, were they to join the USA.

This case is strengthened by the fact that Montesquieu, a major influence on the Founding Fathers, had seen England as an admirable, yet disguised republic.

What then would he think of the realms?

The US Supreme Court has ruled that deciding this is an issue for the political and not the judicial arm (Luther v. Borden, 1849 )

The leading, but not the only attraction in becoming a US state, is defence.

With  Australia left all but defenceless by the Albanese government, US statehood or association could prove attractive, since the Anzus Treaty provides that in an ‘armed attack’, the US is only committed to act to ‘meet the common danger’ in accordance with ‘its constitutional processes’.

Canada is on more solid ground with Norad, the North American Aerospace Defense Command Agreement. This creates not just an alliance, but a truly integrated military command. In addition, apart from thousands of agreements supporting close collaboration, Article 5 of the Nato Treaty states that an armed attack against one or more of its members shall be considered ‘an attack against them all’.

Now, Donald Trump, inspired by Reagan’s SDI so-called ‘Star Wars’ initiative, is offering Canada even more. This is not only to join the proposed $175 billion missile defence ‘Golden Dome System’,  an advance on Israel’s Iron Dome. If they join as ‘our cherished’ 51st state, they will come under the Golden Dome for free instead of paying  the current cost estimate of $61 billion.

As to the King opening the parliament and thus emphasising the separateness of Canada, he has been criticised by those opposed to native title for his opening words acknowledging that, ‘We are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin and Anishinaabeg people.’

It is true that, since at least the Victorian era, the Speech from the Throne has become a government-prepared document that outlines government policy.  This does not mean the King was just handed a script to read in Ottawa. Walter Bagehot’s celebrated description of the monarch’s role remains true: the sovereign has the ‘right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn’. He would have been consulted about the terms of the speech while he was in London. He could have made his own suggestions. If the King were ever particularly unhappy about some part of such a speech, we can expect that an accommodation would be made, as there was in 1990 when the Belgian parliament passed a bill to liberalise abortion laws and a constitutional way was found for King Baudouin, a devout Catholic, not to assent.

It is reasonable, then, to assume that the King was comfortable with the acknowledgement of native title in the speech.

Hence, it was open to anyone so moved to criticise the King, including those who feared they would see a similar provision in a speech from the throne here.

None was given here on his recent visit as King, no doubt because no government, probably labouring under their obsession with imposing some politicians’ republic on reluctant Australians, was willing to allow that. After all, a constitutional monarchy is  one of the most democratic forms of government.

As to native title on the mainland of Australia, as dissenting Justice Dawson intimated, this was a creation of an activist High Court, one neither necessary for, nor relevant to, the decision in favour of the late Eddie Mabo. The resulting mess was at least partially tidied up by legislation passed by the Keating government.

This was made possible by Harold Holt accepting Gough Whitlam’s demand that he include in Menzies’ 1967 Aboriginal referendum a grant to Canberra of legislative power over Aboriginal matters. Unopposed, it went by unnoticed and not debated.

This was a betrayal of the retired father of the Aboriginal Referendum,  Robert Menzies, who had strongly opposed this.

He wisely warned that its consequence would be to create a costly, inefficient and large Canberra bureaucracy with inappropriate powers and of no benefit whatsoever to the Aboriginal people.

‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’