91Èȱ¬

Writing in his new blog, our UK home editor Mark Easton makes the case for a new British national anthem: one which, in his words, would inspire, stir and move people. Like Mark, I've often suffered from anthem envy, whether it's Land of My Fathers, The Star-Spangled Banner or La Marseillaise. I defy anyone not to be moved by that stirring scene in Casablanca, where Victor Laszlo belts out the French national anthem in valiant defiance of the Nazis. "Play it again, Victor," it makes you want to shout.

Australia, of course, has already gone through the process of ditching God Save the Queen. It started that process with a plebiscite in 1977, in which Australians were asked to choose between four alternatives: Waltzing Matilda, Song of Australia, Advance Australia Fair,and God Save the Queen. got 43%, Waltzing Matilda came second with 28% and God Save the Queen got bronze, with 19%. Finally in 1984, Advance Australia Fair was officially adopted as the country's anthem just in time for the Los Angeles Olympics.

As an aside, the "anthem vote" remains one of the few plebiscites or referendums in which Australians opted overwhelmingly for change. At the risk of boring you rigid with mind-numbing trivia, only eight out of 44 attempts to change the constitution have been carried. It's why constitutional commentators sometimes call Australia the "frozen continent", another Aussie epithet to add to the list, throw in the bin or hurl in the direction of the barbie.

Since then, there have been occasional grumbles. John Howard, the former prime minister, was apparently a big fan of Waltzing Matilda, despite the now-disputed notion that Banjo Paterson's poem started life as a socialist anthem. Back in 2001, the Liberal Party Senator Sandy Macdonald called for AAF to be jettisoned, lest "we all go to sleep singing it". It was serviceable rather than stirring, went the argument.

Others have been slightly mystified by the lines: "We've golden soil and wealth for toil, Our home is girt by sea." Girt by sea? And curiously, in this laid back nation, "toil" features prominently.

Coincidentally, I've been compiling a report this week on the matchless success of the Sydney Olympics, and must have listened to Advance Australia Fair about a dozen times. The opening ceremony, that tear-jerking orgy of Aussiedom, featured the most rousing of renditions - arguably the finest ever. With the help of singer Julie Anthony, we also got to hear the words of the second verse, which carries special resonance for expats like me.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

So a question: back in 1977, did Australia get it right? Or do you, as Australians, sometimes suffer from anthem envy yourselves?

UPDATE: On the subject of rousing singing, over 100 family members, friends and former colleagues gathered on Friday afternoon to celebrate the life of the 91Èȱ¬'s legendary Sydney correspondent, . St Paul's Church in Cobbity, New South Wales, echoed to the sounds of Jerusalem and God is our Strength and Refuge, sung with fitting gusto to the thumping beat of The Dambusters' March (as well as being a peerless broadcaster, Red was an accomplished pilot).

Piers Ackerman, a columnist with the Daily Telegraph and a long-time friend, delivered the eulogy. He spoke of Red's "mahogany voice... like well-loved timber" and saluted "one of the great communicators that this nation has ever seen".

The skies were blue and cloudless - a perfect day for flying.

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We have flirted with this question before, but perhaps the time has come to embrace it fully: what is Australia's most liveable city? I realise, of course, that this could unleash the most uncivil of civic stoushes. But this long-running debate has an especially topical edge right now following the publication of a number of global league tables that set out to rank the world's best cities.

Perhaps the most authoritative standings come from Mercer, a consultancy that advises multi-national companies on where to locate staff. Its findings are a matter not of taste or sentiment but statistical measurement: 39 quality-of-life indices, such as schooling, housing, crime and the environment.

First off, Mercer has confirmed Australia's status as a global lifestyle superpower, with five cities in the (curiously, the only country to do better is Germany, with six). I've included the list below, with last year's ranking in brackets.

Sydney 9 (9)
Melbourne 17 (17)
Perth 21 (21)
Adelaide 30 (29)
Brisbane 32 (31)

Zurich comes top by the way, followed jointly by Geneva (2), Vienna (2), Vancouver (4) and Auckland (5). London ranks 38, the only British city to make the top 50.

A few thoughts, before you hopefully weigh in.

I've said before that Sydney can be both a wonderful and frustrating place to live - an epic city of colossal underachievement. Given its glorious harbour, its urban beaches and its rich architectural heritage (even without the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, its skyline would surely be considered world-class), it should be the "Bradman of Cities" - so far ahead of the pack as to be in a league all of its own. But its creaking infrastructure and shrieking politicians hold it back.

Melbourne is another urban treasure. I've rhapsodised before about the abundance of its sporting life, but there's obviously much more to Australia's second most populous city than its collective surge of match-day adrenalin. Its charms are more subtle - hidden-away laneways, for instance, rather than in-your-face beachfronts - but no less enchanting.

Much as I love watching cricket at the "WACA", Perth sometimes leaves me a bit cold (unlike Fremantle down the road). Australia's great boom-town has always struck me as a bit soul-less? Is that massively unfair? It reminds me a bit of those other "resource capitals" of the world, Houston, Dallas and Calgary. I get the feeling it is a better place to live in than to visit.

I always enjoy Adelaide. Great churches, pretty parks, some fabulous civic architecture and one of the world's most charming test cricket venues, the Adelaide Oval.

For all that, I'm surprised that it outranks Brisbane, which is one of the country's most thrusting cities. Before my first visit there, someone regaled me with that old chestnut about adjusting my watch by at least 30 years. But parts of Brisbane seem to be so efficiently run and serviced that they are a long way in advance of other cities and truly state of the art. From its stylish new art gallery, , to its floodlit bridges, from its showy skyline to restaurants like the Cru Bar, it's a winner. And can any Australian city boast a prettier drive from the airport into the city?

I'm surprised that Hobart (a possible rival to Brisbane in the airport-to-city drive stakes) doesn't make the top 50. Others will contest that Canberra ranks high in the liveability stakes, despite its preponderance of politicians.

So what is Australia's most liveable city? Why? And how, within the bounds of decency and the law, would you spend the perfect day there?

UPDATE:

Tragic , the wife of the Australian fast-bowling legend Glenn, who lost her brave, 11-year battle with breast cancer on Sunday morning. She seemed lovely and a quite extraordinary woman. The Australian team will wear pink ribbons in her honour when they play the West Indies.

Sad news, too, about , the 91Èȱ¬'s peerless "voice of Australia", who died at the age of 75 on Friday.

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Many thanks for all your lively comments on the future of the British monarchy. Consider the Republican debate well and truly accelerated. One point which emerged very strongly was that Queen Elizabeth has survived for so long as Australia's head of state because of the absence of decent home-grown alternatives.

Before you hit the send button, I don't buy that argument for even a fleeting moment. But it does raise an intriguing and legitimate question about the quality of political leadership, and the calibre of ministers, MPs and state leaders.

Certainly it has not been a good few months for the nation's politicians - they've rivalled even the stars of rugby league and Aussie Rules in the sordid and salacious story stakes.

Some of the weirdest headlines came from Western Australia, where the state Liberal leader, Troy Buswell, which had recently been vacated by a female colleague. Buswell has taken larrikin irreverence to new heights - or, more accurately, new depths? Before he became leader, he had already confessed to snapping the bra strap of a Labor staffer - bipartisanship at its most boorish.

Suffice to say this chair-sniffing, bra-snapping "pol" recently survived a leadership challenge and even received a standing ovation from party members the weekend before that vote - which seemed a somewhat risky gesture given the number of chairs temporarily left empty.

All this week New South Wales has seen blanket coverage of yet another political scandal. This one involves the state health minister, John Della Bosca, and his tempestuous wife, the Labor MP Belinda Neal. Ms Neal at the staff of a restaurant/night club called Iguanas.

According to their signed accounts, the local MP swore at them, said she would take away the club's licence and threatened to send the police to close it down. Her dinner friends have added their signatures to statements denying she used such threatening language - a difference in statutory declarations which is now under police investigation.

Soon it was open season on Ms Neal. A young mum came forward to claim that Neal had booted her on the ground during a female football match. The MP was, indeed, red-carded and banned for two games, but her coach disputes her opponent's account of the incident.

Then came news from Canberra that she had told a rival Liberal MP who was 36 weeks pregnant that "evil thoughts will turn your child into a demon".

Malcolm Farr of the Daily Telegraph, one of Canberra's finest and funniest political reporters, recounted an ALP conference in 2002.

"A TV cameraman moved around the inside of the horseshoe arrangement of delegates and stopped in front of Belinda Neal, who was filing her nails. She looked up, scowled, and extended a recently-manicured middle finger to the cameraman, and later to several thousand viewers."

There was even a Nixonian flourish: the revelation that she reportedly keeps the names of her political enemies in the freezer.

Ms Neal has now been ordered to take "anger management" classes by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - who interrupted his already busy trip to Japan to deliver a 20-minute carpeting.

Scandals hit politicians the world over - and if there is a paucity of political talent then it is by no means limited to Australia. Another global phenomenon appears to be that people, especially the online literate young, are finding other outlets to express themselves politically.

the Australian community-based activist group, now boasts 280,000 members, more than all the political parties combined and regularly comes up with innovative and policy-changing campaigns.

The magazine, The Monthly, recently asked whether Australia was one man away from becoming a one-party state: the implication being that only Malcolm Turnbull offered the Liberal Party much hope for the future.

So is Australia currently experiencing a democratic deficit - a shortage of really talented politicians? If so, why? And if the country does ever decide to choose its own head of state, should it look beyond the realm of politics?

UPDATE, 10:00AM, 17 June 2008: To those of you who have said that I've only cited the bad behaviour of two politicians, I promise you there are many more where they came from. Here's a , which, again, is far from definitive.

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Much of Australia will enjoy a national holiday today in honour of the Queen's official birthday. To some Australian monarchists, it's occasion to raise a glass to a much-loved head of state. To many more, it's the happy chance to take a quick winter break, hopefully avoiding the inflated "double demerit" speeding fines and points penalties which come into effect on three-day holiday weekends.

Next week at Parliament House in Sydney, the Australia-Britain Society will hold a luncheon at which members will sing God Save the Queen, Australia's Royal anthem and take part in a loyal toast. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Collingwood will take on Melbourne in the traditional Queen's Day birthday AFL face-off. But the day is marked with little, if any, pomp and circumstance. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I can't find any evidence of gun salutes, parades or fireworks - and nor can the monarchists I've been speaking to.

How much longer Australia will continue to officially celebrate the Queen's birthday is one of the most intriguing questions facing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and, ultimately of course, the Australian people.

Rudd, of course, is an unabashed Republican. Since 1991, a monarch-less Australia has also been official Labor Party policy. At the 2020 summit in Canberra, 29 members of the governance panel voted in favour of a Republic, with one abstention - although monarchists claim that the panel was stacked in order to rubber-stamp the government's Republican agenda.

Given the widespread feeling that Brendan Nelson will not lead the Liberal Party into the next federal election, it is also a distinct possibility that the shadow Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull will soon head the opposition. Mr Turnbull, of course, was the figurehead of Republican movement in 1999, when the Australian people voted to retain a constitutional monarchy.

The Liberal Party is still the home to many staunch Royalists - the shadow minister Tony Abbott proudly exhibits a portrait of Queen Elizabeth in his parliamentary office. But might it soon be the case that Australia's two leading political parties are led by fervent Republicans?

Yet just at the very moment when the stars seemed to be coming into alignment for the Republican movement, a new poll came as a bolt from the blue. In May, the Roy Morgan International polling organisation found that only 45% of respondents wanted a Republic - down 6% from three years ago. 42% wanted to retain the monarchy, and 13% were undecided.

For the record, in the 1999 referendum roughly 55% said "no" when asked whether the Queen and Governor-General should be replaced by a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament. Republicans will tell you, of course, that the Australian people were presented with a false choice, and that the prospect of a popularly-elected president would have been much more tantalising.

The Republican movement cannot afford a second defeat, which is why its strategists favour a slow-burn campaign. They want time to build a broad-based campaign, which can reach beyond the inner-urban areas, where support for a Republic was most strongly concentrated in 1999. The Republican argument was less well received in the suburbs and rural Australia.

Neither is Kevin Rudd in any great hurry, although he does want to "accelerate" the debate. He's refused to be drawn on a firm timetable for a new referendum. Most think it would come in a Rudd second term, if the voters allow him to have one.

When it comes, perhaps the most intriguing group will be what might be called the "Elizabethans" - Australians who aren't exactly enthused by the idea of Prince Charles becoming their head of state, but who think that it would be disrespectful and ungracious to ditch Queen Elizabeth while she occupies the throne.

The post-war Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies, an arch Anglophile who wanted to call the Australian dollar "the royal", broke down and cried when he announced to parliament the death of George VI, the present Queen's father.

Will Kevin Rudd one day get to deliver a very different proclamation: announcing not the death of a British monarch, but the end of the constitutional arrangement by which he or she remains Australia's head of state?

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