Bill Shorten says party will back changes to succession laws but says Australia needs to do more than just update ‘anachronistic features of another nation’

Labor will support a bill to modernise the succession laws of the monarchy, despite labelling the institution anachronistic and out of step with modern Australia.

The bill, a version of which must be adopted by all countries and regions that have the British monarch as head of state, will abolish male privilege in ascension to the throne and end the ban on heads of state marrying Catholics – originally outlined in the Act of Settlement in 1701.

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It was debated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday and is expected to pass with the support of Labor and the Coalition.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, mocked the bill, saying it was not the debate that Australia needed.

“Yes, I support updating the British constitution and the British sovereign lines of succession, but really, surely this country is more than just updating some anachronistic features of another nation and it’s time to declare that Australia should have an Australian head of state,” he told parliament.

“After all, no Australian has ever been born with a royal lineage – so they would never face any of the problems that this legislation seeks to address.”

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Shorten said Tony Abbott had reignited the debate on Australia becoming a republic this year by knighting Prince Philip.

“I should take this moment to acknowledge the prime minister’s valuable, if somewhat unexpected, contribution to the republican debate,” he said. “I assure people I had no idea of what he was about to do, which would put me in the same group as, indeed, his whole Liberal government.”

The opposition leader urged movement on the recognition of Indigenous people in Australia’s constitution.

“If we were drafting our constitution today, we would, without any question, include recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners of our continent,” he said. “In all likelihood, it would be the first sentence on page one.

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“We are no longer the nation of terra nullius and the ‘great Australian silence’. The sun has long since set on empire that we once bound ourselves to, to the last shilling and the last man.

“In the 21st century, we no longer identify ourselves as an outpost of the empire, fearfully perched on the edge of Asia. We no longer take a narrow, race-based notion of citizenship.”

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the monarchy had little relevance for most Australians. “This is not Britain, and the reason that this bill does not ensure ‘the continued relevance of the monarchy’ to Australia in 2015 is because it is monarchy itself which is out of step with contemporary Australian life,” he said.

He echoed Shorten’s call for a republic: “The problem is not the specific set of rules by which a member of the royal family is selected to take the throne. It is the fact that the only candidates are British aristocrats with a necessarily limited understanding of Australian life.

“While the law dictates that an Australian may not be head of state, our constitutional arrangements will always jar, always ring a little false.”



Dreyfus also questioned how abolishing a ban on Australia’s head of state marrying a Catholic was progress, as the British constitution mandates that the monarch is a member of the Church of England.

A Coalition backbencher, Melissa Price, praised the lifting of the marriage ban. “This religious discrimination is contemptible in the 21st century and therefore this bill is welcome,” she said.

Another backbencher, Fiona Scott, said it was necessary to update the succession laws. “It breaks one of the oldest glass ceilings and one that has stood enshrined in legislation and tradition,” she said.