Australia bids adieu to knights and dames
Print Edition
Australia’s pro-republic Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday scrapped knights and dames from the nation’s honors system, less than a year after a furore sparked by the award of a knighthood to Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a staunch monarchist, reintroduced the antiquated honors in 2014, provoking criticism that he was out of touch with public sentiment. Abbott was ousted by Turnbull in a party coup in September.
The politically disastrous decision to give Prince Philip the nation’s highest honor, Knight of the Order of Australia, on Australia Day, has been cited as the beginning of the end for Abbott.
The decision to scrap the honors by Turnbull, a former head of the national republican movement, may be interpreted as a signal of his willingness to revisit the thorny question of Australia’s relationship with the monarchy.
“The prime minister announced today that Her Majesty the Queen has agreed to the government’s recommendation to remove knights and dames from the Order of Australia,” Turnbull said in a statement.
“The cabinet recently considered the Order of Australia, in this its 40th anniversary year, and agreed that knights and dames are not appropriate in our modern honors system.”
Others who received the honors were governors general Quentin Bryce and Peter Cosgrove, former air chief marshal Angus Houston and New South Wales state governor Marie Bashir, which Turnbull has said they will retain.
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