Now it's Nova Peris: the awakening continues

The Australian Republican Movement inflicts another defeat on itself

Former Labor Senator and Olympian Nova Peris, an advocate for indigenous causes and Yes campaigner, has quit her role in the Australian Republican Movement (ARM), throwing Australia’s already pathetic and embattled anti-monarchist group into disarray.

The reason? Nova Peris finds Craig Foster’s views on Israel and just about everything else too extreme, to the point of slandering Israel and attacking the Anzacs. All of which is standard fare for the progressive elites in this country. Peris’ staunch support for Israel has put her at odds with much of the Left in this country.

First of all, Craig Foster has always been arrogant, divisive and narcissistic, something football people in this country have known for a long time. He’s typical of people who see themselves as a kind of Messiah.

Secondly, the republican cause in Australia was dealt a fatal blow by the Voice referendum in October 2023. Australians have lost appetite for constitutional issues, and even more level-headed republicans acknowledge this. The monarchy isn’t going anywhere. Similarly in the UK, Spain and Canada, long-running constitutional issues are likely to be put to rest by public exhaustion and global uncertainty.

Furthermore, the tying of the republican cause to fashionable woke causes, while unavoidable in some ways, also spells its doom. Even the people who ran the republic campaign in the 1999 referendum avoided this kind of thing, but that was before the developments of the last decade.

And finally, it may well dawn on Nova Peris that the indigenous causes she’s long championed have been coopeted by a radical Left intent on destroying democracy and Western Civilisation as we know it.