One question, not whether to keep the King, is being posed to the Australian populace.

Within 24 hours of the demise of Queen Elizabeth II, the carefully planned Australian reaction to the loss of its Head of State began to show its first signs of weakness.   Players stood to attention on Friday during a broadcast game between Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) clubs in Melbourne to hear an Acknowledgement of Country, which was immediately followed by a minute of silence for the Queen.  
 
The contrast of a claim that players were on “unceded” Indigenous land and a respect to the nation’s former ruler, who claimed it, made some people uneasy.   All other moments of silence for AFLW games had been canceled by Saturday, and the Western Bulldogs’ club director issued a statement saying that the homage “unearths profound scars for us.”

The tragedy highlights the ongoing suffering endured by Australia’s First Nations people since British invaders began colonizing their land in 1788. The death of the Queen has sparked rumblings—some louder than others—in other Commonwealth Nations about proposals to replace the British monarchy with a republic. However, despite Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s support for the republic, there isn’t a deliberate effort to move in that way.  
 
Since the Queen’s passing, Albanese has stated numerous times in interviews and news conferences that the moment is not right to discuss a republic. The Australian Republican Movement appeared to agree on Tuesday when it decided to put a stop to its advocacy of the subject until after the period of mourning, “out of respect for the Queen.”  
 
However, for Albanese, the delay in promoting a republic at this time is not merely out of honor for the deceased ruler. In order to hold a referendum on including Australia’s First Nations people in the law during his first 3 years in government, Labor’s leader pledged to do so before the election.  
Albanese responded to a question about it on Monday by saying: “At the time, I couldn’t imagine a situation where we changed our Head of State to an Australian Head of State but still didn’t identify First World nations in our legislature and the fact that we live with the ancient culture on Earth.” So those are our top priorities for this term.  
 
A strong “no” It is famously challenging to amend the law since it demands the majority of Australians nationwide and in most states to vote “yes” in a referendum. Only 8 of the 44 constitutional amendment proposals that have been made since Federation in 1901 have been accepted.   When the nation’s voters were asked if they wished to substitute the Queen and Governor-General with a President, the final rejection occurred in 1999.  
 
Rallying at the time centered on severing connections with an antiquated royalty and pushing forth as a brave new multicultural nation determined to forge its own destiny. Although Australia’s citizens were asked to accept a new preamble to the legislation that recognized First Nations people for their “kinship with their lands,” indigenous concerns weren’t a top priority. Elderly Aboriginal people of the time complained they hadn’t been engaged on the wording, which led to that failure as well.

It wasn’t unexpected. Indigenous people have long complained that their voices have not been heard by successive administrations. In 1999, Yawuru man Peter Yu, who is currently Vice President First Nations at the Australian National University (ANU), decided to carry their message to the government on the advice of a local elder.  
 
You should see that old girl overseas since they give her name the wrong way over here, a very senior and elderly leader advised, Yu recalled. According to Yu, the elderly guy was implying that the only time Aboriginal people encountered the name of the Queen was during an arrest. They believed that the Queen’s name and reputation were being tarnished due to the community’s regard for her, and that we thus needed to go and explain the issue.
 
Thus, they did.
Yu and a delegation saw Queen Elizabeth for around 30 minutes at Buckingham Palace, where the monarch accorded them a much more cordial reception than either the British or Australian governments, according to him.   Today, Yu claims that, like in most communities, opinions on the Queen are divided among Australia’s Indigenous people.   He claimed that there are powerful feelings. Additionally, we are still dealing with the full impact of colonization’s aftereffects. Do we, however, blame her directly for it? “I don’t,” he answered. I hold the Australian government—governments that willfully disregarded their duty of care—responsible for it. I’m upset about that.  
 
Speak out in Parliament
By the end of his first tenure, Albanese has pledged to hold a vote on the Speak to Parliament, a body that would grant Indigenous people for the first time a voice in the laws that impact them.
A vote on the Voice to Parliament is “unquestionably the primary priority over a republic,” according to John Warhurst, ex  chair of the Australian Republic Movement and emeritus professor of political science at ANU.  
Republicans will not argue about it, he continued. According to Warhurst, there are several reasons why the Voice to House is significant. It draws a boundary around Australia’s colonial past. It’s a demarcation line regarding racial relations in Australia. And if we lose this referendum, I believe the message would be shocking around the world. But not all Indigenous people support the idea.   The administrator of the “Vote no to constitutional reform” Facebook group, Telona Pitt, is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman of Ngarluma, Kariyarra, and Meriam lineage.
 
The group has 11,000 members. She feels that not enough Indigenous people had a voice in the creation of the paper that resulted in the creation of the Voice to Parliament. She also asserts that despite the government’s awareness of Indigenous issues, it hasn’t taken sufficient action to address them, and that the Voice to Parliament referendum won’t change that.   She claimed that it would only serve to weaken Aboriginal people and turn the Parliament against us.
 
Before any queries are posed to the general public, Pitt contends that an Indigenous peoples’ vote should be held to determine who supports the move.   According to Warhurst, passing the Voice to Government would make it easier to enact future constitutional amendments; while, rejecting it would delay the transition to a republic. 
 
After the Speak to Government bill is approved, he claimed, Australia might be prepared to think about a monarchy-free future. The advocacy on the subject would have to start “from scratch” early since Australia is not the same country it was in 1999, he said. That may not occur for another five to ten years.   By that time, it might be simpler to persuade Australians that a republic is necessary because nostalgia for a lifetime spent under the Queen’s rule will likely have worn off among older generations who had stronger ties to the British monarchy.  
 
Some people were influenced by Queen Elizabeth’s visit to maintain the status quo, according to Warhurst. Therefore, I believe that some of the resistance in the Australian community has diminished now that we have a new King.   However, Yu from ANU argued that before discussing a republic, the issue of Australia’s Indigenous people needed to be resolved.   Without resolving the conflict with the First Peoples, how could you have a republic? “I think it’s foolishness. It is not honest. It lacks a moral sense and a soul.