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p52/53/54/55/56/57/58/59/60 HANSARD [18 FEBRUARY, 1953.]
Royal Style [REPRESENTATIVES] Titles Bill 1953.
ROYAL STYLE AND TITLES BILL 1953.
Motion (by Mr. MENZIE5)-by leave-agreed to-: That leave be given to bring in a bill for an act relating to the Royal Style and Titles. Bill presented, and read a first time. SECOND READING.
Mr. MENZIES
(Kooyong - Prime Minister)
[S1] .-by leave- I move
That the bill be now read a second time. This is a bill for an act relating to the Royal Style and Titles. It has become necessary to introduce a measure of this kind because, as all honorable members' know, in modern times there have been changes in the constitutional structure of the British Commonwealth. Those changes, which were, first of all, dealt with in terms of form in more recent times in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster, have now called for fresh consideration, because since the Statute of Westminster India has become a republic, the title “Head of the Commonwealth” has been devised, and there have been additions to the number of those nations which form, in total, the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Bill is quite short. Perhaps I should begin by saying that what this Parliament is being invited to approve is that the Royal Style and Title in Australia in respect of the reign of her present Majesty should be:
Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Australia and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
If honorable members will look at the bill, they will see that it recites in fairly full terms the decisions that were taken by the conference of Prime Ministers in London in December. At one stage, I contemplated reading to the House the communique that was issued on this point at the end of that conference, but if honorable members look at the recitals, they will see the substance of what was then done. Perhaps it will be convenient if I run through the preamble in that sense. It begins with the statement that was recited in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster, 1931, that it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations in relation to one another, that any alteration in the law touching The Royal Style and Titles should, after the enactment of that act “require the assent as well of the Parliament of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom”.
India of course has a special problem and I believe that a great many of these alterations have been made, were made, and are being made in order to propitiate India. I think it would have been much better if we had made no attempt to propitiate India or any other component of the Commonwealth.