If you want to gripe about the Queen...

Give us an alternative.

If you don't have something better to propose, stick with what you have. It might not seem a very good reason for sticking with the political system you have, but I think it is as good a reason as any.

Today's Queen's Birthday edition of "The Age" has the predictable anti-monarchy editorial. It gives a host of reasons why the monarchy is no longer relevant to Australia - but omits the greatest reason for its continued relevancy: It is our current political system AND IT WORKS.

Moreover, the opponents of Australia's constitutional monarchy have yet to come up with an alternative system on which a majority of Australians can agree. What is really telling is the standard by which any alternative is measured: it must be at least as good as the system we currently have.

So that's the fact. The current sytem, "irrelevant" and "anachronistic" as it may be, nevertheless continues to provide the Commonwealth of Australia with political stability and and its citizens with a degree of personal freedom that is the envy of the world. While discussing many of the injustices and atrocities that take place elsewhere in the world, my youngest daughter asked the question "Why do those things happen in other places but not here?" A good question. One the editors of The Age would do well to ponder.

They might also like to ponder this: