Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, is dead. Buckingham Palace announced that the queen died peacefully at Balmoral on Thursday afternoon. Her family had assembled at the Scottish castle to say their final farewells.
Her death came just two days after she met with the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, and invited her to form a government. Truss was the 15th British prime minister of the queen's 70-year reign. Sixteen Australian prime ministers, from Sir Robert Menzies to Anthony Albanese, led her governments.
Elizabeth, who acceded to the throne at 25 years old, was the longest-serving monarch in English history, and second only to Louis XIV of France in world history. Nine in 10 Australians have never known another sovereign.
Born into an age of social and political upheaval during the interwar period, she witnessed unprecedented global turmoil and change. The Great Depression. A second world war to defeat fascism. The end of empire as former colonies claimed their independence. Four decades of Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation, which receded as the Berlin Wall crumbled. The jet age, the space age, and the digital age. The Beatles. The return of Hong Kong to China, which symbolised the reemergence of a long-dormant power. Brexit. Then full circle to the return of unprovoked wars of aggression in Europe.
Australia hosted the queen for 16 royal visits, the first in early 1954. She is the only serving Australian monarch to have visited our shores. There were just 9 million of us for her first tour. White Australia was official policy. Our First Nations peoples were neither recognised by the constitution nor counted among our population. We had a female head of state, but it would take another 37 years before a woman, Dame Roma Mitchell, served as the queen's representative in an Australian state. It was not until 2010, 58 years into Her Majesty's rule, that the queen appointed Julia Gillard as her first and only female prime minister of Australia.
The Australia of 1954 is a different country. As with all heritage, we recall it mostly via sepia-tinged memories - gauzy glimpses of simpler times. Few of us would wish to go back. The queen, remote as she was to our daily lives, remained a living link to that past and a constant presence throughout the myriad transformations since.
In 1999, Australians were asked whether we wanted to sever our constitutional ties to the monarchy and become a republic. A majority expressed support for this move, but disagreed about the method to choose our own head of state. Absent such agreement, voters stuck with the status quo. The queen, in accordance with her role, did not intrude on our referendum. Public sentiment accepted that the matter would not be revisited in her lifetime.
Now, in the year of her platinum jubilee, the second Elizabethan era has closed. Whatever one thinks of Elizabeth II and her family, she lived an extraordinary life during an extraordinary epoch. She did her duty through strife and triumph, and will be missed by many around the world.
Charles is the new King of Australia. Camilla is our Queen Consort. It's the birth of a new chapter in our Australian story.
What did Queen Elizabeth II mean to you as an Australian? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
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