Australians call for return of nation's 'birth certificate' from Britain

Australians have started a campaign calling for Britain to hand over the first map ever to refer to the nation by the word "Australia", claiming that the document is country's "birth certificate".

Matthew Flinders, a British explorer and cartographer, drew the map in 1804 after becoming the first European to circumnavigate Australia.

It was the first time a navigator used the name "Australia" to describe the continent, which had previously been referred to as New Holland or Terra Australis.

Flinders, who hailed from Lincolnshire and spent several years charting the coast of Australia, wrote a book about his travels.

In it, he suggested that the land mass be named Australia, a recommendation that was eventually adopted by the British Admiralty in 1824.

The map, which measures 36in by 28in, is currently kept at the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office in Taunton, Somerset, but is not on display.

A group of academics and politicians has called on the British government to give the document to Canberra as a sign of goodwill.

Flinders, who has more than 100 geographical features – including a mountain range, an island and one of Melbourne's main streets – named after him, drew the map while imprisoned on the island of Mauritius after being captured by the French on his return journey to England.

He was freed in 1810 and returned home, but died just four years later, aged 40.

Greg Hunt, the opposition heritage spokesman and member for the constituency of Flinders in the state of South Australia, said the map holds a special place in the country's history and should not remain hidden. Mr Hunt has written to Liam Fox, the defence secretary, asking for his assistance and has started a petition that he

Isn’t Australia still technically part of the British Empire with tacit alliegience to the queen and a governor general appointed by London and all that pro-forma silliness? Like Burmuda with more say-so over foreign affairs?

I don’t recall the Australian government declaring a republic, but maybe I missed something.

To my Aussie friends, help educate me on this point.

Sure.

You're combining a few different things here, so to start with, I'll break it down into separate questions.

(1) Isn’t Australia still technically part of the British Empire?

(2) Does Australia have a tacit alliegience to the queen?

(3) Does Australia have a Governor General appointed by London?

OK - 1, at a time.

Question 1 - Is Australia part of the British Empire?

The answer is 'No'. Whether or not the British Empire still exists is a technical question, but if it does, Australia is not part of it. In 1926 and 1930, two conferences were held in London to set the future direction of the British Empire. As a result of those conferences, a law was promulgated in the British Parliament called the Statute of Westminster of 1931. The statute fundamentally changed the relationship between the United Kingdom and what were referred to as the Dominions - Canada, Australia, South Africa, The Irish Free State, Newfoundland (separate from Canada at that stage) and New Zealand.

Prior to the Statute of Westminster, while all the Dominions were self governing on most issues, the British Parliament at Westminster still had overall control of a few matters, including Foreign Affairs and Defence. The United Kingdom was legally superior to the Dominions.

With the Statute of Westminster that changed - the Dominions became the legal equals of the United Kingdom, no longer subservient to the Government of the United Kingdom, and were permitted to handle their own foreign affairs and defence without recourse to London.

This difference wasn't just symbolic and that was shown a few years later when King Edward VIII wanted to marry Wallis Simpson and remain King. Prior to the Statute of Westminster, if the British government had agreed he could have done that - but under the terms of the Statute of Westminster, the laws governing the succession of the crown require the agreement of all the Dominions. The Dominions had to be consulted and Australia is known to have stated it would not accept such a change, so the British Prime Minister had to tell the King, it could not happen, even if the government in London agreed (they probably wouldn't have, but it wouldn't have mattered if they had).

The other difference it made came at the start of World War II in 1939. In 1914 when World War I began, all the Dominions immediately went to war when Britain declared War. At the start of World War II, it was not automatic - Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand, all declared war separately. There was no great debate about it, but they had the right to decide for themselves. The Irish Free State chose to remain neutral.

In 1940, Australia, in response to the developing threat of war in the Pacific declared all aspects of the Statute of Westminster in effect for Australia, and for the first time sent an Ambassador of our own to another nation - the United States. Our government also refused British requests as to where to send some of our troops - something it could not legally have done in the First World War.

Today, there are 18 'Dominions' (now referred to as Commonwealth Realms) in the legal sense - fully self governing nations that voluntarily retain their connection to the Crown. None of those are part of any British Empire, and the term British Empire is no longer in use. Instead we are the Commonwealth of Nations - and as well there are Republics in the Commonwealth. Any Realm can declare itself a Republic and quite a number have. There are also still a small number of British Overseas Territories, which are functionally still British colonies - places like the Falkland Islands. These have partial self government but are still subservient to London, and if there is still an Empire in any sense, they are all that is left of it.

Now Question 2, does Australia have a tacit alliegience to the queen? Yes, we do - to Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. While this is obviously physically the same person as Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in a legal sense, she's entirely distinct. We owe no allegiance to the United Kingdom although we remain good friends. She's also separately the Queen of all the other Realms, one at a time.

And, Question 3, Does Australia have a Governor General appointed by London?

The answer, once again, relates to the Statute of Westminster. Prior to the Statute of Westminster, the British government in London recommended to the King of the United Kingdom (His Britannic Majesty) who they wanted appointed as Governor General of Australia. Since the Statute of Westminster, the Australian government in Canberra has recommended to the King (or Queen) of Australia, who they wanted appointed as Governor General of Australia. The first time this happened was in 1930, when Prime Minister James Scullin insisted King George V appoint the Australian High Court Judge, Sir Isaac Isaac's as Australia's first Australian born Governor General, over the objections of both the British government, and the King himself. That decision is what actually lead directly to the Statute of Westminster - to make the constitutional position clearer. London could no longer tell Canberra what to do.

This is a simplified version - it wasn't until 1986 (when Australia and Britain simultaneously passed laws referred to as 'The Australia Act' that Britain gave up all power over Australian governments (prior to that, there were still a few very specific circumstances where it could happen - and because legally each Australian state is in some ways, sovereign, the state governments didn't have the same independence the National government did).

Australia is not a Republic - we rejected the idea at a Referendum in 1999, and while it may be revisited in the future, it may be at some stage. But we are a fully independent and Sovereign Nation and no foreign government has any more power over us than they would have over the US. The Queen does, but only as Queen of Australia.

The distinctions do matter - one of the other Commonwealth Realms is Grenada (and the Queen is Queen of Grenada). When the United States invade Grenada in 1983, they technically went to war against the Queen of Grenada - if she'd also been the Queen of the United Kingdom and Canada and Australia... all in the same legal sense, that could have got diplomatically a bit messy.

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