Australia’s most ardent monarchist prime minister – not Tony Abbott or John Howard but Robert Menzies – would have been very impressed with the response of our avowed republican leader, Anthony Albanese, to the passing of our borrowed head of state, Queen Elizabeth II.

No one dies these days, they pass. My first news editor would be furious. “Such euphemisms have no place in journalism,” he once yelled at me as I sugar-coated the death of some poor citizen by avoiding the bleak realism of the “d” word.

The language poured on the Queen has been soft but, as we have seen in the past seven days, there is no escaping the many stark realities about what sharing the British monarch means. This is where we have arrived after almost 122 years of federated selfhood: as a nation that has preserved the heritage of a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy but has clung to the erstwhile colonial power’s head of state as our own. 

King Charles III, in his first regal address, pledged to love and serve the people of Britain, as his mother had done, and left Australia unspecified, lumped in with the “realms and territories”.

The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports – one of the quainter honours bestowed on Menzies by the late Queen – pledged in 1963, without embarrassment, that he would love the young visiting monarch until he died. Such servile homage thankfully has not been matched by Albanese, but he has been on the defensive all week for his response. 

Before he flew out on Thursday night to join other Commonwealth and world leaders gathering for the solemn obsequies on Monday, His Majesty’s Australian prime minister had to explain to a querulous news conference in Canberra why he was shutting down the nation for a day and why our parliament, unlike the one in London, wasn’t sitting for 15 days.

Albanese said that, as prime minister, he has “followed the procedures that have been in place for a lot longer than I have been in place as prime minister”. And then – maybe with multi-minister Scott Morrison in mind, or even the convention-trashing Malcolm Fraser, who bullied the duplicitous then governor-general John Kerr to sack the Whitlam government – he continued: “I think there is something to be said for a prime minister who follows tradition, who follows protocols and who follows order. That is something I have done to define my prime ministership.”

The protocols here were laid down in Operation London Bridge – the codename given to Britain’s plan for what would happen following the death of the Queen. It dates back to the 1960s and involves all the arms of the British apparatus in planning to the minute what would occur. The Queen herself was involved, as Albanese hinted on Tuesday when he revealed it was her idea to have 10 “everyday” Australians join him on his plane to attend the funeral.

It is fair enough for the British to prepare in this way, but it is beyond silly that an Australian government can’t have its own ideas about how to appropriately react in this country. It rams home the fact that we are still a vassal state. One senior source in Canberra says the latest iteration of the protocols went back to the Howard government, which may explain a lot, except why Albanese feels he must so slavishly follow them. Just as curious was the wall-to-wall coverage on the ABC and presenters on all the TV networks required to wear black.

One senior minister said “it’s what you get when you vote ‘no’ ” – a reference to the failed 1999 republic referendum. The reaction among the Labor rank and file is instructive. Federal and state MPs report plenty of their branch members are unimpressed. Messages coming into the Queensland premier’s office, for example, have been colourful: “We’re supposed to reject all this bullshit.” 

Expectations that Albanese would react differently from Howard or Abbott weren’t confined to Australia. In an interview with Sky News in Britain it was put to the prime minister that the Queen’s death had “reignited a debate about a republic”. He was asked if he thought it was appropriate or “perhaps even opportunistic”.

His answer was unequivocal. “Now is the time,” Albanese said, “for us to pay tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth II, to give thanks for her service to Australia, to the Commonwealth and to the world. That is the focus I have.”

Albanese does not resile from his republican views but he is acutely aware that, because of them, his political opponents, particularly those with enduring monarchist attachment, would be quick to amplify any misstep that could be construed as disrespect or worse. Showing the strategic patience that won him the top job, Albanese is intent on reassuring all Australians that he is no hot-headed iconoclast. In other words, he is laying down the foundations for a second term, though he is bemused that his critics cannot see the once-in-a-lifetime significance of the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch.

When it comes to referendums, Albanese reminded his international audience that his “absolute priority” is the “recognition of First Nations people in our constitution”. He said our national founding document would have you believe “that history began in 1788”. He acknowledges that date’s importance but said for too long we have spurned the fact we share this continent with “the oldest continuous culture on the planet”.

The intersection between the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and unlawful Aboriginal dispossession is an injustice still needing to be addressed. As associate professor of law Hannah McGlade, a First Nations woman, told Radio National, the Queen symbolised the British royal family and “by extension outstanding issues around justice and land for Indigenous Australians”.

Albanese is using all his authority as prime minister to build a consensus for a successful referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. On Tuesday he paid an emotional tribute to Uncle Jack Charles following the prominent Aboriginal elder’s death. He noted the cruelty endured by Charles as a member of the Stolen Generations and his courage in remaking his life and giving voice to his people.

McGlade says the referendum enshrining a protected Voice to Parliament, leading to a treaty process, would do the work Captain Cook illegally failed to do 252 years ago when he claimed Australia for the Crown.

Queen Elizabeth’s death was always going to reignite discussion on a republic, both here and in Britain. But particularly in Australia, because past republican prime ministers Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull, like Albanese, nominated this event as a trigger. Albanese’s appointment of Matt Thistlethwaite as assistant minister for the republic is a sure sign of his intent.

Thistlethwaite’s work of fostering a discussion has already begun and he is heartened by the interest his task has stirred in Australia and overseas. But if the latest Roy Morgan poll is any guide, he has a hard road to hoe. The SMS poll taken two days after “the passing” of the Queen found an increasing majority – 60 per cent, which is up five points since November 2012 – believe Australia should remain a monarchy. Only 40 per cent say Australia should become a republic with an elected president.

National director of the Australian Republic Movement Sandy Biar is far from surprised that a poll that has “always overstated support for the monarchy” shows a rise at this time. He says the real test will come when a “balanced national conversation emerges on our future as an independent nation” in coming months.

Much, too, will depend on how King Charles III and his family acquit themselves. There is no doubt the longevity and personal affability of the Queen went a long way to maintaining the appeal of the monarchy.

The Economist magazine was probably correct when it wrote that reviving the republican movement “would be easier said than done” so long as the 14 realm countries outside Britain “had bigger problems than King Charles”. It opined that he may continue to reign over them “simply because of inertia”.

Just as the republican movement needed then prime minister Paul Keating to spark a serious discussion 30 years ago, so too will Albanese need to throw his weight as the elected leader of the nation behind any new drive for it to succeed. Prompting Australians to have the will and imagination to change the status quo requires nothing less.

When he returns from London, Albanese will lead a memorial service at Parliament House next Thursday. The deferred business of government will resume the following Monday, with the introduction of legislation for a national anti-corruption commission.

The prime minister appeared to tie himself in knots over his campaign promise to deliver the commission by the end of the year. Some on the crossbench are demanding he keep faith with the Australian people by delivering. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says if it is passed, and he is hopeful the promised time line can be met, then the commission can begin operation by mid-2023.

Unlike the Morgan poll’s findings on the republic, there is longstanding, overwhelming public support for it to happen.

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