Australian Monarchist League
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Australian Monarchist League
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| AML-logo.jpg | |
| National Chairman | Philip Benwell MBE |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Ideology | Monarchy of Australia |
| Website | |
| www.monarchist.org.au | |
The Australian Monarchist League is a non-profit organisation, headquartered in Sydney, Australia, promoting the monarchy of Australia, and providing information to members of the public about Australian history and the Australian Constitution. The organisation was part of the "no" campaign in the 1999 republic referendum, which asked whether Australia should become a republic and whether Australia should alter the constitution to insert a preamble. Neither of the amendments passed.
The Australian Monarchist League is incorporated as an association in New South Wales, and was founded as a branch of the London-based International Monarchist League (IML). However, in 1993, the League severed affiliation with the IML, and established itself as an independent Australian body. (A separate organisation, the Monarchist League in Australia, was formed in 2006 as an affiliate of the IML). The organisation is not formally associated with any political party or other organisation, and it has no paid staff, relying on volunteers to keep the group functioning. Philip Benwell, has served on a volunteer basis as the national chairman and spokesman for the league for over ten years.
The League has established a Trust with a number of prominent Australian businessmen as Trustees. The most important role of the Trust is to raise and administer funds for the organisation's activities.
During the 1999 republic referendum on the future of Australia's constitutional monarchy, the league along with the four other constitutional monarchist groups formed a united front led by Lloyd Waddy emphasising the weaknesses of the republican models on offer. Positions on the official Vote No Committee were filled according to votes received at the Convention election. Accordingly, all eight monarchist seats went to an alternative organization which had won 73.39% of the monarchist vote, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (along with two supporting an elected head of state). Nevertheless, the Australian Monarchist League played a role in the proceedings, including Benwell privately taking the Australian Electoral Commission to the Federal Court in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a firmer definition of what would count as a "yes" vote in the referendum, arguing that the planned approach (accepting any vote in which the voter's intention was clear) was such that the counting would be weighted towards "yes" and "opened the door for electoral fraud".
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