David Flint and Tony Abbott are really from another world if they believe the visit of those royal cousins, Charles, Frederik and Victoria will herald the end of republicanism in Australia – if anything the fawning over them and the criminal waste of public money entertaining and housing them should bring on some common sense.

Let’s start with Charles and ask why he came in the first place. It seems the Man of Steel’s fingerprints were all over that one – and what’s one million dollars to push a cause? Charles looked decidedly uncomfortable, his itinerary was a joke and the only time he seemed half way relaxed was when he was among old friends out at Corio for a visit to his old school. Anyone interested in the real bottom line should check with authorities and ask what his bill for international telephone calls happened to be. I did just that once before during a royal tour and the amount would have fed thousands of homeless people for a month.

Frederik and Mary – now that’s another story. Poor Charles can’t help having parents who elevated anal retentiveness to dizzy heights; Frederik was lucky his Mother – called Daisy by friends – the chain smoking Queen Margrethe 11 and her French husband Henri de Laborde de Monpezart raised the crown prince and his brother Joachim normally, sending them to state schools, allowing them to invite local kids to their birthday parties and generally letting them be normal boys. The arrival or our Mary into the family wasn’t the breath of fresh air someone like her would be to the Windsors – her childhood was like theirs. Being beautiful, charming, elegant and natural helps – and Flint and Abbott draw a long bow indeed if they think the couple are an excuse to retain a foreign non-resident unelected head of state for this country. I wrote in The Australian that Abbott should stop reading The Australian Women’s Weekly and concentrate more on the editorials of the mainstream media. Talking of the media, if some writers are going to call the crown princess Mary Glucksburg – let them get that right – her surname is now Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg. Who knows? One day in the future that name might pop up in the Hobart telephone directory.

Victoria of Sweden is here to promote her country – pity our Queen can’t do the same for Australia when she travels abroad. The eldest child of Carl XVI of Sweden and his German wife Princess Sibylla of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, she’s related to Charles and Frederik a few times over – the three of them are great great great grandchildren of Queen Victoria’s and as Protestants, are in line to the throne of Britain and Australia! Mind you with the exception of Charles, it would take something akin to a Holocaust for them to get on the Australian throne but the possibility is there. Another reason to bring on the republic!

The Danes and the Swedes are picking up the bills for their royals while they are here. You and I were responsible for Charles. Work that out.