Column - The argument for the Queen is like the one for Parky

JUST being asked to give the Australia Day Address should have stopped Sir Michael Parkinson from making a goose of himself afterwards.

The 75-year-old star of TV chat on Monday became the first foreigner to deliver the annual Australia Day Address in its 14-year history.

But he didn't learn the lesson. Just after giving his talk at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music he went feral.

"Why should Australia not be a republic?" he asked reporters.

"It's its own country, its own man. I find it incomprehensible that it's not that now."

Incomprehensible? That Australia is a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth as head of state is no more incomprehensible than having an English TV star give the Australia Day speech. The excuse for both is the same: if it works, we're happy.

Plainly, Australia works extremely well. We've never been troubled by dictators, and never had our fundamental freedoms threatened, even if speaking freely has become more dangerous lately than it should be.

As for the Queen, she's right where most of us prefer: far away, keeping her nose out of politics.

No problem, then. Everything sweet. If it were not, we wouldn't have Parkinson come so often that he gets to lecture us for our national day. Name another country that would be so attractive, welcoming and broadminded.

And the defence of Parky giving the address is much the same. He got asked not because the organisers thought no Australian could do it, but because they thought he'd work. And until he started to meddle in our politics, barely anyone cared that an Englishman was giving the address.

This is exactly the spirit that makes Australia so great and distinctive.

We don't care if you just use a piece of fencing wire to fix the car, as long as it works. We don't care we're you're from, as long as you try to fit in.

We don't care if you look weird, as long as you can play. In fact, we rather like you better if you're a game outsider than a born-to-winner. Think Lionel Rose.

Some recent incidents paint the point.

We had a Victoria Cross pinned to the massive chest of Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, who single-handedly took out two Taliban machinegun positions.

His reasons were very practical and matey: "I just looked across and saw my mates getting ripped up. I just decided to move forward because I wasn't going to sit there and do nothing. I thought I'd have a crack, not to let my mates down."

Note he didn't just show guts but initiative, so prized by those who rate achievement above entitlement.

It wasn't much different - apart from the shooting - in Warracknabeal last week, when floods threatened the Wimmera town. Hardware store owner Richard Wilken rustled up equipment and volunteers to build a 6km levee over three days that saved 170 homes.

Same in Brisbane. When Hurricane Katrina had drowned New Orleans, the TV pictures were filled with people screaming for their government to help. President George Bush was sickened to see even police officers turn to looting instead, and relief convoys had to be sent in with armed guards.

But when Brisbane drowned, the citizens helped themselves. More than 22,000 volunteered the next Saturday to help clean up, queuing with shovels.

What counted was not your position. What counted was what worked, and who. That's Australia, Sir Michael.

So ask not who sits on the throne, but whether she does the job. The rest is just posturing. Most unAustralian.