Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to add my voice to the others congratulating the Queen on the celebration of her Platinum Jubilee—a remarkable 70 years on the throne, which the Queen acceded to on 6 February 1952. When I think about what has happened during her long reign I can't help but wonder what she has lived through and how the world has completely changed. In 1952 the Second World War had barely finished and its impacts were still being felt across the world, including food and fuel rations in the UK; the Cold War was just starting; television was new and not yet available in Australia; and the sun never set over the British Empire.

Over the coming years the Queen witnessed the space race and the moon landing, the emergence of the European Union from the war-ravaged ruins of Western Europe, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War and both gulf wars. She has witnessed the rise and fall of fax machines and the emergence of mobile telephony and the internet. She has witnessed the first female prime ministers in both Australia and the United Kingdom, though not a second female prime minister here in Australia. Throughout all this change, the Queen has been a symbol of stability and tradition. The very nature of her role as the sovereign serves to contextualise the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of today within a centuries-old polity that has survived and thrived through worse.

Queen Elizabeth II is the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who was also the grandmother of Kaiser Wilhelm II, against whom Australia fought in the First World War, and great-grandmother of the much-fabled Princess Anastasia of Russia, daughter of the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II. Queen Victoria's grandfather was George III, who was king when the British first settled Australia. As monarch, the Queen can trace an uninterrupted line back to Cromwell's Commonwealth in the 17th century and, before that, to the Norman invasion in 1066.

Like many, I share British heritage. In fact, before 2016 I was a dual British citizen, but I am that no longer, and so I am able to serve here.

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