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- WORLD, Page 41World NotesAUSTRALIAThose Wild Colonial Boys
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- Prime Minister Paul Keating started it, that's for sure.
- First he violated protocol by putting his arm on Queen Elizabeth's
- back during her visit to Australia last week. Then he hinted
- that the country might become a republic, which would end the
- Queen's role as head of state.
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- Britain's rowdy tabloids had a field day, with headlines
- like HANDS ORF, COBBER! and Australian political foes accused
- him of disrespect. Keating retorted that he had learned
- "self-regard for Australia, and not some cultural cringe" toward
- Britain. He repeated the hoary complaint that Britain's swift
- loss of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 had left Australia
- defenseless.
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- In London, British Defense Secretary Tom King called
- Keating's charge "historically quite inaccurate." Keating's
- rudeness, snapped Terry Dicks, a Conservative, was unsurprising
- in "a country of ex-convicts," a reference to the British penal
- colonies started there in the 18th century. The Labor Party's
- Ted Leadbitter denounced Keating as "an utter buffoon." The
- Queen let it be known she would have no comment.
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