About twenty years ago I took a phone call from Tony Abbott, who at that time was CEO of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, a group that had been founded a few years previously by Michael Kirby and Lloyd Waddy. I had never met Tony, but we had a close mutual friend in the journalist Gary Scarrabelotti and I guess we felt we knew each other. Anyway, the reason for his call was to ask me to establish a branch of ACM in Tasmania. I agreed, assembled a committee in the days that followed, and got to work. The next…