Queen Elizabeth's snub

Apr 15, 2010, 12:03 GMT

Britain's Queen Elizabeth has been snubbed by Australian war veterans.

Monarchists in the country are up in arms after the British national anthem 'God Save The Queen' was dropped from services for Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) day in the city of Melbourne.

Anzac day is a memorial for the servicemen who died in a World War I battle on the Turkish territory of Gallipoli, celebrated on April 25.

The servicemen in Australia -one of the few remaining territories in the British Commonwealth, voting to keep Elizabeth as head of state under a Constitutional monarchy - have declared the song "no longer relevant", despite it usually being included in their remembrance.

Maj-Gen David McLachlan of the Victoria branch of the RSL (Returned and Services League of Australia) - the biggest organisation for former servicemen in the country - said 'God Save the Queen' is no longer relevant to the younger audience who appear at the Dawn remembrance service.

He told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "It's been shown that the majority of people don't know it at the dawn service, many people say to us afterwards, 'Why do you include it?' "

Countering him, Professor David Flint - a spokesman for the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy - said war veterans would be appalled by the decision.

He said: "You don't just trample all over your traditions. You don't say, well, that's the past, and we're going to get rid of that, otherwise you start doing other things as well, which take away the whole point."

Other RSL branches in Australia will still play the song at their memorials.