Life has its milestones and for many Australians, the coronation of King Charles III will be one of them. The occasion will be something they want to commit to memory, just as a now-dwindling number of them did when the late Queen Elizabeth was crowned in 1953.
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They'll be drawn by the spectacle and the sense they are witnessing history. Unlike the Queen's coronation 70 years ago, three years before Australia's first TV broadcast, they'll be able to watch proceedings live in their living rooms. They won't have to wait for the Cinesound or Movietone newsreels at the cinema to cast eyes on the grainy black and white highlights.
It's not only the technology that's evolved since the last coronation. Attitudes to many things, including the monarchy, have changed.
An Australian in 1953 would find their country unrecognisable in 2023. Politically, socially and culturally, we're a different nation. We've embraced multiculturalism. We've begun to recognise and celebrate the ancient culture of the First Nations people. And over the years, despite our lingering fondness for the United Kingdom, we've accepted our place in the Indo-Pacific, as geography dictates we must.
And with that evolution has come an inevitable questioning of the relevance of our constitutional ties to the British monarchy. While its pomp and ceremony might reaffirm the relevance of the monarchy to Australia in some minds, this coronation will also fuel an appetite for change. Its eye-watering expense at a time when Britons, like us, are confronting a suffocating cost of living crisis have some in that country asking questions.
Here, those questions are likely to grow more insistent as we watch in exquisite detail an occasion steeped in notions of class, entitlement and servitude - all anathema to our own sense of equality and the fair go.
Although everyone in the Commonwealth has been invited to take part in the Homage of the People and swear allegiance to the King, it's hard to imagine very many Australians will take up the offer. Most swearing will be from those watching who think it is well past time for us to mature as a nation, ditch the monarchy and have our own head of state.
When the long reign of Queen Elizabeth came to an end last year, respect for the person rather than the institution - riven by scandal and vicious infighting - kept talk of the republic muted.
But it won't stay quiet for long.
The historical significance of this weekend will not, for modern Australia anyway, be a renewal of vows. The grandeur of the occasion and the ancient rituals will be entertaining but won't reinvigorate the monarchy for most. The coronation will instead consign the institution to the past, where it ought to be for a country well able to stand on its own two feet, with its own destiny, its own values and its own head of state.
If history is written in chapters, for Australia, the crowning of King Charles represents the end of one and the beginning of another. Work on the new chapter is already under way, with changes to the constitution - recognition of First Nations people and the enshrining of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament - to be put to the vote this year.
During the course of King Charles' reign, we must strive for a sensible conversation about the monarchy and a decision on our ties to it. By the time the next coronation rolls around - biology dictates it will be in the next two decades - it is to be hoped Australia will be watching the spectacle with interest and perhaps some fondness but also as citizens of a proud republic.
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