Why I don't want a republic. I don't want Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Peter Costello, Alexander Downer, Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd or any other party political hack to be head of state.

I don't want a head of state who will be drawn non-democratically from a small group of millionaire oligarchs, as happens in the USA.

I don't want to waste my taxes on the sort of stupid presidential election held every 4 years in the USA.

I don't want a head of state beholden to corporate interests through election-funding, as happens in the USA and no doubt elsewhere.

I don't want a George Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower or anyone like most of the past Presidents of the USA as head of state, or for that matter a Putim, Mao or Mugabe.

Whom does this leave?. Either me, or the Windsors, as head of state. Take your pick. Or we could outsource the job to the King of Thailand on contract, as he seems a prety good king. Or perhaps Princess Mary of Tasmania and Denmark would be so kind as to do the job for us.

if the governor general does his job, as john kerr did, he acts as a circuit breaker when the politicians try to lead the country in ways not presaged by their electoral platform, or in defiance of law.

that is why the pollies are outraged by the notion of an elected governor general, for he would be the tribune of the people. since the gg can only say: "stop, check this with the people", he can do nothing but guard the people from parliamentary excess.

so if we had a 'president' elected by the people with this power, a republic would be welcomed by most. until we have this kind of republic on offer, better to stick with the monarchy. the governor general may be a eunuch by character, but the legal power to protect the people is there. perhaps in a crisis, the gg might discover some spine.

Put the monarchy into museum. It is shameful for Australia, the head of the state to be a foreign monarch. We want our leaders to be elected, from the lowest to the top federal level. We want our elected head of the state to live permanent in Australia and obey ONLY to Australian law. It is shameful the monarch of UK to be the head of our country. It is shameful our head of the state to live overseas and obey to the law of an other country. Let's finish the soonest possible with the monarchy in Australia.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

ASymeonakis your understanding of our Constitution is on a par with your use of the English language.
We already have the backbone of a republic dressed up as a Constitutional Monarchy and the Deputy Governor General is one of the ruling anointed ones pulling the strings behind the closed doors in his position as the Chief Justice of the High Court that very rarely sits as the High Court of Australia but these ruling elite prefer to conduct themselves in a manner not in accordance with the Aust Constitution when pretending to exercise judicial power.
When it suits them and the fascists behind the scenes they conduct their own private administrative hearings when the subject matter has a direct consequence of the ruling fascist bureaucrats and they dress the hearings up as judicial hearings.
What lawyer would dare risk ending his profession by exposing the vile offensive conduct of these people who just ignore the will of the people and do exactly as they like regardless of the will of the people reflected in the acts passed by the Parliament.
Rudd was one of the senior bureaucrats who had implemented the same scams in Queensland so why would he want to change anything that is run in accordance with the policies of the public service of which he was a senior member of in Queensland.

I don't know what is wrong with posters in this forum, but I will have to repeat what I consider to be the four principles of Australian democracy:

1. The government is the ENEMY of the PEOPLE, and can never be trusted.
2. No taxation with or without representation, with any deficiency in government accounts being made up from the sale of politician’s assets.
3. The main problem with elections is that no matter whom you vote for, a POLITICIAN is ALWAYS elected.
4. ALWAYS vote NO at referendums.

Why is it so difficult for people to see that people LOVE to see politicians (particularly arrogant ones like Keating) HUMILITATED?

In the only election that Keating won (1993) the desire to humilitate Keating was outweighed by a stronger desire, that of not paying tax (the 15% gst that Hewson was stupid enough to promote).

When people were driven to vomit by Keating's arrogance, at least they could draw comfort from the fact that on 11/11/1975 Keating was dismissed by Her Majesty's representative from the position of minister for Northern Australia.

This means that a significant (I believe a majority) of people love that fact that federal ministers hold office during the pleasure of Her Majesty's representative, and can be dismissed whenever they displease him.

Now none of this means that I am totally opposed to a republic; however there has to be a payoff, a price for which it is desirable to sell the Queen. I have my price; it is citizen initiated referendum. If that were to be offered in a package which included a republic, I would be tempted to vote for it. It would have to be in the package, because I would not trust any politician to implement it on its own.

What it would mean is that the people could enact a policy into law in the teeth of the opposition of the entire political and legal elites.

Of course the first such referendum would have to be on bringing back hanging.