Following are some of my thoughts on a method of electing a head of state.

“The people should vote in a single national electorate, by an optional preferential ballot voting, from five nominees, creating the ‘Peoples’ Choice’ of the Head of State”.

The nation should remain known as ‘The Commonwealth of Australia’ (and not ‘The Republic’). This will ease any thought in the public’s mind of a major change and limit the cost of change within the public service; it also ensures that our Head of State is effectually disengaged from the ‘The Crown of the United Kingdom’ whilst maintaining our unique form of Westminster Government.

My reading of the Australian public is they would applaud an Australian Head of State but would not countenance any monumental change in our fundamental and proven form of government.

Due to emigration, the last 70 years has seen a great proportion of our current population having no historic links with Great Britain.

This will require a number of years as it must be in accord with the normal electoral cycle to offset excessive cost, the point of cost will be elevated by the monarchists.

On the subject of electing a Head of State, the powers of the office should be tightly clarified in the constitution as a ceremonial position, viz;

As ‘Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces’
Chair of the Executive Council with the instrument to effect legislation.

The commissioning of members of the High Court on advice of the Executive
Government as contained in the Constitution, plus;

To be Principal Companion and Administrator of the ‘Order of Australia’

‘Head of State - The Thread that Binds the Fabric’; the position should be ‘The Conduit–The Trinity’ between The Parliament, The Executive and The Judiciary.

The position should remain known as Governor General so as to maintain the status quo and thus eliminating any false misunderstanding that the Head of State (or ‘President’) usurps the Executive Government

I won’t be supporting any proposal for a popular election for a head of state for a few reasons.
1. It would probably limit the contenders to those who have or can command the considerable wealth needed to fund the kind of campaign that appears to be essential for success in a popular vote (compare the US) — only the independently wealthy or those who can gain political party endorsement need apply.
2. It could elevate someone who is popular, or who is a darling of the shock jocks, irrespective of whether they are politically competent and unbiased.
3. It would surely lead to trouble between the head of government and the head of state if both could claim to have a people’s mandate to impose their views.
Of the selection methods canvassed so far, the system that looks best able to avoid these problems is appointing the head of state by the agreement of at least two-thirds of the elected members of parliament. The fact that neither side of politics is ever likely to command two-thirds of the elected members means that both sides would have to agree on an appointee, and that gives probably the best chance we have of ensuring that the head of state will be both competent and unbiased.

You don't have to go back to Charles 1. English Kings made strikingt interventions into British politics in the 20th century--to ensure the passage of the budget in 1912 when the House of Lords threatened to reject it right after the Liberal Party had wpn an election; and later, to ensure that no member of the House of Lords would be Prime Minister. These were not trivial interventions--in the first case, the King was prepared to appoint enough new peers to ensure the carriage of the budget. The claim that the monarch never intervenes is simple rubbish.

There is nothing but recent tradition to prevent a King of Queen from refusing the royal consent to a bill, dismissing the Prime Minister, or usi9ng other 'reserve' powers. They need to be restricted, whether or not we retain the monarchy.

Indeed. To have my argument labelled "facile" by Mr Cooke, with him not knowing the powers granted by the monarch expressly in our Constitution is a bit rich.

And, just for the record, like most people in the ARM these days,I personally support the direct election of a non-executive head of state. It works in many other similar systems, such as the Irish and Icelandic, where the non-executive President does NOT challenge the mandate of a Government. No risk. This is a monarchist smokescreen and is easily refutable because we can see that it works elsewhere.

There is a much better republican structure that the ARM refuses to consider and that is the constitution of the largest democratic republic in the world namely India. I put an article up on OLO about it.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7503&page=1

Directly elected presidents with the Westminster structure are particularly dangerous and no Westminster elected Prime Minister will ever consider a directly elected President.

And you could counter Iceland and Ireland (two world class economies) with France which since 1789 already is on its 5th republic and during that time has had two restorations and two empires.

My chief concern with a popularly-elected president is one of eligibility. While it would no doubt stand that all Australian citizens would be eligible to stand for the presidency, as GlenC noted very few of us could muster up the funds for an effective campaign. Without careful regulation and a tried-and-true steamroller to level the playing field, we would either have to choose between political party cronies and the super-rich.

To that end, one thing I do like about our current system is the fact that our executive is not - as is the case in the USA - necessarily aligned with a political party. I would like to see this preserved: indeed, I'd like to see (if we adopt a republican model) a requirement that our head of state is not a member of a political party. This, with a properly-developed and enforced electoral system, could prevent the head of state (whatever we call the position) from being a simple puppet. Even if the role simply involved serving cucumber sandwiches and christening ships, it would be nice to see it maintain some dignity - something party politics in Australia has consistently failed to do.