David Smith is wrong . Section 1 of the Constitution provides that the legislative power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and the Parliament .

S.61 of the Constitution provides that the executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor General as the Queen 's representative . S.126 provides that the Queen may authorise the Governor General to appoint deputies .

Although the Constitution does not mention the term " head of state " it is clear , from ordinary usage , that it is the Queen . It cannot be the Governor General because she can be appointed only by the
Queen .

The Constitution also does not mention the term " sovereign " which is an irrelevant term in the republican debate .

The monarchy is as irrelevant and archaic as a knighthood and needs to be deleted from our Constitution in the interest of national self -respect .

Who the H*ll cares who the head of state is, it's a total irrelevance in todays world. It would be a good idea to transfer little Julia into the job, she could not do much damage there.

However jaylex has a real problem. Any one who's national self respect depends on changing our constitution, with the attendant great cost, & confusion the legal fraternity would generate, has a serious ego problem. This is one problem to which the thousand year test should be applied.

It would be nice if these people would find a more worthy cause to pursue.

A better cause would be to promote a new law prohibiting any Governors General from ever again wearing a pastel coloured suit.

Even better, a law preventing any woman, in public office having access to hair dye, punishable by banning from TV.

What appalling nonsense!

Allegedly, "the unanimous judgment of the High Court of Australia on 8 August 1907 in The King v The Governor of the State of South Australia. ... They ruled that the Queen is the Sovereign and that the Governor-General is the constitutional head of the Commonwealth of Australia."

Fortunately it is possible to look up that case, it's at
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1907/31.html

It doesn't even mention the word "Queen" (not surprisingly, since there was a King, not a Queen, at the time). It mentions the word "Sovereign", but says nothing about who that was (not surprisingly, since it's hard to see how there would be any argument about it).

More importantly, although it describes the G-G as the "Constitutional Head of the Commonwealth" this is not key to the decision, but rather it is just describing the context of the legislation in question - specifically comparing/contrasting his role with that of the Governor of a state. And the legislation in question referred to the "Governor-General". In short it didn't matter to the decision whether he was "Head of State" (of the Commonwealth) or not. What lawyers call "obiter" - not decisive of an issue because it was not the issue that the court, and the counsel arguing the case, were concentrating on.

Further, mostly the court used the (analogous) phrase "Constitutional Head of the State" (ie, State like South Australia) for the state Governor. If the court was saying what Smith thinks, it was also saying that the Governor was the "Head of State" of South Australia. Given that elsewhere Smith relies on Australia (Commonwealth) having been different from New Zealand and Canada, this seems unlikely, to say the least.

Sir David Smith,

It does no ‘porch’ nor ‘Light’ to me, ordinary working man, if the Queen or Sovereign or her Governor General are the head of the Australian State.

It doesn’t matter to me if Australia has a Constitution or hasn’t as, so far, nobody has told me why I need a ‘constitution’ and what the ‘State’ is’.

I typed ‘constitution’ on my search engine and got a long script that I tried to read but found it hard to understand. I tried few times, but somehow in the middle of my efforts I had to give up; not enough brains in my head, I thought.

But then from the media I gathered that it wasn’t only me brains ‘not up to it’, many other university graduated, in fact many luminaries and academics could not make head or tale of it.

Sir David Smith,

When you get some time free from the work you are doing now, kindly tell the people who read this ‘On Line Opinion” what the constitution is, what the State is and why we need to have them.

Before we become a republic,we need now to work out a real constitution that defines rights and responsibilities of individuals,Govt and corporations.

The USA used to have a great constitution,but the Corporate Banking/Wall St interests have dismantled it.In 1913 with the instigation of the Private US Federal Reserve, began an era of looting and wars that still continue to this day.The Central Banksters have absolute power over our Govts and corporations.

It seems clear to me that Elizabeth II is the Head of State of Australia and that the Governor-General assumes this mantle when acting as her Representative.

The present Gov-Gen. may well be our First Lady as the Queen is ranked as a Monarch and not a Lady.

Yours' pedantically,

Is Mise.