While I would vote ‘Yes’ to the question of an Australian Head of State, the far more important question is what should be the role and powers of the position.

The strategy of Keating, Turnbull and the ARM has been wrong all along. It dumbs down a major constitutional change into a simple question of Australian identity. No wonder that most of us, who already feel Australian enough, are not convinced this is a pressing issue.

In truth it is a pressing issue, because the monarchy is the chief source of instability in our political system. We are about to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1975 dismissal. That was achieved through an exercise of Crown powers - the power to appoint and remove Ministers, and the power to call elections. Think of the upheaval that caused.

Forty years later there is still no agreement about whether the actions in 1975 were legally correct, because the law governing Crown powers is so unclear. This makes no sense at all, since all Crown powers are actually exercised at the initiative of local politicians, as they were in 1975. The idea of the Crown being an umpire is a myth.

Previously it was thought that unwritten conventions limited how the Crown could exercise its powers. 1975 threw that out the window, when the democratic convention that the majority in the House of Representatives was entitled to govern was overridden through reliance on the written words in the Constitution. If conventions do not restrain Crown power, nothing does. Why then do so many republicans want to hand that power to a so-called president?

One third of our Constitution confers power or a role on the monarchy. They are not ceremonial roles. Having a duplicated system, where Government decisions are implemented through recommendations to a Governor-General who then performs the legalities, creates instability whenever the Governor-General chooses not to act on advice. The potential for instability is embedded in the system.

Forget the ARM. This country needs a reform with serious intellectual depth. You will find it in the Advancing Democracy model - www.advancingdemocracy.info.

Just to be my usual pedantic self, no country, other than the USA, has ever had the Union Jack on its flag.

This person certainly loves Fitzsimons. His fawning description makes the real character unrecognizable. Fitzsimons, apparently, is bigger tha Ben Hur and JC put together; he is going to "win".

Mr. Compton goes on to say that two thirds of Commonwealth countries are republics, without mentioning that those countries are Third World, non-English speaking, Brit-hating shows, and that many of them are an embarrassment to the Commonwealth, rule of law, and democratic ideals. Nor does he qualify his claim of "30,000 indigenous people..slaughtered". Where, when and how? And what has such wild talk got to do with 'the republic'.

How the man can can describe himself as a "proud Aussie" when he holds the country in such contempt is a mystery. He seems to be as vapid and ridiculous as his hero with the Geronimo head gear.

Perhaps we should be more honest with the name(s) which are used to frame this debate/argument.
I would therefore suggest that we should quite rightly call all of the former British colonies as the STOLEN-wealth countries. Because stealing the lands and resources (the wealth) is precisely and exactly what the Brits did (and are stilling doing to one degree or another) to all of their colonies.
Check out references to the book Britain's Empire by Richard Gott for instance. A book which describes the blood-soaked on-the-ground reality.

All of the European colonial powers did of course do exactly the same thing. Google The European Scramble for Africa for the time-lines and details.

Solicitation for money on this web-site, as does the author ("and become a financial member today"), is usually considered SPAM and removed.

All for the distasteful offer of "You will be an active participant in creating a new future for a proud and independent nation."

He could just as well have offered us: "You will be an active participant in trafficking young girls for our proud and independent brothels", because forcing the concept of "nation" over all the innocent people of the land is akin to rape.

Compton is clearly over-enthusiastic and I doubt his desire will arrive soon.

The reality is that it will take a single death for Australia to move to become a 'republic'. At present there is limited monarchical interference in Australian affairs and the main issue is the international embarrassment of sharing a head of state with a colonial power. But the future King Charles has already demonstrated a willingness to interfere with government in attempts to get his nutty ideas adopted.