Labor and the leftists need distractions like 'the republic', 'a new flag', 'trash the Marriage Act, NOW!' and 'poisonous carbon dioxide' as political distractions.

Nobody mention Labor's links with the CFMEU. Hush now.

Zipper lips on those 'Struggle Towns', on sustainability, the social and other problems of over-enthusiastic immigration for the 'Big Australia' and so on. There is quite a list and no apologies and definitely no ideas from Labor's policy-free zone, L'il Willie (Whatever She Says) Shorten.

Much easier to be moral BS artists, spruiking gay marriage and so on. All things that Labor had the opportunity to bring in but shied away from during the long troublesome years of Rudd, Galah'd (+treacherous Greens sidekicks) and then Rudd again.

Don't mention this either,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0MHRSFz6FM

Dear Old Man,

Perhaps the country would be better at times to have a non-functioning parliament. Some of the acts of government should not have been done. Perhaps a non-functioning parliament expresses the will of the people.

The last time the issue was raised, it was effectively killed off, although having popular support, by a PM, who wanted the head to be chosen by canberra politicians!

We need our own head of state rather than watch when it comes to trade deals, as ours actively works against our interests if we're in competition with the UK.

Our head of state lives in and represents a country where we, her so called subjects, need passports and visas/work permits to enter, and where former wartime adversaries, Italy and Germany, have more rights and easier access than we do!

It's time to thoroughly formalize that arrangement and just forget what we sacrificed in men and material for the old dart, during times of immense conflict! Little wonder when the tide of floating poppies measure the scale of that sacrifice drew incredulous gasps from ignorant royals and commoners alike!

A republic is just a single first step, we need a uniquely Australian flag (the eureka stockade?) as well, and a constitution that includes an irrevocable bill of rights. As we are one of the remaining democracies? That just doesn't hae one!

(Guaranteed freedoms the very heart and core of modern democracies) Again resisted implacably by control freak politicians?

And given we ever get to be a republic, we need a head of state chosen by we the people, not control freak pollies trying to progressively roll back our liberties, all while trying desperately by all means possible, to avoid essential overdue reform?

Reform which might conceivably impact a little negatively on them and their self serving cohort!?

Other than that, hard to explain the resistance?
Rhrosty.

Yes let's have a republic. That way this disgusting Turnbull bloke could be our first president, just like he planned last time.

Of course we could have a president chosen by the government of the day. They'd love to be able to get rid of one of their more useless members, by kicking them up stairs to a presidential roll, rather than to the US, or UK as an ambassador.

Hey, I've got it. Let's have a president selected by a committee of ratbag academics. Hell we could have a president just as bad as the last few Australian of the year choices have been.

I'll take even bonny prince Charlie any day, in preference to some football playing thug.

Of course we could direct elect them, & get another politician to feed. What a great idea.

Yet another intellectually shallow article by a supposed republican. It has been such a long time since the ALP promoted genuine thinkers into Parliament.

Whether, and to what extent, a republic makes any difference depends entirely on the model adopted.

Perhaps implicit in the claim of ‘no change’ is advocacy for the ultimate minimalist model - retention of a Governor-General appointed by the Prime Minister. But even that suggestion does involve some change. Deprived of the nonsense of representing a monarch who largely ignores politics, in the interests of self-preservation, we would be even more vulnerable to a Governor-General with delusions of grandeur. Just like John Kerr. This danger increases exponentially if the method of selection changes so that the head of state can claim a greater level of support than the Prime Minister.

Minimalism continues, and potentially worsens, a royalist power structure which permits the people who lost the last election to throw out the elected Government, as happened in 1975. This is completely undemocratic, as is every royal power.

That is why Crown power has to be the focus of a republic. We need to examine each Crown power and see whether it should remain when the monarchy is dispatched. The written Constitution gives extraordinary powers to the monarch. We would be foolish in the extreme to just hand them over to someone else without thinking it through.

In a modern democracy there is no need for a head of state like the Crown. A minimalist president would be a substitute monarch; just as useless as the real thing.

Since most still want a head of state who symbolises unity, make that person take the role of speaker in the House. Chairing debates impartially in our most important forum is a worthwhile job which should be done by a new Governor-General of Parliament.

This is set out in the Advancing Democracy model at www.advancingdemocracy.info. Contrary to some comments, there is a fully developed model for reform which does not just remove the Queen, but improves democracy in the process.

I agree with 'Old Man' Emu? . . . The sooner Australia is removed from the fawning servitude attitude that some misguided mortals give the royals [note lowercase royals] who really are not 'deserving' of anything by their birth other than common respect given to all civilized human beings, instead of media-driven hyped-up 'celebrity status' the happier I will be. Australian troops have been used by the English as "cannon fodder" when it suited, "Eh I say Prime Minister what shall we do about that Dardanelles problem? I know send over some of those Colonials and if we [sorry I mean they stuff up] we can just wash our hands of the motley lot until next time we need them to defend 'The Land of Hope & Glory - Mother of the Free'. Get real - Colonial England subjugated half the 'free of the world' for their own nefarious trading purposes. Ditch the royal establishment as soon as possible and have an Australian Head of State" to keep the various PM political bas - -rds- to account when they get too big for their own boots including impeachment if need be aka honourable? Tricky Dicky Nixon of the land of "In God We Trust"- but only when it suits us.