I come back to my original post - which model are republicans behind? The voter election model or the selection by somebody or other. There seems to some difference among the ranks.
Get behind your preferred model and you are in with a chance at a referendum. Until then stop bleating, it gets irritating.

Such polls a have been taken, suggest that only the voter elected head of state has a chance at a referendum, suggesting anything else is a sure fire recipe to once again kill the idea stillborn!

Even so, this would need to be one where we take several steps, the first being, do we want to be a self governing republic, replete with an Australian head of state!

Get that once across the line and time enough to settle on the either either preferred means!

Let's not get the cart before the horse like last time, only to see the idea shot down i flames, by the clever use of judicious words and the lack of voters real choice?
Rhrosty.

Governments govern, heads of state keep them in check, playing a sort of night-watchman role. In other words, they should have no activist role, they just exist to make sure the government of the day doesn't do anything illegal or totally stupid.

As a republican, I'm happy with whoever is the monarch back in the UK filling that role. I just don't trust any other mechanism to work, either a president chosen by Parliament (or even by both Houses of Parliament together), or a popularly-elected President.

But let's have a referendum about it - in fact, let's clear the decks and have two referendums/referenda on election day, as well as a plebiscite:

* a plebiscite on homosexual 'marriage', with all the options spelt out;

* a referendum on a republic, with all the options spelt out;

and

* a referendum on 'Recognition', with all the options spelt out.

as well as an election.

Let's just get these idiocies out of the way, for another generation or so, so that governments can get on with governing.

Joe

Sorry Rhrosty, you're simply wrong. Not nearly right or part wrong. Completely wrong. Vague assertions that Hansard, somewhere somehow will support your fiction is just mere clutching at straws.

The question put to the people wasn't designed by Howard but by Turnbull and his supporters. Again, given that you lived through it, I'd be fascinated to find out how it is that you (and its not just you but thousands of others)have come to convince yourselves of a complete fiction.

If you want to refresh your memory of what really happened, there are many places. Wikipedia is as good as any:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Constitutional_Convention_1998

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_republic_referendum,_1999

Dear Loudmouth,

I challenge your assertion about the role of the head of state being to keep Governments in check.

This is not what happens at present. The Queen and Governor-General generally do nothing except sign what they’re told to sign. The Constitution does not say their role is to keep the Government in check, and it provides no criteria guiding how the monarchy could judge what was “totally stupid” Government action.

Nor should this become the head of state’s role. The roles suggested are in fact held by other institutions. Parliament keeps the Government ‘in check’, and courts decide matters of legality. The role you suggest is utterly superfluous.

It is also highly undemocratic. Each person in the House of Representatives is one of our representatives. You cannot get there except by an open vote. You cannot inherit the position. Why should one person, a head of state, presume to override the decision of all members of the House?

Finally, it is impractical. Modern government is a team sport. No one person is capable of comprehending all the detail of every aspect of government and acting as a ‘check’. All that such a role would do is provide an undemocratic way of frustrating an elected government, as occurred in 1975.

As for ‘not trusting’ any other mechanism, this reflects your mindset rather than any aspect of reality. It is fashionable today to denigrate anyone we ourselves elect. This is nothing more than a manifestation of the irrationalism which has gripped the nation over the last 20 years or so.

Sorry if this comes across as a bit blunt; but it is about time we started to trust our own abilities to make difficult decisions and to vote for those who will implement them.

Hi Phillip,

I should imagine that the Queen, and the G-G, would both have teams of lawyers looking over everything that any government was trying to do as a matter of routine (and that governments know it), and that private messages go flying back and forth far more than we're aware of.

God, I wish this was an issue I gave more than a toss about. There are vastly more important matters that need attention. Closing the Gap and getting people working in their own interests, i.e. genuine self-determination, for one.

Joe