Good piece. But I suspect the reason we are not already a republic is not because the majority doesn't want one, but because we can't agree on the details.

This is a critical impasse, of course, because we still need to define the seat (or seats) of real power in the future. And power, or its absence, is a far greater force today than ever before, in our increasingly politician-driven culture.

If our leaders demonstrated a higher level of disinterest in power for its own sake, a greater sense of duty, obligation and responsibility to the Australian population at large, and actively subordinated their personal ambitions in favour of the common good, maybe we could trust them more with the changes necessary to form a properly functioning democratic republic.

And pigs may fly.

Ah an Australian Republic One of the great - "Who Cares" questions of modern times -

The benefits of a head of state who lives overseas is we don't need to spend up on "maintaining the trappings"

Republic or Monarchy - it is as significant a decision concerning pink versus blue toilet paper - a topic close to the heart of the obsessive and irrelevant to the rational.

It's far from clear that the Australian people have a consistent view on what kind of republic they want to be. The 1999 referendum offered a choice between keeping the monarchy, and having a government appointed head of state. Apparently, the people preferred the monarchy.

But would the result have been any different if the choice had been between a monarchy and an elected president. Not everyone thinks the latter course is desirable either. I do not favour a system where we could end up with a soapy star as president.

Some proponents of a republic suggest we first vote on whether to have a republic, and then vote on what sort it should be. That's a smoke and mirrors trick to get a republic by constructing a false dichotomy. I think many people would feel badly mislead at the end of that proceess.

The closest to a democratic solution would be a preference vote across the three options. However, to do that we'd first have to change the constitution to allow referenda to be expressed in that form.

Maybe it's all too hard, and not worth doing anyway. Would the change affect my quality of life at all?

I doubt it.

Sylvia.

If we changed to a republic we would lose one of our main means of measuring the moral worth of our federal politicians, the oath of allegiance. This oath is written into the Constitution, and cannot be removed without a vote of the people. When one of our hard-core republicans gets up in Parliament, as they did in February, and swears on oath they they will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, we can make a judgement, as to whether he is being truthful and sincere, or whether he is lying in his teeth. Why is it so difficult for the political elites in this country to realise how the people feel about politicians? How wonderful it is to kick the establishment in the teeth with a "NO" vote in a referendum; how lucky we are that Switzerland is the only other country where the text of the Constitution can only be changed by the people.

Only a complete moron (and here please I am not referring to the author at all) could possibly believe we are still in thrall to England, in fact the poms are probably 'enthralled' by us, given how many want to live here..

Using an analogy between written independence and a medals tally only serves to emphasise how separate we really are already from Great Britain. We love sport, we love beer and we love this country -who needs to go on and on about it? There are so many more vital things to worry about today. Formal separation in the form of a republic will no doubt come soon enough as the paperwork slowly catches up with what we know already.

And anyway, I dislike constant battering of the poms, just because some of us want to move out of home, doesn't mean we have to be rude to our parents when we do it. We have a lot to thank them for, not the least for the westminster system, a self-deprecating sense of humour, scepticism of politicians, the cricket (bloody hell, they beat us this week!!@#$%)and of course, sending us out here in the first place - good one.

I liked how it was put during (not at) the republican convention a few years ago...

Head of State...Whaddya want, a figurehead or dick head?

Can someone tell me why we can't have a group of people as head of state? I once read that Fiji has an indigenous council which acts as head of state. I think we could do something like that in Australia. What a great way to reconcile with Australia's Indigenous people and honour all of our nation's true beginnings? These representatives (say ten) could do the usual rounds and they could spread the load across the nation. Don't go and get all stroppy on me all you monarchists - my Dad had the flag draped over his coffin - just throwing ideas into the wind. To be truly reconcillitory we need to include the monarchists. I think you are wrong to exclude the monarchy Peter. I think the stable example that monarchy can offer can be of great benefit to our youth. Besides republics still kind of scare the crap out of me. Perhaps our monarch just needs to gracefully hand over her responsibilities to an Indigenous council and give the new heads of state her blessings. Any other ideas.

Peter van Vliet has brought up an old but still unresolved topic, and why not? Growing up means taking on full responsibility for ourselves in every area of policy, and it's precisely this that Australia has been doing de facto for quite some time now.
Rather than handing over tax-payers' funds to finance our various governors-general on federal and state levels, why not spend the money more responsibly on an Australian head of state? An office titled "Federal President" and adorned with appropriate ceremonial and symbolic functions, as well as a few supervisory powers providing checks and balances on the doings of the House of Reps and the Senate, would seem to me a more than practical way forward.
Check out the way the Federal Republic of Germany does this at present. Its Federal President is elected by a combined vote of both houses of the federal parliament. The elected candidate stands above party politics and thus has the respect of the majority of the German population. The Federal President safeguards the Constitution, rather than getting his/her hands dirty in the rough and tumble of everyday politics.
Why shouldn't Australia take a leaf out of this book?

Peter van Vliet,
Could I ask what is your national/political heritage? Could that in any way influence your opinion on a Westminster Parliament under an (English) Monarch?

Quote, "An Australian republic would remain a member of the Commonwealth, but better still, an equal partner standing on its own two feet. We would join a majority of Commonwealth nations that reject monarchy as an organising principle."

The phrase, "an equal partner standing on its own two feet" is a Republican catch-cry. The English Parliament has no power over decisions made by the Australian Parliament as it exists today. We are totally independent of England and its powers. The Queen of Australia, and her Australian appointed Governors is totally independent of any powers of the English Government.

The monarchy is not the organising principle of the Australian Constitution. She is the figure-head (Crown) representing the people of Australia within a Westminster system and herself swears allegiance to serve the people with the help of God under that system of structured powers. A heridetary head of state has the advantage of not soliciting appointment by political populatity, and remains in the background as a regal person independent of any party political agenda to opressively rule over the will of the people.

I wonder if Australians would be happy to appoint a new Queen Mary from Tasmania, as head of Australia? I am wondering if emotion has more to do with their decision than the actual system?

Me dear Philo,
Have you forgotten the events of 1975? In the Queen's name, the Australian representative of the UK's monarchy sacked a government democratically-elected by the majority of the Australian people and turfed it out of office. Not only this power remains in the hands of the governor-general, but one must also take account the fact that, according to the Westminster Statute that poses as our constitution, the Queen of the UK is the Head of Australia's armed forces.
These two facts alone constitute more than enough reason to get our house in order by placing ourselves on the same political level as the UK - that is, on an independent level.
Like other commentators here, I'm a great admirer of the Commonwealth as a positive force in international politics, and I'm a dedicated friend of the British people (my father is one). This doesn't mean, however, that the land I was born in and brought up in should not be an independent country. I would never dream of asking the British to accept the final say of an Australian head of state in regard to the workability of its parliament. Conversely, I can't tolerate the British monarchy's rights over my parliament and the representatives that I elect with my vote.

Monarchy or Rupublic? For me these are minor issues - this country must first attend to the illegalities of acquistion and unrecognised Aboriginal soveriegnty. Mabo did not address these fundamental issues in law and statehood and it continues to be a loose hanging thread in arguements for a civil society.

Bail Up,
It may be so that the Queen of Australia is also Queen of New Zealand and Queen of England, Scotland and Wales. The role of the Governor General is to protect the best interests of the people of Australia by calling an election. This is exactly what happened and the people of Australia also put their seal on the decision Sir John Kerr made. No I havn't forgotten as an original Pickering pen cartoon hangs on my wall as a reminder of that event.

Quote, "Have you forgotten the events of 1975? In the Queen's name, the Australian representative of the UK's monarchy sacked a government democratically-elected by the majority of the Australian people and turfed it out of office."

Quote, "Not only this power remains in the hands of the governor-general, but one must also take account the fact that, according to the Westminster Statute that poses as our constitution, the Queen of the UK is the Head of Australia's armed forces".

Since when has the UK Queen led the Australian armed forces? The Australian Head of State vested with the power of the people (the Crown) - is the Governor General.

Philo, here are some remarks by Ninian Stephen on the matter, made in 1983. They confirm your point about the Governor-General, but the point remains unanswered: why should the Queen's representative wield this power in the name of the monarchy?
“In 1983, writing of the independence of the Governor-General and of the example which, in this regard, the United Kingdom might provide, the writer of a series of Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence commented:
“As an extreme example of this the Sovereign has the power to influence or even to deny the use of the armed forces if it is clear that the government of the day intends that the armed services should be used for purely political ends of a domestic nature”.
Section 68 of our constitution, he writes, “should be read as vestment of a command authority exactly the same as that enjoyed by the Sovereign in the United Kingdom”; and later “But in the command sense the Minister has no part to play in the actual command of the armed services. The chain of command must be direct from the Senior Service Officer vested with command direct to the Governor-General”. The conclusion arrived at is that:
“Parliament must control the armed services but command of the armed services must lie to the Governor-General acting without the advice of the Executive Council”.
Views much at variance are, then, to be found about the position of the Governor-General as commander-in-chief; they range all the way from “no more than a glorified patron” to one who, as the ultimate possessor of the command function, waits, finger on the fatal button, for the report of the Senior Service Officer.”

Philo, could you please tell me why the Australian Prime Minister should not have the right to dismiss the Westminster Parliament if he considers that the party in power is not serving the interests of the British people?

Bail Up,
You ask, "why should the Queen's representative wield this power in the name of the monarchy?"

It would appear you are not familiar with British history, and the power of the people as vested in the crown. The power of the monarch was taken away and given to the people. The Monarch now merely represents the people to protect them from dictators and bad law introduced by Governments. The monarch is the signatory for the people of laws introduced by parliaments, and the keeper of the keys of the parliament, able to install and dismiss governments on behalf of the people. She no longer has direct power to rule over the people. The Queen represents the people, and the Governor General holds that role of representing the people of Australia.

You ask, "could you please tell me why the Australian Prime Minister should not have the right to dismiss the Westminster Parliament if he considers that the party in power is not serving the interests of the British people?"

The Prime Minister in Britain and the Prime Minister of Australia are ministers of two different Governments and of two different nations. They are independently appointed upon Party political agenda and form laws independently for two different peoples/nations. The Crown cannot of itself form laws to be administered over the people. The Australian Governor General representing the crown of Australia can only act on behalf of the people of Australia. The limit of powers and role of the crown are separate and different between Australia and Great Britain. One parliament cannot override the power of another; their powers are not linked.

I realise you want a popularly elected President, but in the current World climate there is not much more than 50% support of the democratically elected President by the people of any Nation. The Crown offers a consistent stability not changed by volatile political situations.

Philo,
if you read my previous contributions carefully, you'll note that I'm not at all for a popularly elected Australian Federal President. I don't wish to change our voting system, nor do I see the need for this (unless one can find some way of using a well-proportioned dose of proportional representation in combination with our present preferential voting system - but that's quite another argument for quite another day).
No I would like to see an Australian Federal President elected by a joint sitting of the members of both Houses of Parliament in Canberra for a term of five years, and with the proviso that a maximum of two such 5-year terms of office may be served. Candidates for such an election should be independent, non-party-affiliated individuals who have excelled in some way in Australian public life, and who can be seen as standing above party politics. They should be nominated by MPs of the Federal Parliament, but must not be members of parliament themselves. The job of the successful candidate would be, in the first instance, to oversee and protect the rights of the Australian Constitution.
For the decking out of such an office with certain powers (and the attendant limitation of such powers), please see my previous postings.

Pity all the energy spent on the republic debate could not have been devoted to improving our system of government.
We seem to have settled for a system of government where we are consulted once every three years and ignored for the rest of the time.
If we could change the present system so that we(the people), would have to be consulted more often (by referendum), then we would have a system nearer to a democracy than the present system.
The Swiss have not been to war for over 150 years and this may be because their politicians would not be allowed a war without first haveing to hold a referndum.
It would not be necessary to choose between a figurehead or an elected head.

As I suspected, this discussion has absolutely nowhere to go. What is sad is the complete lack of originality in the argumentation - even the obligatory reference to Saint Gough's electoral ghost was inaccurate...

"the Australian representative of the UK's monarchy sacked a government democratically-elected by the majority of the Australian people and turfed it out of office"

Well, almost, Bail Up, almost. Gough scored 49.3% of those who turned out in 1974, but only 95.4% of eligible voters did so. The full story is that 3,644,110 people voted for the ALP, and 3,889,658 didn't. And when they went back to the polls the next year, the story was 3,313,004 voted for him and 4,568,869 didn't.

If you rely on the voting public to support your argument, exactly at what point do you determine your working definition of democracy? If you make the assumption that those who weren't supporting him were against him, John Kerr did the Australian electorate proud.

The point here is not to attack Whitlam or defend Kerr, but to point out that constitutional issues can so easily be reduced to the mundane.

The only way we will achieve a republic in Australia is if an elected government first defines and describes it, then succeeds in pushing it through our parliamentary process.

And forget "the people's president", we would be the laughing stock of the civilized world.

"Candidates for such an election should be independent, non-party-affiliated individuals who have excelled in some way in Australian public life, and who can be seen as standing above party politics."

Just for interest's sake, and to demonstrate the difficulty of such a simple-sounding process... name one.

Sir Les Paterson?
http://www.postnewspapers.com.au/20030621/impressions/images/imp_paterson.jpg

There is nothing odd or anachronistic about Australia sharing a monarchy with New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom: we are members of the same family, built on the same basic values, culture and institutions. The republican desire to cut these family ties has nothing to do with “growing up” and everything to do with chucking a collective adolescent fit, slamming the door and shouting “I’m a big boy now and I don’t love you anymore”.

If the leaders of federation had been as parochial as today’s republicans, the idea would never have got off the ground. If Queenslanders, Tasmanians, Victorians and so on had all insisted on a head of state that was “one of us”, we would now have half a dozen heads of state of half a dozen separate countries, instead of one Australia.

Maturity in the 1890s meant setting aside small differences and recognising how much more sense it makes to work together. Maturity in the 2000s would mean much the same thing: in an increasingly globalised world, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK (CANZUK) should be working together, not finding ways to push each other apart.

Ian Alexander
Federal Commonwealth Society

Ian,
A good argument. I totally agree!

Ian,
Who's talking about parochialism? Who's talking about Australia withdrawing from the Commonwealth, or any other of its international responsibilities? I can't recognize this in the pro-republic comments in this thread, try as I may. So it would seem to be a straw man argument that you've constructed, as I see it.
I'll repeat myself, at the risk of becoming a bore to some readers, that neither an independent republican Australia nor a constitutional monarchical Australia has any need whatsoever to withdraw from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference nor from and the political initiatives or the general good work that this organization does.
No, the point is that we take our position in this forum, and all the others we're committed to internationally (especially those which promote cooperation with our immediate neighbours) as equal political partners on the same level with all other participating partners. This has everything to do with mutual respect and nothing to do with self-aggrandizement (neither on the UK's nor on Australia's behalf).
Furthermore, we might perhaps enjoy the bonus of being able to shake off the label of being one of the last colonial outposts in a region, most of whose countries have indeed long established their independent credentials and whose governments may well wonder why we choose to procrastinate on the issue of our own independence.
We can voluntarily make the best of our British traditions (political, social and judicial) while at the same time acknowledging the reality of the much changed composition of our present population and taking advantage of such opportunities to further the particularly Australian flavour of our society.
This is not the turning of an adolescent fit (a poor analogy in anyone's book), but the necessary political acknowledgement that we are, as a nation, at quite another point of development compared to (for instance) the Australia of the immediate post-war years.

Bail Up,

I was not talking about Australia withdrawing from anything. I think any reasonable person can already see that Australia is an independent country and an equal partner in the Commonwealth, so why should we change our constitution in order to prove a point that is not in doubt? Call it parochialism, call it cultural cringe, it amounts to the same thing: a desire for approval from others rather than a simple recognition of what we are.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK have the same Queen for the same reason that Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Italy have the same Pope: shared history, shared culture, shared values.

You say that “We can voluntarily make the best of our British traditions (political, social and judicial) while at the same time acknowledging the reality of the much changed composition of our present population and taking advantage of such opportunities to further the particularly Australian flavour of our society.” I agree completely, but I see no reason to get rid of the monarchy in order to do it.

Federation meant looking outwards and thinking big: people from New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and so on joining together to build a broader vision. To me, republicanism means looking inwards and thinking small: to say that someone who was not born on our island cannot be “one of us” is a step in the wrong direction. I would like to see the CANZUK countries work closer together, just as Queenslanders and Tasmanians agreed to work closer together a century ago. It has served us well so far: why stop now?

Ian Alexander
Federal Commonwealth Society

My reading of history is that federation was a time of an inward looking myopia where issues of racial purity and the national type were prominent in public debates. There was nothing outward looking besides the gazing toward the "mother country" for validation and approval. Remember Menzies? He carried on like a real donkey during WW2 and spent 4 months in England trying to appease them. How pathetic was that!

The" if it ain't broke" arguments fail to recognize those instances in our history that were guided by our conformity to British imperatives - imperatives that in many cases they themselves did not want us to follow.

I don't need a Queen, Prince or Princesses to tell me who the hell I am. And I just wish the forelock tugging monarchists would get over their own insecurities about who the hell they are. Its time to wean ourselves off the Queens fun bags once and for all

Rainier,

Racial purity is always an idiotic concept, no question. The architects of Federation may not have been looking outwards in exactly the way we would choose, but they were certainly looking outwards. If people from New South Wales, for example, had not been looking beyond their existing borders and imagining a “national type”, they may have insisted on a leader who was “one of us”, rather than agreeing to form a federation with people from all over the continent.

Like you, I don't need a Queen (or a President, for that matter) to tell me who I am. I just don’t see any need to restrict the concept of “one of us” to our little population of 20 million.

Ian Alexander
Federal Commonwealth Society

Crown the institution
The Royal succession of Queen Elizabeth to Queen of Australia does not make Australians subjects of the United Kingdom or under British law. Nor do Canadians become citizens of Australia by swearing allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. Australians like Canadians, New Zealanders and Papua New Guinea do not swear allegiance to a British monarch but to the Queen of their Country. The people of Great Britain swear allegiance to the Queen of Great Britain, not to the queen of Australia. The Queen is sovereign of several separate countries each with it’s own crown. The Queen Elizabeth II is not exclusively Queen of Great Britain. The Queen of Australia does not act as a foreign Queen though she may reside in England. The High Court ruled in 1999 in the Sue V Hill case that though the person is physically the same person her office as Queen of each separate sovereign State are not the same legal person.

When we swear allegiance to the Crown (Queen of Australia), it represents the Westminster system of government of the people, the laws enacted by the Head of State, and the subjects under that crown. To merely swear allegiance to the people of Australia is a nebulous concept because "thepeople" could represent subversive and diverse systems of law and power.

The Globe and Mail newspapers polled 70,000 Canadians recently: should they retain the Queen as head of State, and the result was to retain the Queen in an 82% to 18% landslide.

Ironically, the republican movements of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom are now actively working together.
They have so much in common that they share tactics on how to do away with one of the symbols of what they have in common.