Nick, Joe K - agreed. Anyone who wishes to have a republic needs to show how the population at large will benefit from such a change, and how their preferred model will achieve this. I have never seen any convincing arguments as to how we will be better off, nor clarity on issues such as how, if there is a popularly-elected president (which will mean candidates backed by political parties) as well as a PM heading an elected party, power struggles will be averted.

With all the Negative forces trying to feed off a once vibrant and healthy Nation- well it use to be .We need not figure out "What" the the future holds,(It has been stolen)With that in mind, on our currant course: Not Good:
And, how did we get here?

That Universalism and a specific word, “Umbilical chord” of Pantheism- Universalisms of One World altruism and all that pathological diatribe.
Western Civilizations and success is not a divine right, it was a code of ethics and a forged consequence of Individualism and its contribution. It is now contaminated with antitheist intent and ineptitudes with malicious and or total ignorant intentions.
It is, in the end for Western Nations Annihilation at the hands of our own Death Drivers: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5288&search=the
Never fear, once it is gone, then the bad old days of property rights by the gun come back. Have a nice day.

Nick says, "The [republican] argument fails because it CANNOT be crystallised into a better system of government than we have now." His "point is that Australian society drew upon a rich culture of lawful co-existence from Great Britain."

In other words, he has NO CONFIDENCE in Australia; that we CANNOT run our own affairs, even though most others can. Perhaps there are people like Nick in our corporate boardrooms and governments, saying it "No, it wont work" and helping to stamp out Australian innovation and progess.

So the #1 benefit of a republic is that people like Nick will wake up to Australia's potential and their lack of confidence shown to be baseless.

PLERDSUS,
Apology, on Canada, I was really under the mistaken assumption they had grown up and were able to cut the apron strings from old mother england, I do apologise sincerely. It would seem that a few babies still exist.
Regards, Shaun

Alexander Drake thinks he has the answer for Keiran.

He says rather than throw out this infantile belief system we should get our "King" Johnny (what a champ) to spray a dose of democracy in the direction of the British monarchy. Now many members of Parliament who support the monarch would have a moral dilemma over this suggestion and particularly "King" Johnny. Even though they have been elected by people who live in their constituency and there-in rests their first allegiance they have in fact in their little childlike minds an absolute allegiance to the British monarchy. In fact their "line of succession" reads simply as a need to create monarchs second to their need to create gods.

Monarchs and teddies (i.e. fantasy gods) don't do democracy for obvious reasons.

Philo says the Australian constitution "is the fourth oldest in the world."

The following is a list of the oldest codified national constitutions of the world that remain effective today: San Marino - 1600; United States - 1789; Argentina - 1853; Canada - 1867; Denmark - 1849; Netherlands - 1815; Norway - 1814; Tonga - 1875; Belgium - 1831; Luxembourg - 1868; Switzerland - 1874. Maybe there are more, but my reference is wikipedia and http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2063.html.

Let's see if Philo has the integrity to apologise in the same way as Shonga did. But, I doubt it - we'll probably get even more misinformation. Remember the lies about Australia having to leave the Commonwealth?

Rather than defend the monarchial system with honesty, status quo supporters continue to give Austalian's reasons not to believe them. I wish they could just put Australia's interests first.

For the record, under an Australian republic:
1. our constitution will still be over 100 years old
2. the constitution will remain the bedrock of our democratic society
3. we will continue to be part of the Commonwealth of Nations
4. we will continue to have close ties with the United Kingdom and the Queen (our current Head of State) will always be welcome
5. coins with the Queen's profile will remain in circulation.