Look this business of who is or isn't head of state of european Australia is for european's to decide, which I believe they did so end of Story.

We the rightfull legal owners of this land pre invasion ( ten generations or more) do not recognise her or the union jack so its irrelavant to us who you lot choose as your head of state. Your culture is not "Australian" (Aboriginal) because its only six generations old its european, and most of you came from Brition so I don't understand the logic in the argument

1st: ozzies are not a democratic people. far from it, they have no experience of democracy and confuse it with being invited to choose between attila and hagar at three year intervals. this confusion is natural as oz has been a testing ground for doublethink and newspeak for many years. the tests were sucessful, and ozzies can say:"our monarchy is a democracy run by the pm" without hesitation, never missing 'by the people'.

2nd: but you should have a local notable as head of state. an australian king would be best- a successful sports person, married to a blonde trophy wife who has produced a son by the 'king', hereditary succession saves a lot of money on stationery.

3rd: but it's not your place to discuss these matters. your betters in parliament will tell you what they want, and you will do it. you always have.

Couldn't agree more Tinman. I travelled to the UK in 1996 and on arrival at Gatwick I joined the Aliens queue. The Germans, French and Italians sailed through to a much shorter EU queue. The surly British clerk eyed my Australian passport suspiciously and grudgingly stamped it only after having sighted my return ticket.

When Queen Elizabeth dies we will be faced with a dilemna. Do we really want King Charles (or King William) as our head of state? Really?

John Warhurst, you write about constitutional reform and upgrading our political system, but you don’t give even a hint of how improvements in our system might work towards securing a better future than the current system.

How might it change our approach to climate change, peak oil, sustainability, better wealth distribution, better education and skills training, better respect for the law, etc, etc??

With the likes of Costello supporting a republic, I would be particularly concerned about just what it might mean. He would be pushing hard for a republican model that “fits into his vision as the next Liberal leader”. He would have a huge influence on moulding it accordingly…which as far as I’m concerned would be a HUUUGE negative.

Costello’s rampant expansionism of economy, population and all things human has surely got to be the worst possible philosophy at this point in time.

The Democrats and Greens would have their input as well. But let’s be realistic; their chances of moulding things would be much less than those of the Lib/Labs and the all-powerful vested-interest business sector.

So I would think that the chances of us getting a better system under a republic are remote and chances of getting a worse system are high.

In theory I support constitutional and republican reform. God knows our system needs it! But we’ve got to make sure that it would be positive reform, or else we should leave it as it is.

A useful post John. I agree with most of it. I am a part of that majority supporting a 'Republic' but of course I voted against the proposal put by John Howard precicely because of the biased way the question was put... set to fail because of his own pro-monarchist bent.

I agree it is time to jettison our links with the 'crown'after all the poms have declared us 'aliens' haven't they.

But we should also take a hard look at our too close links with the USA if we are to become an independent,Democratic Nation.After all, who amongst us want to change into such a distorted caricature of a people's Democracy.

A first step as you have noted is to upgrade and update our political system. What a disgraceful cesspit of liars and enemies of democracy we have ruling our lives.

We have become a Nation ruled by an upper class who rule for the benefit of private capital, privatising our assets instead of streamling them and running them profitably.

Yes, the best way forward is yet to be agreed upon and this process should include all models discussing the benefits in each model in a two stage process that you have enunciated.

As for the necessary leadership; I'm afraid it has not emerged yet so bottom-up discussions should continue to decide just what an Australian Republic will stand for.

Not again! Give it a break. Why do we so desperately need a Republic? Probably another damned academic frothing off bubbles. Let us fix the things that are wrong with Australia before spending millions to make silly people happy.
Perhaps when the Queen goes may be the time to visit this subject.It is not needed now.