My recollection of the '99 referendum was not that the idea of a republic per se was voted down, but rather Howard's preferred model of a republic; a very clayton's model indeed.
As evidenced by virtually every referendum since federation, Aussies hate giving pollies more power than they already have.
I find it difficult to believe there is any government in Oz which wants a H.of S with genuine powers to make parliaments genuinely answerable to the people.
This article correctly addresses the great challenge: to achieve a genuine people's republic, not because of republican politicians, but in spite of them.

I do wonder why this discussion about the Republic has risen its head ugly again and why Rudd has indicated that it will be put to the public within two years.
I also wonder why the reasons for the resignation of the Governor General was never made public as I was made aware if his resignation and the reasons why two weeks before the media made it public.
The only reason the issue has been raised again is to try and prevent the prosecution of the crimes that have already been committed by this rat-bag mob in their attempt to subvert the authority of the Constitution in creating the Republic in all of its vile forms but not officially. They need the official vote to make it legal as it has existed for many years and this referendum is only attempt to wash away all of the vile offensive conduct orchestrated by people in very high places in the legal profession throughout the country over a very long period of time. These same grubs have ended up in the Judiciary and have willingly disregarded their oath of office.
Phone the Gov Gen's office and ask why he was not allowed to leave after resigning and who prevented him for walking out.
What was it that he did not want to do and resigned in protest ?

“The Assembly participants were chosen at random through a process designed to ensure that they were truly representative of the Province.” Oxymoronic. Would the 'randomly chosen' be sworn in under the same oath as the politicians, the oath in the Schedule to the Constitution?

Inherent in the prospect of all appointments becoming elective under a republic is that a conflict of interest would exist when taking future action to set aside any election tainted with suspicion of electoral impropriety. All the ingredients for a Zimbabwean-like situation would be present from day one of year zero of the republic. A 'president' would sit in judgement on the validity of his or her own election, or, conceivably worse, in judgement of the election of a legislature having, on the face of it, a majority hostile to the political stance of the 'president'. Instability. Potential conflict. Paralysis of government.

Under the Constitutional Monarchy there is no prospect of the paralysis of government in this, or any other, situation, as Australia found out in 1975. It is this power, latent only the vast bulk of the time, that ensures that politicians remain only our representatives; our equals but not our masters. A nation ruled by law, not by personalities or dogma.

The vast majority of the politician class completely dismiss the possibility of endemic electoral rigging, of course, for if it ever was found to have been true their careers would be seen to have prospered under a system of falshood and deception. The disturbing thing is, however, that under legislation providing for statutory reporting of electoral enrolment accountancy, at the time of the 1987 Federal elections serious discrepancies (200,000+) were found to exist.

In the months prior to the recent Federal elections those same statutorily required reports were either not published in the Government Gazette, or the relevant editions of the Gazette were not made available to the public BEFORE THE ELECTIONS in the now normal online manner. This latter apparent failure in compliance leads to questions as to whether like enrolment discrepancies were being concealed from public view in 2007.

" Under the Constitutional Monarchy there is no prospect of the paralysis of government in this, or any other, situation, as Australia found out in 1975. It is this power, latent only the vast bulk of the time, that ensures that politicians remain only our representatives; our equals but not our masters. A nation ruled by law, not by personalities or dogma "

What makes you believe that any alternative system, the quasi republic we have now, is going to be different ?

The same individuals who are subverting the authority of our Constitution and ignoring the laws of this country are behind this republican agenda. the upper class of the legal profession and other criminals, who believe that they know better than the politicians we have elected, and blatantly ignore the law. They believe they are above the law.

We only have a nation ruled by law when we have a judicial arm of government with properly constituted COURTS in accordance with the legislation passed by the Parliament and the individual appointed as a judge is bound by his or her oath of office. The alternative process, tribunals,are what is being provided in this quasi-republic and it is created by the failure to comply with the rule of law when the court is created thus allowing the pretend court to make judgments in accordance with Govt POLICY and not the rule of law.

The paralysis of government has been created by these people who don't agree and have refused to accept the Westminster system of government that the Constitution provides.

If the State Governors and the Gov-Gen were to discharge their duty and abide by their oath of office they have sworn when appointed we may not have the situation that exists in this country that most people are not happy with.

We don't have either system at the moment but without the judicial arm of government we don't have the Westminster system of government that the Constitution provides either. We just have a bunch of criminals feeding off the people who pay the taxes to feed these grubs.

Plerdsus,

Sorry for creating puzzlement.

Can you give me a national library reference, or confirm who the issuing authority was for the pamphlett on the 1999 referenda 'Yes' and 'No' cases you have? I have never seen one, and I remember I enquired at the time.

The matter of apparent failure to gazette the monthly publication of Divisional enrolment levels is raised in a Democratic Audit of Australia discussion paper, 'The Importance of Boundaries', by Professor Emeritus Colin Hughes, downloadable as a PDF from http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/

Professor Hughes refers, toward the bottom of page 8. of this PDF document, to the monthly publication of enrolment levels in the Commonwealth Government Gazette as having recently stopped. "To allow public scrutiny of the third possibility, each month current enrolments of all divisions were published in the Government Gazette though this has recently stopped.10"

His footnote, numbered 10, was:

"Peter Brent and Simon Jackman, 2007, A shrinking Australian electoral roll, Discussion Paper 11/07,
Canberra, Democratic Audit of Australia, Australian National University."

When you go to the footnoted reference, 'A shrinking Australian electoral roll', on page 2 you get the statement: "The AEC publishes monthly enrolment totals, ..." and the footnote, numbered 3, reads: " http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/index.htm last visited 14 June 2007. Note the AEC site was redesigned in June 2007 and now gives current, but not past, enrolment data." This reference is also downloadable from http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/

It seems hard to believe that the AEC would not have fulfilled this statutory requirement. The fact remains, however, that the Government Notices edition of the Gazette, in which these certifications are published, was not available online on those occasions when I attempted to access it during the months leading up to the 2007 elections. I presume Hughes to know what he is talking about.

The 1987 enrolment discrepancies are documented in Submission 161 to the Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2004 Federal elections, here: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/em/elect04/subs.htm

We want only a simple, clear question. Do you want republic? YES!
No more cheap tricks. No more divisions between republicans.
DO YOU WANT REPUBLIC? YES!