Thats what its all about, if the people vote no so be it.
We have to be given that chance.
The last vote was rigged with howards proposed example of a republic.
Even republicans were saying do not vote in favor of it.
The queen as head of state is out dated. The queen has said it is up to the people of AU to decide.

Why not have a plebiscite and ask the following question.
Which of the following do you prefer as Australia's Head of State?
Number from 1 to 4 (if you wish).
1.The King or Queen of England;
2.The King or Queen of another country;
3. A president elected directly by all eligible voters in Australia; or
4. A president selected by the Commonwealth Parliament.
Let's see what happens. But I guess I haven't allowed for that ignorant minority out there who really shouldn't be allowed to vote.

blair
Why should they be the questions?

Why not:
- do you want to be able to vote, or not, on any and every proposed law?
- do you want to abolish politicians?
- would you like your taxes reduced? If so, by how much? What activities of government should be accordingly reduced or abolished (tick from list showing budgets)

There is not the slighest reason why the question of constitutional reform should take as its starting point the whole system we have now, and ask only whether the head of state should be changed.

Besides, do you agree a republic could not be achieved by amending the existing monarchical constitution, and logically, to achieve its symbolic purpose, requires a separate declaration of independence and constitution?

How come when discussing this issue, we never seem to get around to discussing the most basic elements of the design of the democratic system - separation of powers, and checks and balances?

A well designed republic addresses these features. It will have four key elements. A Parliament, an Administration, a Judiciary, and the Press. Ideally, the head of the Parliament (the Prime Minister, or in the US the Speaker), is separate from the head of the Administration (the President or "The Crown"), the Judiciary is appointed by a process that maximises independence, and the Press will be empowered to hold those in the system accountable. The US Republic approaches these ideals.

If we test the Australia political system from this viewpoint, we find that it breaches fundamental principles of separation of powers and checks and balances.

The PM is head of the Parliament. The PM is also head of the Administration - the Governor General who nominally is head of the Administration is truly nominal. The PM plays a huge role in the appointment of the Judiciary. And in Australia, the Press is constrained from playing a truly effective role in holding those in the system accountable by draconian libel laws, and intense concentration of media ownership.

The only effective checks and balances in Australia occur when the governing party does not hold power in the Senate, which is now (fortunately) the position. Whatever you think of the Independent and Green senators, they do fulfil a useful role in asking tough questions.

The fact is that the Australian PM has incredible power that could be exploited if the wrong person were to become PM at the same time that the government has a majority in the senate.

Why can't we have a discussion about these fundamental issues that are taught in Political Science 101?

Agree Herbert- personally I'm not to thrilled about a multimillion dollar referendum implying constitutional change when it doesn't come close to changing enough of the constitution to actually make our governance transparent and democratic- but instead a name-changing proposition.

I personally will happily vote against every Republic referendum that comes short of a drastic shake up of separation of powers (including for the public).

Phoenix94 and others issue a challenge to Peter’s article, namely what’s broken? In my opinion, there are a few things:
1. When the constitution was written, Australia was a dominion of the British Empire and Australian troops were therefore “imperial troops”, under the command of the Queen (and as advised by Whitehall). (see further Helen Irving’s book, Five Things you need to know about the Australian Constitution). This constitutional “black hole” allowed Prime Minister John Howard to send troops to invade Iraq, without obtaining the approval of parliament, which is supposed to represent the people of Australia, or anybody else for that matter.
2. In an election in the 1990’s, the One Nation Party achieved around 10% of the primary vote for the House of Reps and did not win one seat. Regardless of your political leanings, is it a fair result that around 10% of Australians were not represented by their primary choice of party in the parliament?
3. One of the strengths of the Westminster system is it’s ability to deal with the diversity of public opinion by having political parties represent those strong but often conflicting political ideals of what is “right” & “wrong”. This adversarial system however needs a strong and unaligned “umpire” to counterbalance an elected prime minister who may try and reduce political competition & form a one party state as Hitler and others did, or in the case of a hung parliament, act as an “honest broker” to assist the formation of a new coalition as happens in the Netherlands. I’m not sure the current system could handle either of these stress tests.

The debate on a republican president was fought and lost 10 years ago and perhaps that particular debate should be left to the ghosts of Keating & Howard to continue. We need to face the reality of today’s problems and debate “What’s broken in the Australian system of democracy”, then fix them. Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”.