Maybe my question wasn't as off-topic as I thought.

>>whoever would have stepped in [in 1975] if we were a republic... would be determined by the constitutional guidelines that will need to be thrashed out... But it is an important and fundamental issue to resolve.<<

But that was my point, Ditch. So many people seem to hold 1975 as some kind of defining event, but no-one that I have met can tell me what a sensible republican response to the situation would have been.

I tend to get the impression, if I dig a little deeper, that the Saint Gough brigade's is a knee-jerk anti-monarchist reaction.

What I was looking for was a singularly Australian response: "because we are Aussies, and not just an outpost of the British Empire, this would have been our solution to the problem."

I think you youself provide evidence for this by saying:

>>My gripe is accepting that our current constitution dictates that the GG/QEII pairing are ultimately the referees in the parliamentary crises that arise. I believe we should be mature enough to put in place a constitution with complete independence of the Queen and her local rep, the GG.<<

I can - in fact I do - agree with every word of the last sentence. Especially the "should".

Unfortunately, until Australia can answer my original question, "what would a republican do differently", it cannot be said to be sufficiently mature, can it?

Shockadelic, we should stay within the bounds of reality here. What on earth would be the benefit to Australia of being tied to the Euro, as opposed to, say, the Renmimbi or the Peso?

>>Using the Euro would mean our currency wouldn't have to vulnerably sit all by itself, tossed about by the whims of ignorant traders<<

Being tied to another currency has ramifications for interest rates and inflation that far outweigh the "whims of ignorant traders". It is a form of outsourcing one entire level of economic management, and would be spectacularly disastrous for Australia.

Pericles, I still cannot answer definitively what safeguards a revised constitution would make to handle situations such as '75. That is an extremely complex issue and one for the constitutional lawyers. I don't want to offer any half-baked answer that leaves itself open to criticism by those more knowledgeable in legal matters.

Maybe I should be clearer here and say that Gough was leading a govt. that, despite being democratically elected, had to be bought into line! I don't object to the fact that something was done to correct the problems. I object in us being helped out as it were by Mother E and her GG. An Aussie elected by the people perhaps from a group of nominees selected by the govt., should be dealing with situations like that, a President advised by the High Court? The whole thing must be dealt with "in-house", as it were.

A republican need NOT NECESSARILY, do things dramatically differently only in that he would not be a rep of the Queen, our Head of State and therefore does not need to refer to her to handle the matter.

Western History owes much to the Greeks, Roman Law and the British parliamentary system. The latter was a achieved under sufference/pressure from the nobility and the middle classses. The progress made by the West is the application of theory to practice from the Great Divergence.

If William IV, George V or Queen II had never been born the World would be much the same: But what if Newton, Einstein and Heisenberg had not been born?

In what way iwould the Queen be different, where were we to run her under an MRI and take full blood count? Genetically, in-breeding would increase the chance of two recessive genes pairing, thus perpetuating negative characteristics. I'm sure Stephen Hawkins would have a higher IQ than Charles Windsor.

Royals are no different to you and I, only some bad genetic characterics are not being breed out.

Britain is still has a House of Lords, based on the outdated notion of peerage.

Ditch, don't get me wrong, I agree entirely that Australia should grow up and cut its constitutional ties with the UK.

But I do believe that your inability to envisage an alternative is shared by the majority of Australians, and is the principle reason why we are not a republic yet.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the Royals, the European Union, Captain Cook or anything else.

Just us.

And the sooner we stop looking over our shoulder for someone to blame, the sooner we will get moving and make it happen.

My point about Gough was only to point this out. The fact that the deed was done by the existing legal and constitutional structure is what should have been resented, not the victims of the system.

Because as you point out, there wasn't an alternative.

And the fact that there still isn't a realistic alternative is pretty shameful. Or, as I suggested before, simply another sign of our complacency and/or laziness.

Pericles, could you give more than 2 seconds thought to the idea of adopting the euro (with or without joining the EU).

The same argument about national sovereignty was put forward by member states of the EU when the euro was first postulated, but most members ended up adopting it anyway.
The advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

Our governments and banks may have some control over the economy, but they don't control the decisions of foreign exchange traders (who are the ones who determine the demand for currencies).

There is greater demand for currencies perceived as stronger over their relatively weaker counterparts.

The euro is certainly strong, and the likelihood of economic or political instability in the Eurozone is minimal.
The euro is a safe haven for investors.

The euro is the currency with the *highest combined value* of cash in circulation in the world, having surpassed the US dollar.

According to DFAT:
"The decision to become a full member (of OECD) reflected general interest in expressing views and exerting influence in an organisation which had by that time established itself as the *paramount western economic* consultative forum."

If we joined OECD because of its "paramount western economic" status, then why not join the EU, and use its "paramount western economic" currency?

The two organisations have primarily the same aims and mostly the same member states.

If we can justify joining OECD, then we can just as easily justify joining EU.

Ecuador, El Salvador, and Panama have eliminated their own currency in favor of the US dollar.

Many currencies are already pegged against the euro, including the Estonian kroon, the Bulgarian lev, the Cape Verdean escudo and the CFA franc.

It is possible that a world currency will exist one day, and it's highly likely such a world currency would be the euro, or a replacement currency of identical value (1 Euro = 1 Earth Dollar)

So dismissing the idea of adopting a supranational currency offhand with little supporting argument is not a mature, intelligent way to approach this issue.

But since when is OLO the home of mature, intelligent discussion?

Hell, why don't we solve both the republic and currency problems and become the 51st state in the USA?

We might as well be anyway, given that we've been their vassal state since World War 2.