...in my view...that person should be so appointed by the Federal Parliament and not directly elected. Why?
Well a direct election would unavoidably involve.... either a businessman..or a previous politician who would have the financial resources to carry out an election.It will automatically marginalise any other person who has not those financial resources.
In addition, even if another person from a different category is found (e.g. sportsperson, ex-militiary,academic etc) they would require sponsorships with massive financial backing and resources to carry a successful election the aftermath of which can have an outcome of having that elected person as a national President of Australia...indebted to those sponsors/financial backers

I agree. A bipartisan parliamentary appointment for president would be far preferable to conducting a popular vote.

It would save millions of dollars to begin with and would avoid the circus that a presidential campaign would invariably turn into.

I doubt an ex-politician would get far. Politicians, no matter how competent or fair-minded, wouldn't be able to compete in the popularity stakes against sporting and television celebrities.

You're right about big money. The whole process would soon become corrupted by corporate sponsorship. We'd see saturation advertising and the candidate with the most financial backing would be at an advantage. Hardly a fair playing field and as you say that level of financial backing creates indebitness.

Oops, 'indebtedness' is what I meant!

I fully agree with both of you.

I would prefer to see the appointment made by parliament not by popular vote.

As far as appointing a politician goes - if it was someone along the
likes of a Malcolm Fraser (someone of his calibre), I would have no objection. As I wrote in another post - he was the first PM to seriously address the issues of Indigenous Australians, and after leaving office has become very much an elder statesman, focusing much on human rights and poverty.

We need someone who would be above party politics. Someone everyone would respect.

The problem with an elected President is that there is a public mandate outside of the political system and the politicians will quickly work to make political. The idea of a President is for the Chief of State to be outside the political system. Governments can ostracised and then the People determine the governments' fate.

Th Us model is a poor one. It does not allow for adequate separation of power. As Richard Nixon said he had as much power as Louis XIV. Well, he wasn't quite right, but the US system does lean towards an elected King at the top. As Gore Vidal notes, America was never meant to be a democracy.

Over the past five hundred years in the Anglo-West, we developed parliament to protect us from Monarchy. Now we are starting to feel a need to be protected from politicians, whom represent themselves and their parties and only think of us a month before each election.

A non-elected President could be appointed as is G-G is now, and could act to dismiss the government only when he or she agrees to with a full/majority ruling of the high court.

The state Leut.Governors can go, poof!, without replacement and their executive power shifted to the G-G.

I fear for the next ten to twenty years the Anglophiles, whom still believe in Queen and Empire, will be a hinderence. QEII is nice lady but she is England's queen and she does a good job for her English subjects. Well done Betty!

Besides, England has been moving away from us since WWII, the Common Market and very recently ancestoral visas. England is a part of the European Continent. Australia is part of the New World. Forget Great Britain, what about Great Australa?

Should Australia become a republic?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/should-australia-become-republic.html

I am starting to believe that there are very few true republicans in Australia. What we have instead is a bunch of wandering, aimless anti-monarchists who will latch onto any label to cover up the fact that they only have half an idea. When you ask these anti-monarchists what a republic is, they respond in unison 'not a monarchy'. A true republican would be aghast at their lack of interest, lack of knowledge and lack of support for a living, breathing republic.

The republicans had their chance in 1999. They blew that chance because they still hadn't come up with an acceptable model. Only the most naive among them would expect a second chance when they still haven't learned from their mistake. Only the most naive would expect a commitment to a republic from the Australian people without a commitment from the republicans on what the model will be. Nearly a decade out and they are still bleating about becoming a republic while ignoring the reason for their rejection.

Many republicans blame John Howard for their loss, but it is far from Howard's fault. It is true that the proposal put forward by Howard was a bad idea and was doomed to fail, but the same thing would have happened regardless of which model was put forward. Many suggest that we should have first had a referendum on whether to become a republic. However, such a referendum would be pointless. It would not commit the government to any action. If the republicans could not come up with an acceptable model before such a pointless referendum, getting a bunch of people to sit around a table for a summit is hardly going to produce an acceptable model after the referendum. You do not need a referendum to hold a summit. You do not need to commit to a republic before finding out what you are committing to.