The Queen with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
It’s been ten years since Australia took the vote against the idea of becoming a Republican State. Now the argument has resurfaced over whether to hold another referendum on the subject.
The Australian Republican Movement (ARM) claims that the majority of Australians would back another referendum, but both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, who both hold Republic ideas, have dismissed notions of a referendum, saying that the time is not right.
The last time a referendum was held was in 1999. Then two thirds of the Australian people actually voted in favour of a Republic, but the outcome was rejected.
ARM say that in a recent poll the number of people wanting Australia to become a Republic remains in the majority, with 59% of people questioned supporting the idea.
David Muir, head of the Real Republic organisation said that becoming a Republic would give Australia its own national identity: “Under the constitution the Queen of the United Kingdom remains at the head of our system of government…How can we really establish our national identity while this remains the case?�
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd still insists that his Republican stance has not changed, yet in a move that will give ammunition to his critics, Rudd invited Prince William to stop off in Australia in January of this year to get to know the Australian people, people that would be his future subjects if the current constitution remains unchanged.
Rudd says that a referendum is not high on his list of priorities at the moment, and perhaps judging by all the headlines on the current crisis the government faces on its immigration policies, he may be right.
Mr Turnbull, leader of the Liberal Party agrees with Prime Minister Rudd: “The time when this issue can be successfully revisited, from the republican’s point of view, is after the end of the Queen’s reign.�
However the chairman of ARM, Mike Keating, stated that this was impractical, pointing out that Australia will not suddenly become a republic upon the death or abdication of the Queen.ÂÂ
What are your views on this topic? Do you support the idea of Australia becoming a republican state? Or are you happy to have the Queen as head of the state? Let us know by typing your views into the comments box below.
Love Australia? Let us keep you informed...
- Join the Embrace Australia community today. Have your questions answered by our experts, start your own blog, get vital migration information and gain valuable insight from those who have already made the journey.
- Subscribe to our RSS Feed and have all our daily news and features delivered straight to your news reader.
- Join our mailing list -
5 Responses to “ARM Reignites the Republican Debate for Australia”
Comment by Chris James — November 7, 2009 @ 9:09 am
if it aint broke don’t fix it. The current system is not perfect but works well .
Comment by Tony Adams — November 23, 2009 @ 6:27 am
Australia has been an independent country for nearly 109 years yet we still have a (nonelected) foreigner as our head of state. Only two other developed countries in the world (Canada and New Zealand) don’t have one of their own citizens in that position.
The situation is both shamefiul and ridiculous. Of course the system is “broken” and a republic will fix it!
Comment by Wes — November 23, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
I’m sorry, but I am SO sick to death of hearing the expression ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it’.
It IS broke.. this is a modern vibrant democracy and one of the most stable (if not THE most stable), tolerant societies in the world. All of which has nothing to do with QEII. Where does this infantile idea that 1 person can magically have more influence on the quality and morality of a society by living in another country, when there are 22 million people living here who contribute to that stability??
In 1975 (and I don’t care who it was that was dismissed, nor about the party politics) but it needs to be analysed what happened. The Governor General, who, once appointed renders the Queen with no power at all (it’s in the Constitution, read it if you like) so basically, John Kerr was able to dismiss a duly elected government in the Queen’s Name, without her authority (because she has none, which is exactly what she told Whitlam when he asked her to intervene.. ‘Mr Whitlam, in accordance with your constitution I am not permitted nor do I have the authority to intervene..) therefore, the government was dismissed by a man elected by no-one AND WORSE, responsible to no-one!! Despite people’s views on the selection of the president, how could a 2/3rds majority of Parliament be anything but an improvement on that situation.
Aside from this, it is absolutely ludicrous and infantile to have a modern progressive nation have as its titular head a person who doesn’t live here and as my father observed once (a life long republican and now 74), it is most certainly a situation that would not be tolerated for one second by any self respecting British Citizen if the role was to be reversed. the other stupidity is that if Britain changes its system and becomes a republic, then we will have a constitutional crises with a constitution that says our head of state is founded in the ’soveriegnty of the UK, a sovereignty that no longer exists.
There’s an old saying from the American Revolution (sexist by today’s standards but the principle is the same) ‘Man was not made for the state, but the state for man’.
Therefore, two words compel us to be a republic ‘Popular Sovereignty’. The people are sovereign because all authority and power emanates from them choosing their government. This is why in United States Courts the action is always ‘the People versus..etc.’ and why their Constitution starts with the words ‘We, the People..’ i.e. they derive their legitimacy as a nation from the will of their people, not from a monarch or a foreign parliament.
Comment by Mark — December 4, 2009 @ 12:26 am
To Wess. You say that our head of state is the soverign of the UK, when it is not. The Queen is the head of the UK, but is also the Queen of Australia in her own right. Our Queen is not called the Queen of the UK, but is called Queen of Australia.
Also how could you say that a republic would be more stable than our current system? Our system is the best in the world, the most stable in the world, and you want to gamble that on the chance a republic would work only at well? I for one love Australia the way it is, and do not want to change it. No system republicans have put forward will offer the same stability as our current system. Their only real argument is a head of state who lives in Australia. Why then not chose one of the Princes or Princess to come be our head of state, that way we have a head of state in Australia, as well as ensuring the same stability our current system gives.
Comment by Joshua — January 8, 2010 @ 6:50 pm
the system is fine as is, when has it stoped any of you from doing what you do in your aday to day lives ?
I’m sorry but any form of a republic is treason in my eyes.
I will never show loyalty to an australia that isn’t run by her Majasty
giveing compleat controle of australia to the politishions
Australia follows the Westminister system of government and so the Queen, or at least the Governor, is the final check on the power of the parliament. If you remove that check then you hit a constitutional problem if say a prime minister decides they won’t step down after losing a vote of no confidence, or decides general elections are a waste of time, or attempts to force a law through parliament against the will of the people. They also act as the decider of which party gets to form the government in the case of a hung parliament. It’s not really practical to hand those powers over to the politicians for much the same reason you don’t get a pedo to run a school.