Stay Monarchy? Or Go Republic?

[The Starchild]

Originally posted by Roylion
The Queen's representative (the Governor-General) is not our head of state. The Queen of Australia is.

How is the system of a republic better than the system of a constitutional monarchy?

Mate, she's the queen of England. The queen of England rules Australia how does that make all the lemmings feel eh?

To answer your question, how is a republic better...it makes us individual, it gives us our true freedom. It makes us something we are currently not. Anyone that thinks we're already those things lives in dreamland.

Anyway, how would it be worse?

 

[NICK THE PIE MAN]

Republic for sure.
We should have it already, it was just the shocking proposal that stuffed it for the republicans at the last referendum.

 

[iceman]

Personally i'd prefer a republic, i dont see why we have to have ties with the British Monarchy any more

 

[Portia]

Originally posted by hilly
Yeah the republicans that voted no to the last model have really been putting in the hard yards since the referendum

Can't say I've heard much from the ones that voted yes for a fair while either.

 

[blues^rock]

gotta be a republic
whats the point of being a monarchy???
what have they done for us lately???
we can still be a part of the commonwealth games and stuf... but lets seperate! the time has come

 

[BT]

Republic pleeeeeeease!!!

 

[RoosLuver]

Republic, the Queen only comes onto our shores once in a blue moon anyway

 

[play on]

I could not care less if we stay the same, or become a republic. It does not bother me one way or the other.

 

[Roylion]

Originally posted by The Starchild

Mate, she's the queen of England. The queen of England rules Australia how does that make all the lemmings feel eh?

To answer your question, how is a republic better...it makes us individual, it gives us our true freedom. It makes us something we are currently not. Anyone that thinks we're already those things lives in dreamland.

Anyway, how would it be worse?

And why wouldn’t OUR OWN constitutional monarchy make us ‘individual’ and give “us our true freedom.”

How could a republic be worse?

Possible political instability . In a country that has always been politically stable, the move to a republic could see increased political instability, particularly if the President is elected by the people. The President, popularly elected, could find themselves direct political opposition to the elected government of the day both claiming they fulfil the will of the people. Popular election would guarantee that an Australian head of state would be a politician The major parties would undoubtedly run candidates. These candidates would be backed by large party organisations with the necessary funds to run nationwide campaigns.

You COULD also have the ridiculous situation of where in the event of successful referendum for the Commonwealth to become a republic, two Australian states might realistically remain constitutional monarchies after a successful referendum, where the people in that state voted No.

A CONSTITUTIONAL monarchy however helps to safeguard democracy by retaining certain constitutional powers, or at least denying them to others. A constitutional monarch is the safeguard against civil or military dictatorship. Sir Winston Churchill said that had the Kaiser still been German Head of State after 1918, Hitler could not have come to power, or at least not remained there. In Italy, when in 1943 he had the opportunity to do so, King Victor Emmanuel removed Mussolini from office. Romania's King Michael dismissed the dictator Antonescu and transferred his country from the Axis to the Allies, for which he was decorated by the great Powers, and in Bulgaria King Boris III (although obliged to enter the war on the side of the Axis), refused to persecute Bulgarian Jews and would not commit his forces outside his country's borders. Within the past few years, in both Spain and Thailand, monarchs have succeeded in defending democracy against the threat of permanent military take-over. Spanish historian Javier Tussel once stated: "Monarchy works in Spain because we are a very divided country. ... King Juan Carlos stresses respect for regional differences, so that now you feel Spanish, but you can also feel like a Basque or Catalan." The fact that the king recently gave his blessings to the marriage of his daughter to a Basque popular figure of course helped, as did the fact that the king spoke the Catalan language on a visit to Barcelona recently. There is a similar situation in Belgium. The Belgian king is one of the few commonalities shared by the country's ethnically and linguistically divided inhabitants. When King Albert succeeded his brother, King Baudouin, he took the oath of office in French, German and Dutch." This may not seem like much to us, here, who are not as aware the long ethnic struggles between the Walloons and the Flemish who form modern Belgium, but for the Belgians it made all the difference.

Personally I believe Australia would be the poorer for getting rid of its constitutional monarchial system. That’s not the same as saying the Queen of England should be the Queen of Australia.

Cost IF a republican system where the President is popularly elected was adopted in Australia, the cost to hold Presidential elections as well as Parliamentary elections would be massive. Already it costs millions of dollars to hold federal elections. The 1998 Federal Election $61,737,070 excluding $33,920,787 for public funding. Given that there were 12,056,625 voters, the expenditure to 15 June 1999 per voter equates to $5.06 or $7.87 including public funding. In the United States, presidential elections cost $300 million.