Australia and the monarchy
Rapunzel,
I tend to think you are right about public opinion,although I am 45 and am not a great supporter of republicanism, I tend to think the current government structures seem to work reasonably well,(although not without flaws.),funny this came up did you know that last Friday was the 10th anniversary of the republic referendum in 1999?
Imho our Governors-General and State Governors have served us quite well and have carried out their tasks without too much controversy, apart from Sir John Kerr and Sir Philip Game I suppose, however I feel they were both in impossible positions and no matter what they did in respect to the constitutional crises they faced, they were going to be loved by some and hated for all time by others.
I voted against the republic referendum in 1999, because as far as I was concerned it was too vague and I contacted the Australian Republican Movement before it was on and asked what I thought was a rather simple question, if the referedum passes and the Queen and Governor-General are replaced by an appointed President,what becomes of the State Governors?,guess what they didn't know, I was simply told that they will be sorted out later on??????,sorry not enough detail for me.
In my view instead of worrying about who sits at the top of the tree, we should be exploring ways of restoring the Parliament to what it was meant to be, a national(and state),debating chamber which exercises proper control over the executive government, as opposed to now where it is just a rubber stamp for the executive.
If there is another debate later on ,I hope these type of issues are raised and debated thoroughly instead of simple republicanism vs monarchy.
I also believe the vast majority of the public who do support republicanism wnat an elected President, whereas the political figures here prefer and appointed President and this is another reason why th referendum was defeated.
