Then there is the multi-cultural issue. Some believe that there will never really be a "suitable" time for Australia to become a republic; that the debate needs to be brought up. Erin Wen Ai Chew, the co-founder and national convenor for the Asian Australian Alliance, says she believes there's no need for a monarch as the head of state in modern Australia.
"Australia is capable enough to be independent and has been for a long time. The nostalgic connection to the monarchy is now irrelevant and as generations pass, this will become even more irrelevant, so the time to change is now," she says
We have already started in a number of areas where Australia is maturing, becoming a more thoughtful nation (They are our multiculturalism, accommodating aboriginals, the rejection of Scott Morrison, and managing our own defence). Independence will strengthen such moves. Australia is a massively multicultural country. We are home to the world's oldest continuous culture. Australians identify with more than 270 ancestries. Since 1945, almost seven million people have migrated to Australia. This rich, cultural diversity is one of our greatest strengths. It is central to our national identity. Most foreign born or children of foreign born, endorse their Australian homeland, and will support whatever we decide. But a King and Queen consort are not their natural endowment.
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Thomas Keneally said in The Saturday Paper that a republic will enrich, vivify and enlarge our antipodean spirits. He enlarges on this statement later in the article.
For me, the Australian republic does glimmer beyond the Queen's shoulder, or more accurately over Charles's ... It does not take from him, not really. It does not deny the success of his line. But the republic will enrich, vivify and enlarge our antipodean spirits.
The 1999 referendum on a republic was about whether or not Australia should become a republic. On 6 November, voters were asked this question:
Do you approve of an Act to alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and Governor General being replaced by a President appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament?
The vote was a clear rejection. But the reason was that parliamentarians were to elect their head of state. But Australians distrust their parliamentarians, as evidenced in the recent rejection of Scott Morrison. The Australian Republic Movement has proposed an alternate method for electing a head of state - that we vote for the head of state.
Perhaps even overriding the above reasons is that Australia is still a creature of the British Parliament, The Act of Federation or originally The British Colony of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act was an act of the British Parliament. We were changed to a dominion in 1907. Only Britain has the legal power to repeal this act. In short, we are not our own country.
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Charles acquiesced to the dismissal of an Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. We should never allow this in the future. Sir John Kerr, the Australian governor general who dismissed the former prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, first canvassed the possibility with Prince Charles as early as August of that year Jenny Hocking in The Dismissal Dossier: Everything You Were Never Meant to Know about November 1975, suggests not only did the palace know the nature of his plans but the lack of adverse comment constituted "an unqualified royal green light" to Kerr's dismissal of Whitlam. In the future we should never allow a British royal to interfere in domestic politics.
We may get an Australian Donald Trump as Prime Minister. It should be our problem; a British king could interfere unnecessarily.
Conservatives want to keep the status quo. But the way for a forward-looking people is change. In this case, change for an independent Australia.
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