Australia Land of Freedom and Democracy

As a British Subject and Australian resident, I am waiting patiently for this nation to become a Republic. It is now old enough to behave in not only a rational and independant way, but a total, top down, bottom up national independant system with no recourse to the Privy Council or the Crown, no Governors, or Governors-General, but an elected President with a bicameral parliament that needs to be not much different than it is now (The Parliament that is)!!

In 1999 a plebisite was held here in (Australia) to (alegedly) ask the Australian Electorate whether they wanted a Republic, or not. For a discussion on this referendum see Michael Lavarch's essay.

I was one of the Republicans who voted no. My reason was fairly straight forward, the minimalist solution presented by the Australian republican Movement as the YES answer was inadequate and represented in my suspicious mind, a sell out to entrenched authority within Australia, and would have resulted in no substantial change in the "British" power structure that exists in this Great Country. The Question on the Referendum for the Repblican. side was so vague and small and minimalist that I couldn't in any good conscience vote yes, as I percieved no actual change, and a backdoor way of maintaining the establishment.

The aftermath of the referendum had the anchronistic Monarchists were claiming victory, even though they failed to put their argiment. The result was definitely a failure by the Republicans to put their argumnet, and this failure stems back to the Constitutional Conference conviened on the subject, and the rise of Richard Margavie's Model as the preferd model