OPINION: Australia could have become a republic, but now we have a bigger priority
By now, Australia should have been a republic for two decades. We had the chance in the 1999 referendum, and we blew it. The yes vote was defeated by several factors — including divisions among pro-republic Liberals, the cunning of then prime minister John Howard, and the conservatism of Australians when asked to change the constitution.
The issue probably resonates less than in the 1990s. It would be caught up in the culture wars, which have become deeper and more destructive in recent years.The 1999 model was for a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of federal parliament. There was no attempt to codify the powers of the president, despite the governor-general's "reserve powers" being at the core of the 1975 crisis.
The powers of a popularly elected president would need to be clearly spelled out . As Malcolm Turnbull writes in his book A Bigger Picture, "Nobody would seriously contemplate leaving the powers of a directly elected president in the undefined, and thus potentially uncertain, world of convention".
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