Comments | panich: The problems with Republican models in Australia. (Beware

panich

The problems with Republican models in Australia. (Beware - inherent Monarchist bias)

Oct 30, 2007 15:17

There are a few different models for implementing an Australian Republic out there. For mine, all of them are lacking.

The Direct Election Model

Basically, the public elects a President to become a "figurehead" - a Head of State with no real powers. Either this, or the public elects a President with large executive power.

The problems: Who ( Read more... )

Comments 5

oab October 30 2007, 10:25:31 UTC

What is the system you have now?

oab October 30 2007, 14:20:07 UTC

From what Mark described, that's exactly what we have as well in Canada.

Governor General is the Queens representative in Canada
He/She is requested to be appointed by the PM
The queen rubber-stamps it
Now we have a new Governor General (woohoo!)

Here there really isn't any movement to get rid of the system, nor is there one to get rid of the monarchy, it's in the constitution, with is ridiculously hard for us to change.

The only thing in my view that would change something would be to have the House elect the GG, it would end up being whomever the PM wanted to be GG

tibbycat October 30 2007, 11:52:04 UTC

I agree that the system we have now works well, but there's a few problems with it.

a) No Australian can be the head of state of his or her own country. Is that democratic? I think not. Instead we have the inbred British royal family as our head of state.
b) The Prime Minister can solely select who we wants to recommend to be Governor-General which again isn't very democratic. Howard hated the previous Governor-General William Dean because he had a conscious and spoke his mind on Aboriginal reconciliation and pissed off Howard in the process ( ... )

pinhead22886 November 1 2007, 07:01:02 UTC

With the bi-partisan model, you said the PM could dismiss the President and replace him with one with partisan bias. But what difference would that make if he was just a figurehead anyway? The President, like the GG or Liz, would have no real excecutive powers, so what difference would it make if he were partisan.

And Howard didnt dismiss William Deane, his term came to an end. Dismissing a GG is politically not a good move (unless they happen to be a child rapist like Peter Hollingworth)...

pinhead22886 November 1 2007, 11:04:42 UTC

Sorry I just realised that the "last GG" WAS Peter Hollingworth, but I think that was a different circumstance. Howard didnt dismiss him "on a whim". He was accused of all sorts of cover-ups and nasty past associations... I don't think any member of the Australian public or the Australian media was sorry to see him go (except maybe the child molesting priests he was protecting)...