Will there be a referendum proposing an Australian Republic during Rudd's first term?

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holly

I believe so.

Morgan

Hope so bring it on I say. Kevin Rudd has already proven he is a man of action he did more in his first 72 days of office than the little pomp did in 11 years.

brissy_006

I hope so and the sooner.

Elizabeth

I think the Rudd government has too many other things to concentrate on during this first term.

I'd say the Republic Refendum will be on the top of the agenda for their second term in office.

petedavo

became a republic?

Not much, because the pollies won't allow an american style president with actual power.

The pollies will only let us vote on a republic if we have a lame duck ceremonial president that Parliament appoints , much the same as the Governor General.

Since no one wants a lame duck ceremonial president, then the referendum will always fail and we'll never become a republic!

peter g

I'm all for an Aussie Republic but it would be massively expensive. Costs would include the referendum, changing every single Aussie flag, the list goes on but i sure do hope i'm alive to see it happen.
As to whether Mr Rudd will call a referendum in his first term, i doubt it very much. But i would be happily surprised if he did.

War 4

I think its very likely. It will have a much greater chance of passing than in 1999 especially if we choose to have an eleted president.
Im all for it. but I dont want to replace our figurehead GG and Queen with a Figurehead president as that would be a waste. The office of GG now is a waste because it doesnt do much. what I want to see is a directly elected president with a say in the nations affairs but nowhere near as powerful as what exists in the US.

Ozmaniac

It would be fantastic, but I seem to recall that during the election campaign, he said that it was not on their first term agenda. Pity about the timing, but they really do have a hell of a lot of other things to do in the first term.

KR also said that the first step in any case, would be to poll Australians as to what republican model they would prefer. That too would be brilliant as the only thing that torpedoed the last referendum was the badly flawed and unacceptable model put forward by Howard.

So my bet is on the second term. Hope they do the flag at the same time.

enjoylife

I doubt it

Ergot W

Three factors that I see make some difference in this:
1. The present queen - she will need to not be on the scene - die or retire - she is apparely popular but her successor isn't.

2. I don't see any reason why we can't just bow out when she goes, just not sign up for the new person on the UK throne and cut ties between governor-general and monarchy.

3. To hold a stand-alone referendum would be expensive. It will be held in conjunction with an election, is my guess, or maybe a double dissolution if it comes to that. He won't risk a nasty pro-monarchy campaign at the end of his first term, because to lose it would be extremely bad- the only other 1st term government not returned was Scullin in the early 30s, which would be a horrifying parallel to enable.

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