Australia should be republic after Queen Elizabeth: PM

So should the UK.

Well said for both proposals!

The area is too large to be owned by UK. Maybe Australia may have easier trade with Asian countries after ty becomes an independent country just like other former UK owned Asian countries.

Australia should have been a republic in 1999, but some vested interests pushed people to vote no based on the presidential model. Personally, I voted yes, but if they put forward a directly elected president model, I'll vote no and encourage everyone I know to do the same. The Irish system works fine and is the closest to what we already have. You put in a directly elected president and you just get another politician who has taken enough $$$ from lobbyists to fund a campaign... no thank you.

...and I think that pretty much sums up the complexity of the issue and why the 1999 referendum wasn't handled well.

The area is too large to be owned by UK.

Australia is an independent sovereign state, it is not 'owned by UK'. They just have the same head of state.

@donkusai. You're right. The monarchists were included as part of the process in selecting the model and all they did was to sabotage the whole process with the support of PM Howard. I thought the minimal change proposal was the way to go because we had a good system and were just breaking away from Britain: No direct electing of a president.

Republics inevitably fall to tyranny, with a failure rate of nearly 100%. Whereas, constitutional monarchies have the highest political and democratic stability.

It would be foolish to move towards dictatorship than away from it.