Australian leaders unite for a republic

The Australian Republican Movement said almost 4000 people had signed the petition for an Australian head of state.

In a surprise move, all but one of the state and territory leaders have signed a letter calling for the Queen to be replaced by an Australian head of state.

Only Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett has refused to sign the declaration, which says Australia should have an Australian as its head of state.

Australian Republican Movement chair Peter FitzSimons says Australia “can do better than to find our heads of state from one family of unelected people living in a palace in England”. “We are thrilled with this show of support from Australia’s political leaders. I mean it’s a rather peculiar way of looking at the world”.

Mr Benwell said Australia has Peter Cosgrove as a “compassionate” Governor-General representing the Queen in Australia.

‘Isn’t it time we said to Indigenous Australians “we’re proud of you” in the Constitution?

Other premiers were similarly emphatic.

Premier Jay Weatherill says a move to an Australian republic while Queen Elizabeth remains on the throne would be the “ultimate act of respect” for the monarch. Isn’t it time we said to Territorians “yes, you live in your own state”?

Despite his former role as chairman of the Australian Republican Movement from 1997 to 2000, Mr Turnbull has sought to keep a lid on the issue since becoming prime minister.

He said those who were too young to vote in the 1999 referendum have now had children of their own, and those children will soon be eligible to vote.

For Turnbull the next occasion for a republic referendum would be after the Queen’s reign.

Weatherill’s former economics adviser, Aaron Hill, now working the private sector, is the convenor of the South Australian branch of the Australian Republican Movement.

Support for a republic has ebbed, with a Fairfax-Nielsen poll in 2014 finding that 51 percent of the 1,400 people surveyed favoured the status quo compared to 42 percent supporting a republic.

More recent polling by Essential Media released by the Australian Republican Movement found 47 per cent of Australians want an Australian citizen as head of state, with only 29 per cent against the idea.

Though Australia was granted autonomy in 1901 and is free to self-govern, it is not a republic and remains a Commonwealth state under a quasi-rule by the British Monarchy.

“While I believe and hope that Australia will choose to become a republic in my lifetime, I do not think that the time is right, or that sufficient time has past since the referendum, to be again prosecuting the argument for constitutional change”, Mr Barnett said.