Malcolm Turnbull flags postal survey for Australian republic
Malcolm Turnbull has flagged a postal survey or plebiscite to gauge support for an Australian republican model — including whether to have a directly elected president — if the Queen’s reign ends while he is still prime minister.
Mr Turnbull, an avowed Republican who led the ‘yes’ campaign when the question failed to gain popular support in 1999, today floated a postal survey as one way of facilitating a national debate on the Republic before a referendum was held to amend the constitution.
He said there was no point “pretending that there is an appetite for change when there isn’t one” and noted that Australians had a conservative voting record when it came to constitutional reform.
“We all say long live the Queen and we say that with great sincerity and love,” Mr Turnbull said.
“If you are asking me how you would go about it in the event of the issue becoming live again I think the first thing that you would need to do is to have an honest open discussion about how a president would be elected ... (and) whether the president would be chosen by parliament in a bipartisan two thirds majority — as proposed in ‘99 — or directly elected.
“That is the rock on which the referendum foundered in 99. You’ve got to have that discussion and you know it may be that a plebiscite — maybe even a postal survey given the success of the marriage postal survey — could be one way to deal with that.
“But that issue needs to be debated and resolved and then of course the fundamental question — then you’ve got to put up an amendment to the constitution which proposes a president to replace the Queen as head of state and then it’s up to the Australian people to decide.
“This is not a change that parliament can make. and Australians have shown themselves to be very conservative when it comes to constitutional change.”
Former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating who committed to the Republic and advanced it as a frontline issue when he was prime minister in the 1990s, this morning attacked Mr Turnbull for lacking the imagination to progress change.
