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Malcolm Turnbull flags postal survey for Australian republic


Malcolm Turnbull at North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club in Sydney today. Picture: AAP.

• The Australian
• 12:04PM January 1, 2018
• 
  
  
• JOE KELLY
  
  Political reporter
  Canberra
  @joekellyoz
  

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.

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• Keating attacks PMs on republic

“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.
“He has little or no policy ambition and commensurably little imagination, no system, of prevailing beliefs,” Mr Keating told The Australian. “Was (his republicanism) just Malcolm being another chameleon doing another chameleon act as he has on so many other things? You know, I was real but is Malcolm real?”
Mr Keating also took aim at the five prime ministers who succeeded him including John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Mr Turnbull for failing to take up the issue of installing an Australian as head of state.
Mr Turnbull hit back at the comments this morning, saying that Mr Keating’s remarks were “barely coherent.”
“I don’t know what’s prompted Paul to come out swinging at everyone. He seems to be critical of every prime minister and former prime minister apart from himself,” Mr Turnbull said. “It must be good for Paul to feel that he’s without fault or blemish, but in the real world we gave it a red hot go in ‘99.”
Mr Abbott, who piloted the ‘No’ campaign at the 99 referendum, also took to Twitter this morning to attack Mr Keating’s comments.
“We don’t need to dump the Queen to be a great country. Republicans will never win by running Australia down,” he said.