The Australian Prime Minister's raising of the republican issue in the late stages of the General Election campaign there is commented on by the
Radical Royalist, and his comments are a corrective to the frequent inevitabilist arguments in the press.
Not a few people fail to realise how comprehensive was the defeat of the issue in the 1999 referendum. To effect such a change in the Australian constitution required a four-fold majority of votes and states, and failed on all counts - and that was on a proposal essentially drafted by the republican activists in the convention. As an active Australian monarchist pointed out to me years ago in a conversation in Oriel such a change is far more difficult to achieve than its proponents think, or wish it to be.
The Oriel connection reminds me that in 1999 the college JCR passed a vote of censure on the previous Provost and former Governor-General of Australia, Sir Zelman Cowan, for having been the only ex-Governor-General to come out in favour of a republic. Now that's the sort of student activism I approve of...
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Sorry to self-promote, but if it is of any interest... - http://www.respublica.org.uk/blog/2010/08/why-monarchy-matters
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