There are certain undeniable signs when it’s January in Australia: shaking off the holiday hangover and groggily remembering what day of the week it is, bushfires… and leftists getting in a tizz about either Australia or a Republic.
Australians steadfastly support our national day on January 26 and overwhelmingly rejected a Republic at a referendum in 1999. But the left, of course, never take “sod off” for an answer. Like spoiled toddlers, saying “No”, only encourages them to stamp their little feets and hold their little bweafs until they get their way.
And, having learned absolutely nothing from 1999, when Australians rejected a Republican model that was an elite’s picnic, the Australian Republic Movement has thought long and hard and come up with another elite’s picnic.
The Australian Republic Movement has unveiled a new model to sever ties with the Royal Family allowing the public to elect a new head of state from a list of up to eleven candidates.
The new model, named “The Australian Choice”, proposes that all Australian parliaments would nominate a candidate for head of state which would then be put forward to a national ballot.
Each state and territory parliament would be able to nominate one candidate, and the federal parliament would be able to choose up to three. Each parliament could decide how to nominate its candidate, including through a vote of the parliament or through a nomination process overseen by an independent panel.
So, it’ll be like one of those Soviet elections where lucky voters get to choose between Politburo Appointee A and Politburo Appointee B.
ARM chair Peter FitzSimons said the new model offered the “best chance of success” at a referendum and would provide Australians with a large choice of “merit-based” candidates to represent them as head of state, instead of it being chosen for them.
“Merit-based” meaning political hacks long past their use-by date. Should it surprise anyone that Malcolm Turnbull is also in on this?
That the position would be just another politicians’ retirement picnic is given away by just how much it will be tied to the government.
Under The Australian Choice model, the head of state would not hold “king like” executive powers and would act on the advice of the government of the day.
However, there are several exceptions.
The head of state would be required to terminate the appointment of the Prime Minister when a Prime Minister no longer commanded the confidence of the House of Representatives and refused to resign.
And just to show that nobody holds a grudge like the left:
To avoid a repeat of the 1975 constitutional crisis, the Head of State could not terminate the appointment of a Prime Minister if the Senate blocked supply and the Prime Minister still maintained a majority in the House of Representatives.
Fifty years ago, the Governor-General rightly dismissed an unrepresentative, dysfunctional rabble of a government. The Boomer Left can no more stop yammering about it than they can about bloody Woodstock.
Research undertaken by the organisation has found 73 per cent of Australians would vote for a republic if this model was put to a referendum.
Research also found 92 per cent of Australians were open to the idea of a republic, with only eight per cent opposed to any change.
Mr FitzSimons said the movement had “consulted” and “listened closely”.
Meaning, Pirate Pete door-knocked his neighbours in the Harbourside Mansions and quizzed his millionaire lefty mates over chardies, and, surprise, surprise, they all agreed with each other.
Former PM Tony Abbott, who successfully lead the “No” campaign in 1999, has once again nailed it:
Tony Abbott, warned the proposal would undermine Australia’s democracy.
“A president accountable to the people would be a rival to the prime minister accountable to the parliament and government would become unworkable,” he said. “My general view is that we have more than enough to worry about right now without this unnecessary distraction.”
The Australian
More to the point, to get an idea of just what an Australian republic would look like, you need only look at who’s peddling it: a gaggle of nauseating left-elitists who make even Prince Charles look palatable by comparison.