Republicans take a pose in wigs and breeches

It’s time to grow up, and revive the republican cause

Editorial – November 6, 2009 – The Age

A plebiscite that offers a real choice should be held at the next election…

Popular support for a direct-election model continues, and still causes disquiet in the political establishment. Politicians fear that direct election would undermine the system of parliamentary government, by giving the president and the prime minister rival sources of authority. It is a reasonable concern, and The Age believes that the referendum model had the great merit of avoiding this danger. But it must be recognised, too, there are stable parliamentary democracies with a popularly elected head of state, and that eminent jurists have proposed constitutional provisions that would codify and limit the powers of an elected president.

General Keating estimates that at least 12 months of public consultation would be needed to prepare for a plebiscite on the republic, with a constitutional convention and referendum further down the track. That process ought to begin now. A two-part plebiscite that asks the threshold question – should Australia become a republic – and then offers voters a choice of republican models could cheaply and conveniently be held at the time of the next federal election.

Regardless of the model Australians ultimately choose, trust is the moral of the story: for change to happen, political leaders and the people need to trust each other.

via It’s time to grow up, and revive the republican cause. [my emphasis]

The argument of note: Trust Authority to get it right.

What kind of a republican movement shuns a reasonable argument based on the merits of the points and propositions for a republican model, and instead apes the monarchy and class-based society with symbols of authority and the basic maxim, “Trust us, we know what we are doing”.

How far have we come in the last ten years…

Even the title for the editorial is condescending.