Requirements analysis for a republic

So the question is: what do we want with our republic?

What are the requirements for a model for a republic?

What are the limits and constraints?

Can we categorise the requirements and clump some of them together and then map those alternative requirements to different models?

How would we judge a successful outcome to the process?

How would you test the requirements and proposed models?

Could we start a public process to build a list of requirements and describe how well any proposed models meet the requirements?

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The political class in Australia seems to work backwards. They start with advocating solutions and then try to convince the public with advertising and a media campaign that their solution is the right one. They don’t seem to understand what the nature of the problems that their solutions are meant to address actually are. They haven’t got to that part of it yet.

Normally you explore what the nature of a problem is, look at all the options, and then work out what would be the best approach that is achievable and then plan a way to work towards that goal. You need to look at the whole lifecycle.

Instead we seem to have figurative giant yellow submarines floating around the air near Canberra (perhaps some wit could design an entry to the Canberra Hot Air Balloon Festival that looked like a yellow submarine).

You can have thousands of intelligent, well educated people working hard on an issue, but if you haven’t worked out the requirements and realistic specifications for a major project then it can all look like a grand folly.