Why on Earth do people love the royal family

Why not?

At least Warnie doesn't want to come back on this Earth as a deadly virus to kill as many people as he can.

Plus looking at Liz isn't bad either!

 

That's dead right!

People freaked out when they heard the word 'President' and they immediately assumed we would have the same system as the US.

Maybe if we retained the word 'Queen' for our Republic's Head of State and replace Liz with an elected, non-partisan Australian citizen they may understand it better

 

Everyone has opinions and bias, but whats important is the person is in the loop for things like high level national security issues. The head of state needs to be in those loops all the time, so might as well make the head of state the Chief of the Defence Force. That's probably the only republic I'd bother considering, Otherwise I still see the republic as a huge waste of time based on some childish concept of needing to grow up. I mean seriously, a bit of culture with no influence that represents the history and basis of our government, and the last 200 years of our society, is somehow a bad thing! No offence to any republicans but I think its them who needs to grow up.

 

Republicans would like to see an elected Australian citizen as Head of State, as opposed to a foreigner born into the position.

Absolutely nothing childish about that.

 

Indeed.

Australians also want the Prime Minister as head of government.

Long live the Westminster system.

 

It sounds like your reading too much into the title and taking the literal reading as a cop out for a position. That would then surely imply greater powers for this concept of 'head of state'. As it stands now it doesnt matter if its a foreigner because it has no real purpose - it exists more ceremonially as living history, otherwise known as culture. I dont think Australian's are really that interested in creating another pseudo government beaurocracy with its own elections and powers. If the only reason you got is because it makes you feel more Australian by stripping away foreign historical culture then my original point still stands.

 

Nope, not at all. Simply:

a) Remove constitutional links to the monarchy.

b) Replace 'Governor General' with 'President' (elected).

And there you have our Direct Election Republic.

All grown up and sophisticated. Problem solved.

Next.

 

Your missing the point, so I again ask for what purpose, because if you do not add powers then why does it matter that its a foreign person.... given that it represents so much Australian historical value.

 

And again I answer: for the purpose of having a HOS elected on merit, as opposed to one handed power as a birthright.

Simple.

 

Yeah lets get rid of the queen and the royalities we have to send her every year, i remember reading once that telstra (government owned) use to pay royalties of about $20 million a year to the queen.

Lets get rid of the governer general who lives in a house with 40 rooms and servants and cars fully furbished by the tax payer.

Lets get rid of all the governers in the states who also live like wise.

Its all a waste of money.

I would say that would save us quite a few million.

 

So..... why change the Governor General to President then, the GG is already Australian. What 'merit' is used in these elections and who votes? Do you really think the public can be bothered with another election - and the cost of it. I dont feel you've explained any reason why yet which makes sense beyond what I said it was earlier. In which case its a shallow rebranding exercise with the only outcome being removal of an important part of Australian history from present day life. A society without culture is pretty boring, and Australia is already very bland on the culture front compared to other older nations.

 

There's no need to. If people want to retain that name, that's fine.

They can call the HOS Mickey Mouse for all I care.

Mickey Mouse can be elected by the Parliament.

You, along with everyone else who doesn't understand it, are making it more complicated that it need be.

To recap: Remove Monarch and let Parliament elect the HOS. Simple, grown up, democratic. Lovely.

 

All I asked was why, becase as far as I can tell its only to remove a bit of Australian history in some attempt to grow up and cut our ties from the past, or some other childish gibberish.

 

Democracies come in two types. Weak or Strong Heads of state. The US is a prime exampample of the Strong sort. A single man is given enormous power over the executive and is limited by the legislature. In the weak sort the head of state has very limited or a purely symbolic role and the power is held by the head of the ruling political party - this is a system we see in Monarchies like Australi, the UK and the Netherlands and also in countries like Ireland or Germany which have an elected president whose function comprises of hosting diplomatic events and acting as an arbiter in the case of constitutional conflict.

In the Australian example you have a defacto and dejure head of state. The Queen is the de Jure head of state but has no actual role whatsoever in any decision making because that function is held by the Governor General. The Queen has no role in Chosing the Governor General either. The Governor General is chosen by the Prime Minister of Australia and the Queen rubber stamps the appointment.

Since it seems most Australians want to continue the tradition of a weak head of state if you are a republicando you want the current system to continue but the de facto or de jure functions merged and called a President or do you want to directly elect your President.

Since in a weak system the President has no control over policy on what basis would you vote for someone who's purpose is i) to be a 'host' ii) preside over ceremony or iii) to very rarely impose a decision during a constitutional crisis. You need someone who is sworn to be impartial and also someone who will make a good host.

Alternatively you can split the two functions. Have a consitutional court made up of the highest ranking judges who meet to interpret the constitution in the case of a crisis (which they have in the USA) and a professional host who represents Australia at home and abroad but is not a political head.


What this debate is really about , in my humble opinion, is a long standing cultural battle involving Irishness, Aboriginal affairs, "australian-ness" and a relationship with the UK.

 

Pretty close Sab. Our Governor General / President / Head of State, really doesn`t weild much political power, the Queen either. The power of our "functional" head of state, the Prime Minister, is influenced by the political majority, or lack thereof, of the Governing party / parties, or as in the present case, the unions which have been most successful in organised crime.

I have nothing against the Royals, so I can`t see any reason to fix anything that isn`t broken, in that regard. However, it would be prudent to consciously revise our governmental, legal & justice, bureaucratic systems etc., periodically, rather than just let things plod along in their own inefficient way.

 

Its really sad for the development and progression of humanity in the 21st Century, that we still have a group of people (Royals) who think they were given the divine omnipotent right to rule over other human beings as their Lords and masters.

Surely human beings of the 21st Century have the intellect to have moved beyond the archaic need and desire to have Queens & Kinds dominate and rule over them forever.

Every human being bleeds, sleeps, eats, shytes, lives and dies, and no one deserves the right to be called “your highness” or “ your majesty” which suggest one human being has a higher divine right over another human being.

The British Royal family is an antiquated system, that should have went the way of the dinosaurs over a Century ago.

If some people are so sad with themselves and their own lives, that that they want to believe the British Royal family is better than they are, then that is their prerogative.

The only people who “love” the royal family are people who make a living off them, or the uneducated.

 

Except that the British Royal familly don;t actually rule over anyone. They do not make or enforce any rules either in the UK or in Australia.

 

Not true my friend.

On tuesday 11th of novmeber 1975 the governor general sacked the Whitlam government, you cannot seriously believe that the queen wasn't involved with this decision cause the governor general acts on the queens behalf.

Now look below what was Gough going to do he was going to by-pass the US and Europe and obtain loans from the middle east so our own Australian government could exploit our own natural resources and energy reserves.

Australia would have mined her own resources and reaped all the profits too eehhh, since the goverment would have been in charge.

But the bankers were having none of that dude??!!??!!

Hell the fact that he gave the masses a first class health system in medi-care where no money was exchanged (you virtually went to the doctors for free) and prolonged the life of mere surfs which in turn helps to overpopulate the earth was enough.

Now he was going to finance his own minerals and energy projects cutting them out all together and none of their sister corporations would be reaping anything at all from Australia.

And to top it all of he wasn't getting Australia into debt with their money?, The kind that just suddenly appears on a computer screen out of thin air.

I mean Australia would enjoy 100% of the profits of mining her own land??!!

Now thats a lucky country....................................

NO NO NO the only way to stop this kind of thing happening is to get the GG to kick out the government and then implement the Milton Friedman version of capatalism where everything is sold to the elite, the few moguls who today run the whole world.

Thats what we got now........................an oligarchy............and we're loving it too.

 

There is no evidence that the Queen expressed any opinion at all but if you can produce any evidence to the contrary then please do. John Kerr was not chosen by the Queen but specifically by Whitlam.It was Kerrs decision Not the Queen's decision. The Queen could only rubber stamp what Kerr ordered.Are you actually claiming that Kerr would have not ordered dismissal had he had the identical powers but had been an appointed president instead of a governor Genrer

Tirath Kemlani the pakistani financier failed to secure any loan.THe whole business was done in secret and bypassed the treasury. It was the leaking of the affair that caused the removal of supply in the first place.

 

Same reason they love characters in soaps, obviously. Opium of the people, some call it.

 

I believe there was a law passed in the British parliament in 1986 (?) that the monarchy, now and in the future will not get involved in Australian politics.

 

I can't see how that could possibly be right. The relationshop between the Queen and Australia has nothing to do with the Britan. The Queen is the Queen of Australia quite separetely from her position as Queen of the UK

 

We `ve got Molly Meldrum, we don`t need Lizzy.

 

Then by all means vote ina a republic but at least have the honesty to say why you want one rather than claim it is about the Queen's influence.

 

In 1975 if Australia would have been a republic then Kerr would be called 'president' rather than 'governor general' and the result would have been exactly the same. Your defacto head of state is the Governor General. The Queen just rubber stamps the decision of the governor General and has no personal input on the matter.