People are already jeering up for the party of the millenium.

27^th January 1999

The Commonwealth of Australia

The Commonwealth of Australia is so much more appealing, relevent to our history and an honourable goal for our country. I am little inspired by the bland, off the shelf solution to our head of state problem : The President of the Federal Republic of Australia.

It sounds dysfunctional due to the obvious examples of undesirable republics through history.

We want an Australian head of state. This is the critical issue and to sidetrack the debate to the narrow issue of republic vs monarchy debate demonstrates a lack of imagination. We are listening to the broken record of pro and cons about only one particular strategy to address the issue of Australian head of state.

Consider the calling ourselves "The Commonwealth of Australia" with an Australian head of state called "Govenor General" with a bunch of goveners who are all local people. Now instead of the queen of king being supplied by a foreign country via the royal lineage, we change all the royal references to become the Commonwealth of Australia. Dig?

The Govenor General would then be a representative of the Commonwealth of Australia. Not an agent for a ruling foreign crown.

I am not impressed with idea of having "A President". We have to contort ourselves to shoe horn this overly used, culturally irrelevant term. We know what a Govener General is. It is simply an issue of who they represent.

A goverment appointed GG is something we are used to. We could formalise a 2/3 majority joint sitting ofcourse, or whatever.

The real point, though, is this person would represent the commonwealth of Australia. Not a people's representative as such, and not just a government stooge.

The GG's ability to withhold legislation pending further consideration is what fascinates me. What sort of mechanism could we put in place to allow the GG to delay the passing of legislation? A six month hiatus to allow country wide debate and visits. The passing of a referendum perhaps to decide the particular sticking point. There is no need to dissolve parliament, and we certainly do not need to introduce citizen initiated referenda.

Any citizen and interest group could petition GG about their concerns about any legislation passed that comes before the GG for stamping. A seven day approval period could be set so that people had time to respond. If any concerns are lodged, with a set number of signatures, say, then the GG could address a joint sitting about the concerns. The GG could then take a private conscience vote of the members. If the vote agrees in majority that the suggested changes are a good idea, then the bill could be re-read with changes and a public vote by the house of reps taken. If passed it would then be tested in the senate. A knockout round. It's in with the changes, or it's out.

The effect then is we validate the concerns of interest groups, but allow a non party parliament vote to endorse the changes, and then a party sanctioned passage of the changes. The GG would then truely be our voice to parliament and represent the commonwealth of Australia.

It's a small handbrake on "reform" that still leaves the process up to MP's but provides an effective mechanism for the people to shout "hang on!".

end of rave.

(C)opyright Sylvano Lucchetti.