Voters' support for republic hits 20-year low (inc. poll)

[slothpomba]

Backing for an Australian republic has collapsed to a 20-year low, with just 39.4 per cent of Australians saying they support a republic.

Support was lowest among older Australians and Generation Y voters, with people aged 35 to 65 most supportive of Australia abandoning the monarchy.

An exclusive ReachTEL poll of more than 2100 Australians, conducted on Thursday night for Fairfax, shows 41.6 per cent oppose the country becoming a republic, and 19 per cent had no opinion on the issue.

(Source and complete article)


Few graphs/images randomly lifted off the internet:

[brenden]

Very surprised at Gen Y :s

[slothpomba]

Very surprised at Gen Y :s

Well this is awkward...in like 3 kinds of ways. I'm a king, i was elected benevolent dictator in a landslide of 300% and i support the current monarchy situation.

[Smiley_]

Very surprised at Gen Y :s

that is all

[chasej]

I don't see any actual reason to change the status quo in Australia for now in regards to whether to be a republic or not. The Crown doesn't have that much power in Australia today and the monarchy is firmly implanted in our national identity and constitution and I feel as though we would be losing some of our heritage if we were to become a republic.

If the crown started overly  dabbling into Australian politics/government etc. I would certainly be a proponent of Australia becoming a republic.

[slothpomba]

I feel the same way, they basically have no power at all. As far as important issues go, this is way down on my list. We've got so many things that need changing right now (hell, they needed changing yesterday) or even just defending from the government. This is about #60 on my list as far as all things go. Not to mention the last one wasn't all that long ago and even that cost us $70,000,000. It's certainly not chump change.

It's not like the streets will be paved with gold or all our lives will be magically better in the event we become a republic. The only thing that'll change is the title of our largely symbolic head of state.

[achre]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Professor Polonsky]

I'm a staunch republican. It has nothing to do with money for me.

Rather, it is about our national identity. I simply do not believe it's sensible that the Monarch of Australia, our head of state, isn't even an Australian. The Queen's loyalty - the Queen of Australia - is British. Her being our sovereign is simply the continuing exertion of British influence over Australia. This runs to the very essence of who we are. And yes, it is about time that Australian kid could grow up with the aspiration of being our Head of State.

There is nothing wrong with a monarchy as such. If you want all the bullshit that comes along with it, the gossip about the royals, then let's pull a Norway and choose a full-time Australian Monarch.

A lot of it is about recognising that we are no longer homogeneously British - but to represent it simply as an issue of multiculturalism would be to ignore the distinctly Australian culture that we have developed. I don't think even those with British ancestry would still like us to be inside the British shell.

When I think of how I'd like our nation to be seen by others, I'd really rather it not be seen as an extension of the UK. Our flag, our HoS, those are the two most fundamental identifiers of who we are as a nation. We can be union jack, or we can be green and gold. I'd rather the latter.

And the former is terribly broken.

[vox nihili]

It seems somewhat bizarre to me that Liberal voters are the ones who support the monarchy, yet Labor/Greens voters tend to go towards a republic. I would have thought that liberals would love an excuse to be patriotic...

[Chazef]

my current reason to not desire a republic is that Britain can bail us out if we ever get a government that wants to end democracy and we wouldn't have any guns to defend ourselves. Can somebody point out the flaw in that logic please? Maybe we're too economically important for powerful nations to watch us get wrecked by a dictator or we signed some treaty to ensure we get bailed out of that situation anyway. Or maybe our military is too weak to help a dictator get full control over the country? I've never really looked into this, somebody help me understand pl0x

[chasej]

I'm a staunch republican. It has nothing to do with money for me.

Rather, it is about our national identity. I simply do not believe it's sensible that the Monarch of Australia, our head of state, isn't even an Australian. The Queen's loyalty - the Queen of Australia - is British. Her being our sovereign is simply the continuing exertion of British influence over Australia. This runs to the very essence of who we are. And yes, it is about time that Australian kid could grow up with the aspiration of being our Head of State.

There is nothing wrong with a monarchy as such. If you want all the bullshit that comes along with it, the gossip about the royals, then let's pull a Norway and choose a full-time Australian Monarch.

A lot of it is about recognising that we are no longer homogeneously British - but to represent it simply as an issue of multiculturalism would be to ignore the distinctly Australian culture that we have developed. I don't think even those with British ancestry would still like us to be inside the British shell.

When I think of how I'd like our nation to be seen by others, I'd really rather it not be seen as an extension of the UK. Our flag, our HoS, those are the two most fundamental identifiers of who we are as a nation. We can be union jack, or we can be green and gold. I'd rather the latter.

And the former is terribly broken.

An Australian Kid can grow up with the aspiration of being head of state, for decades the GG has been an Australian and the GG essentially has all the powers of a head of state. The Queen herself merely holds a ceremonial roll. As these polls shows Australian youth tends not to give a flying fuck about the HOS is, so there's no reason to change that so kids can have their dream come true.

Clearly people do want to remain part of the Monarch as per this polls. I have a pretty strong British ancestry and would like to remain as part of the Monarchy for now.

Very rarely do people see Australia as an extension of the UK simply due to being part of the Monarch. For example Canada is part of the monarchy but hardly anyone sees any resemblence between Canada and Britain. The legal implications of being part of the monarchy are completly irrelevant as they have no actual influence on the Australian parliament in a serious capacity today. Australians have made a conscious choice to continue the relationship with the Monarchy by choosing to keep their own culture close to that of Britain as opposed to other countries who have tried to distance their own culture.

The Monarchy is a great part of being Australia and I would be sad to see it go in its current form.

What many republicans fail to address either is exactly who they propose to be given the HOS should Australia become a republic? Will there be President and a Prime minister? How would someone be given presidency? Elections? Government choose? Independent panels? None of the previous referendums on the matter have provided an acceptable solution for me. One cannot argue for Australia to become a republic without addressing these serious implications which have to be discussed should Australia become a republic.

[Professor Polonsky]

Ah, yes. The GG. A remnant of colonialism. Did you know Australian governments at first did not even have a say in who it's going to be? Was a British guy for a while.

Anyway, your statement said it all. You want us to have a foreign-born HoS - you even call it "a great part" of what Australia is. I'm not going to convince you, then. You haven't really made one compelling argument for the Monarchy, just stating a few times that you like it and would like it to stay. The rest was an appeal to the majority.

You try to minimise the cultural impact of the Monarchy when it suits you (e.g. by saying that the implications of being a Monarchy are irrelevant), and then do go on to state how great it is. Please choose which one it is.

Canada has its own flag, at least, rather than having the Union Jack and a tiny Southern Cross on it. It's also a bit of a special case, since most people (erroneously) believe that it got rid of the Queen. Shows at least that they do their PR better than us. You do correctly state that we haven't made as much of an effort to distance ourselves from this archaic institution.

You're constantly appealing to the will of the majority, which is a very weak form of argument. Public opinion changes very often, and the fact the majority wants something should not be used to stifle dissent. I'll also make a note of the fact that we actually opposed the Monarchy for most of the past 25 years, and also that the vast majority of Federal Parliamentarians are republicans. Howard specifically wrote the text of the 1999 referendum so that it would fail, thereby bringing the republican movement back decades.

That last argument is probably the silliest one in existence. Most of Europe (Germany, Austria, Italy, Ireland, Israel...) have managed to come up with a way to pick tier President. You could simply take the Queen out of the picture, and just had the government appointing the President in the same way a GG is, removing her out of the picture. Or you could had direct elections, a la Ireland. Or have secret Parliamentary ballots, like most parliamentary democracies in the world.

[achre]

Can you cite some instances of the negative cultural impact of our association with the UK? (meat pies, the word mate, etc.?) If your sole argument is that we can't establish a national identity with a foreign-born HoS, then an "appeal to majority" is actually quite a relevant discussion to have.
The Republic of Ireland broke away from the UK, and they're not exactly the envy of the world. It really doesn't seem worth cutting such close and historical ties with a country just so we can be a republic in name. We're doing fine as is, and personally, I like the sense of continuity our monarchy provides.
So please, beyond the picture in our flag's left-hand corner, what is so horrible about being a constitutional monarchy?

[MagicGecko]

I don't think I am mentally prepared for a new flag.

[chasej]

Ah, yes. The GG. A remnant of colonialism. Did you know Australian governments at first did not even have a say in who it's going to be? Was a British guy for a while.

1. Anyway, your statement said it all. You want us to have a foreign-born HoS - you even call it "a great part" of what Australia is. I'm not going to convince you, then. You haven't really made one compelling argument for the Monarchy, just stating a few times that you like it and would like it to stay. The rest was an appeal to the majority.

2. You try to minimise the cultural impact of the Monarchy when it suits you (e.g. by saying that the implications of being a Monarchy are irrelevant), and then do go on to state how great it is. Please choose which one it is.

4. Canada has its own flag, at least, rather than having the Union Jack and a tiny Southern Cross on it. It's also a bit of a special case, since most people (erroneously) believe that it got rid of the Queen. Shows at least that they do their PR better than us. You do correctly state that we haven't made as much of an effort to distance ourselves from this archaic institution.

5. You're constantly appealing to the will of the majority, which is a very weak form of argument. Public opinion changes very often, and the fact the majority wants something should not be used to stifle dissent. I'll also make a note of the fact that we actually opposed the Monarchy for most of the past 25 years, and also that the vast majority of Federal Parliamentarians are republicans. Howard specifically wrote the text of the 1999 referendum so that it would fail, thereby bringing the republican movement back decades.

6. That last argument is probably the silliest one in existence. Most of Europe (Germany, Austria, Italy, Ireland, Israel...) have managed to come up with a way to pick tier President. You could simply take the Queen out of the picture, and just had the government appointing the President in the same way a GG is, removing her out of the picture. Or you could had direct elections, a la Ireland. Or have secret Parliamentary ballots, like most parliamentary democracies in the world.

I know that, how's it relevant? We're talking about contempary Australia, not something that was happening decades ago.
1. As I said the legal HoS is completly irrelevant, as in practice the HoS duties are carried out by an AUSTRALIAN GG.
2. I'm not trying to minismise the cultural impacts, I'm minismising the LEGAL impacts. I openly embrace the cultural impacts and believe they are an important part of Australia's national identity.
4. Clearly if we haven't made an effort to distance ourselves from the institution, it's a valuable part of our nation.
5. Fair enough point. Though my arguments on the cultural value and minimal negative impacts of the monarchy in a legal sense still stand.
6. Fair point again. But again a suitable solution needs to be devloped for Australia before any possibility of a referendum passing in Australia on the matter is even remote.

I just don't see a good enough reason to move from the monarchy. It's possible for Australia to socially move away from the monarchy, but clearly Australian culture won't do that which leads me to conclude the Monarchy is an important and valued part of Australian identity.

I would argue constantly referring to a picture in the corner of a flag is a far worse argument than using actual real facts which have come out recently.