Second go at a republic

It was a week ago now, but the Australian Financial Review from Wednesday last week (20th of January 2010) had on the front page the headline: ‘Labor eyes referendum on republic’.

The article was about the possibility of constitutional change under a second term Rudd government. A quote from the article: “The four potential referendum questions are obviously the republic, the recognition of indigenous Australians, the third is local government and the fourth is the issue of cooperative federalism.”

This isn’t a complete analysis of the topic, just a brief note, but you could sum up the potential constitutional changes as an attempt to disempower the states to the advantage of the Commonwealth. I presume that the federal government would like the power to override any laws passed by a state government, just as they can override any law passed by the parliament of a territory, and they would also like to take away the power of state governments to set up the framework for local government in their state. The bits about adding a preamble that mentions indigenous Australians and even the republic are secondary issues to the main attempt to consolidate nation-wide power in the executive of the federal government. The republic issue would be for the advertising programs and more of a Trojan horse that would introduce a wide ranging alteration of our system of government. Just as with weasel words, the powers of state governments would be taken away by the federal government and the state parliaments would be left as thin shells of their former glory and sovereignty. I think the second attempt at a republic will be a cynical grab for power and will attempt to destroy our political system. We can make a change to have an Australian as our head of state without radically changing our political systems. This second go at a republic seems to be a covert attempt to do away with the states. The states after such a major change will be left with all the powers of a territory, and perhaps even less. These are just some initial thoughts about what has been made public about this latest attempt.

15 May 2010

All the political class and powerful would need is a ready-made popular Aussie hero to face up to the cameras and run with the blanket publicity…

And they presumably would have a new ‘vanilla-ice’ constitution written pro bono by now: calculated to be bland so that it pleases most people…