Stephen Forrest wrote:
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 20:33:51 +1100, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
The two terms are not exclusive. Australia has a republican form of government where sovereignty resides in the people and executive power is given to and exercised by elected and appointed officers, Howver, the Queen has a highly visible symbolic role and has some remnant functions, chief of which is the formal appointment of the Governor-General.
I think that describing Australia in its present state as a 'republic' would be highly confusing.
It's a bit like the difference between "de facto" and "de jure". Law and the way things are done are often quite different.
Australia and Canada (with which I'm more familiar) are constitutional monarchies. They are not republics, at least not under any definition of the term which would be commonly accepted here in Canada. The movement in Canada to remove the queen and install a citizen as head of state is called 'republicanism' (see e.g. [[Canadian republicanism]]). I don't imagine things are too much different in Australia.
Canada, unlike Australia, India and South Africa, has not taken taken steps to become a republic. Not being a republic does help to distinguish us from the Yanks even if it does mean putting up with the vestiges of a mediaeval European form of govenment. Even in Quebec where they have even less use for the Queen than the rest of us, I can't see any groundswell of republicanism. And Lizzie is not about to step in and make a fuss about it. Occasionally, some republican individuals will grumble about the apparance that Canada is not independent, and the old crones having afternoon high tea at the Empress Hotel will feel properly offended, but for most of us the fact that we have a "Queen of Canada" is perfectly ignorable, and the statement comes with an appropriate giggle.
All that said, I think this sort of technical discussion should probably not be happening on the list.
I prefer to treat the subject as an expression of humour rather than a technical discussion.
Ec