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Sigh! I shouldn't have bitten.
The Australia page has been through this before, and the ,um, debate, involving someone called Daeron , whose views seem similar to yours, can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Australia/Archive_2.
Peter is not correct, period. India is a republic, yes, but Australia is not.
Hmm, yes the above statement was like those in the archive, mere assertion, without an attempt to reason. I see no reason to change "constitutional monarchy" to "republic", in fact constitutional monarchy is more specific because of the figurehead monarch, certainly the change to republic is not something to fight a revert war over. Unless one likes that sort of thing.
The wikipedia's articles are NOT meant to be an outlet for political hopes and fallacies such as yours and Peter's. Nor is the wikien-l.
What is the hope or fallacy? The change to a republic was made when Austrailia assumed its current form of constitutional monarchy.
Or are you claiming "republic" means something different in Australian english, perhaps that could be explained in the article?
-- Silverback
Surely the Australian government has written a thing or two about whether it is a constitutional monarchy or republic?
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 03:16:37 -0600, Jack Lutz jack-lutz@comcast.net wrote:
Surely the Australian government has written a thing or two about whether it is a constitutional monarchy or republic?
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.
The government directory calls the Governor-General the head of state some years, other times says the Queen is the head of state. It's impossible to find a definitive answer.
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.
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.
All that said, I think this sort of technical discussion should probably not be happening on the list. Leave such arguments over semantics for talk pages.
Steve
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