Republic of Australia would herald few changes

By Trevor Datson

CANBERRA (Reuters): On Nov. 6, Australians will be offered a radical revamp of their constitution that would see Britain's Queen Elizabeth replaced as head of state by a home-grown Australian.

Supporters of a Republic of Australia say the reform would reaffirm Australia as a forward-looking state ready to do business with the world.

But the practical effects of a "yes" vote will be less visible: the queen's head could take decades to disappear from Australian coinage, and the first president could well be the same man who is currently her governor-general in Australia.

This undramatic shift in the governance of Australia -- the queen would remain head of state until mid-2001 -- has left many Australians nonplused.

At present, Australian federal legislation is enacted by the governor-general, a political appointee of the prime minister.

Under the republican model proposed in the referendum, legislation will be enacted by the president, a political appointee of parliament -- and nominated by the prime minister.

As if to underline the reluctance to change, the current governor-general, Sir William Deane, is tipped by many pundits as the favorite to become the country's first president.

The queen's locum in Australia has maintained a low profile ever since the highly controversial 1975 dismissal of the government of Gough Whitlam by then governor Sir John Kerr, not least because of the furor sparked by the high-profile sacking.

Another hotly contested but literally symbolic issue is the matter of Australia's flag, and more precisely the Union Jack in its top left-hand corner.

There is no real appetite among Australians to replace the flag, even though it would become something of an anachronism.

Which leaves the coinage. Birds, sportsmen, Aboriginal leaders, entertainers, all have been proposed to usurp the monarch on the flip side of Australian coins.

But with coins reckoned to stay in circulation for up to 40 years, Queen Elizabeth is set to remain in Australian pockets for some time to come.

Ditching the queen might be perceived as a snub by some of the stauncher royalists back in the mother country, but in fact Australia's diplomatic ties with Britain and elsewhere would remain unaffected.

The country's membership of the Commonwealth would not be at risk -- in fact, many Commonwealth members are republics. And the 54-member organization would be reluctant to lose Australia as one of the few net contributors to its budget.

Not traditionally one of Canberra's strong suits, foreign policy shot to the top of the political agenda when the country took a leading role in the organization and implementation of the multinational force restoring peace to troubled East Timor.

Although Prime Minister John Howard's hubris was widely slapped down by Asian leaders as parading white Anglo-Saxon values in the wrong place, it did demonstrate a new willingness to put Australia's head above the foreign policy parapet.

Some political commentators believe shedding the last vestiges of British colonialism could help define Australia as an emerging foreign policy power -- for better or for worse.

Staunch monarchist Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told a recent rally for the "no" campaign there would be no positive impact from a republic on Australia's image in the region.

The contention that foreign trade would also receive a boost from a "yes" vote was also unfounded, Downer said.

Opinion is divided on this issue, but even committed republicans say that any positive impact on Australian foreign trade would be largely psychological.

"Business is business," a government trade source told Reuters. "I can't recall anyone coming in here and saying 'why don't you get rid of the queen and then we'll buy a whole lot more off you.'"

Ultimately, the symbolic value of a "no" vote could have a deeper impact on the way Australia is viewed around the world than the adoption of a republic.

And rejection of the republican model on offer is a real possibility. The republican camp is divided into those who support the current formula as the lesser of two evils and those intending to hold out for a directly elected president.

Many of these direct electionists will vote "no" on November 6, possibly handing victory to the anti-republicans and, according to one Western diplomatic source, leaving many international observers baffled.

"I suspect that there'd be bewilderment as to why, having been offered this chance to become a republic, that Australia would vote no. There's certainly no pressure from anywhere else."