Republic just won’t go away

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on the eve of the election, Julia Gillard was asked what she would do in the next three years to get Australia ready for transition to a republic.  Among the familiar barrage of verbiage, the answer to that question emerges as a clear No.  Julia Gillard isn’t going to do anything.  What she wants is “an organic coming together in the community – a sense that people want change”.  She may get more than she’s bargaining for post-election given the mood!  And it’s all about the Government being able to win the day. The PM also said that the sense of activism from 1990s (now lost according to her) would have “to be rebuilt before it is credible to suggest that we would go to any form of vote with a hope of success”.  That only appeared, on anything like ‘community-wide’ breadth, after the Constitutional Convention staged by the then Liberal Government in 1998. The polls were still well over 60% in 2009, including 55% of women supporting, so the jury is in. [Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Australians don’t have real hunger for republic by Alison Rehn The Courier-Mail]