ARM National Council member, Jenny Hocking, continues to wind up the Meghan and Harry interview as a major driver towards our Republic (we don’t agree) but the foot of her article reveals ARM’s core elements for putting “a model” successfully to referendum. They are:
“it has enough bipartisan poltical support to pass through parliament as the formal referendum question
it needs to reflect the lessons of the unsuccessful 1999 referendum and bridge the artifical divide between an “elected or appointed” model, which drove a wedge between republicans last time
most critically, it must be able to win the approval of the Australian public.”
WfaAR comments: most of this is straightforward process; the last point has been around since the time of Referendum Council on Indigenous Recognition in 2012 and is not particularly meaningful ie it’s obvious. Trying to remove opposition to a proposed model, particularly one formulated by ARM from among its members, is futile. There will be many new republic groups campaigning on the details by the time the country gets to another referendum. These points do not deal, in any way, with why we want to be a Republic and how the head of state relates to the people.
