Abandoning the monarchy is all very well, but what would we replace it with?

You are missing the point. The G-G is simply replaced and made head of state with the same powers the G-G has now. Whether they get called President or not is irrelevant. As long as the powers remain the same (as per any changes required to the consitution) then nothing in reality has changed other than the head of state is not foreign. The G-G and the monarch have very little, if any power at all these days already. People think the queen had power, but she herself was mostly a ceremonial figurehead.

“Our entire constitution would have to be re-written to include ….”

Utter rubbish.

Do you really need an explanation of that?

There is a very simple solution. We keep the current model and just make the G-G the head of state with the same current powers. The British monarchy actually has no real power over Australia now. all we need to do is just re-assign who the head of state is and they continue to perfoprm the ceremonial role like they do now.

The Parliament is the national ‘Board of Directors’ and the PM is the ‘Chair’. A President (US Style) is more like the CEO. The Monarchy is more like the ‘shareholders’ and thus sit above the Board – a US-style President sits below the Board. Obviously, this is a simple analogy and there are many nuances to tease out.

DJA, there are no nuances to tease out because your analogy is completely up the creek at almost every point.

Cheers
P.

Phydeaux, thank you for your informative and constructive response. The key point out of the analogy (all analogies have faults, sometimes they are useful) is that a US-style President is beholden to the Congress (the ”Supreme Power’) while our Parliament is beholden to the Monarchy (the ‘Supreme Power’). Understanding this difference in governance structure is significant when discussing future forms of Government in Australia.

Always happy to get to the point DJA.

The problem is that this analogy is too contorted, too many differences, to be worth pursuit. Neither the Australian nor American governance systems operate on a CEO/Board/Shareholder model (e.g. people would be shareholders, not the monarch — for one thing it is the people who may now consider whether to dispose of the monarch entirely), nor do they operate like each other. The American system was designed to create competing powers. Supremacy of Congress, if arguable, is difficult in practice. If anything it is the President who has accreted power subsequently. You have also completely ignored highest courts in each jurisdiction, yet their role is a critical part of governance, and worth keeping in mind if one were redistributing the GG’s occasional tasks.

Really, drop it, and address the GG question more directly.

Fine, seeing as you either don’t understand the role of analogy or are conveniently obfuscating it because it does not suit your narrative.

The GG, as the Queen’s representative, sits is a ‘superior’ role to Parliament. That is, Parliament serves at the pleasure of the Crown. Now, there are other issues here, like elections, the will of the people and safeguards in the Constitution – but the key point in this discussion is the super-position of the GG.
The President, in a US-style republic, is subordinate to the Congress – that is, the Congress sets the rules and boundaries by which the President can serve.
Replacing a GG (sitting over Parliament) with a US-Style President (sitting under Parliament) is a significant change and one which I think is ignored in the public discourse. Just replacing the GG with a democratically elected President like in the US is not a like-for-like replacement and this must be considered carefully.

I was not likening a Shareholder/Board/CEO model to the entire governance of Australia – but I did mention that analogies have their limitations, something you are quite willing to ignore because it does not suit your narrative.

When we look at the Constitutional Monarchy that we have in place in Australia (with all those other safeguards and pesky nuances), it is a system that has served us well and certainly appears more stable and appropriate that other systems around the world. Despite some of the obvious faults that republicans like to remind us about.

A very easy way to do this. The G-G becomes head of state without requiring appointment by the Queen. Nothing else changes except the G-G (or whatever title we choose) is the head of state with the current powers they have. The only practical and current thing the current British monarch does is appoint the G-G that the PM nominates. They would never disagree with the PM’s nomination so why bother having their “Stamp of Approval”. We can still be in the commonwealth, the vast majority that are don’t have the british monarch as Head of state. The british monarch would still visit as well. Very little would change other than having an australian head of state like we should have.

Because the act of choosing a representative that would be acceptable by the monarchy is an important part of the process. Without this seemingly redundant act, any decision would become embroiled in politics and get messy. Sometimes the ‘rubber stamp’ is an important part of the process even if it seems to do nothing.