Canadians who object to the Monarchy mainly on the grounds that they now seem a little “foreign” - how would you feel if, say, Harry married a nice Canadian girl and settled in Canada. Perhaps he could ascend to a new Canadian throne at the same time that William ascends to the British throne. You could retain all the benefits of a Monarchy, whilst having your own Head of State - and still keep some kind of link with the Brits.
Alternatively, why doesn’t Jean Chrétien just ring up Tony Blair and yell, “Oi! Britain! Stop hogging the Queen!”
Answering for myself in relation to the Norwegian crown: No, at least not yet.
The Norwegian royal family is still popular, and relatively cheap to keep. At this point, I don’t think there are any benefits to changing to a republic that would outweigh the costs. However, there’s no denying that the idea of a monarchy is a serious anachronism in an aggressively egalitarian society. I expect the time will come to make the switch, and I expect that I will live to see the beginning of the process at least. But now? Who’s going to tell King Harald he’s fired?
Actual news item: a number of MPs wanted to start a discussion last summer about changing the constitution to make Norway a republic. The parliamentary president and the parliamentary leaders of most of the major parties put a lid on the discussion. The reason? It was less than two weeks before the Crown Prince was to marry, and they believed the royal family would be offended by the timing of the discussion! The fact that they were worried about the political ramifications of offending the king tells me that the general public isn’t ready for a republic just yet…
Also registering my deeply felt opposition to direct election of an
Australian Head of State, for the reasons given above. God knows, we’d end up giving an open-ended mandate to some tosser like Fatty Vautin. The scenario was summed up nicely when it was said, “If we’d been a republic in 1983, we’d have elected Alan Bond!”
I’d like to see John Doyle as our Big Cheese. Or maybe Doug Mulray. Or Carlotta.
As a descendant of people who fought a war to get rid of the monarchy, I’m a little fuzzy on the whole “head of state” concept? Our head of state is our president. He represents the US at international meetings, he is our chief executive, and he sets our foreign and domestic policy. Isn’t that what a prime minister does?
What does a Head of State do that isn’t covered by the prime minister? The Queen doesn’t go to G-8 meetings to represent the UK, Canada, and Australia; she does not make laws or sign treaties; she sets no policies and has no real power. So how does a head of state differ from your respective PMs?
The Queen is the Ultimate Rubberstamping Poobah. She effectively has no real input on what goes on down here, just signs Elizabeth Regina when the PM sends her the nomination for the new governer general, that sort of thing.
Me, I’m a minimal-change/McGarvie republican. Nice, sensible, low-fuss model that would kept a balance of power, reasonably easy to implement. reprise covered why I don’t like the idea of direct election pretty effectively.
A change to the Australian flag would be nice too - the Eureka flag would be a fine choice.
Well, most countries, even those without monarchies, have a separate “head of state” and “head of government” – the President and Prime Minister of France.
It’s a gross oversimplification, but Heads of State are usually more sort of symbolic and diplomatic leaders, and Heads of Government are more daily-business-of-keeping-the-country-running leaders.
Countries with elected Heads of State usually give them a few actual political powers. Countries whose Heads of State are unelected give them few powers.
In Canada, we have a Governor General who’s essentially our Head of State appointed (well, more like approved) by the Queen. Our Governors General are sort of living symbols of the country. Our current governor general is Adrienne Clarkson, longtime arts reporter, francophone Ontarian, fluently bilingual, and married to humanist philosopher John Ralston Saul. An intelligent and deeply compassionate person, although she’s often perceived as an intellectual snob.
As President, the America’s leader has to do double-duty as the “living symbol” and “head of government.” This is why, IMHO, the President is often expected to lead the country morally as well as politically.
As for the OP, I agree with matt_mcl. I intend to be a monarchist for the duration of Prince William’s reign, if only to have him on our money.
For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume a simple division of powers. To the traditional categories of Executive, Legislative (and Judicial), let’s add one called Ceremonial Head of State stuff.
Now on a simple reading of the Australian Constitution, Executive power would appear to vest in the Queen and remain exerciseable through the Governor-General. On top of that, the Governor-General is given very substantial powers (“reserve powers”) by Constitution. For instance, his is the power to appoint the Prime Minister.
However, in reality the G-G is strongly bound by convention in the exercise of these incidents of Executive power. Executive power is in practice possessed by the Government’s Minsters (“Cabinet”). In all other matters (bar one, see below) the G-G is bound to act on the “advice” of the Government of the day.
(The only area where the Governor-General may be seen to exercise some kind of effective power is in circumstances where there is no generally-agreed convention to control the exercise of his reserve powers. On such occasion arose in 1975, when the G-G dismissed on the Prime Minister in VERY exceptional circumstances. Arguably, the G-G of the time acted improperly, but that’s another matter.)
So effectively, the Prime Minister and his government possess both Executive and Legislative power. Little Johnny is the man that goes to Washington to talk about lamb and terrorists (Executive). He and his Cabinet sign (although not ratify) treaties on behalf of Australia (Executive). In that regard, the PM is the same as the US President. A major difference however, is that the PM remains a member of the Legislature (he is a member of the Lower House). IIRC, the US President is not a member of Congress). So Dubya has a whole swag of Executive Power, but nothing Legislative.
The other major difference is that Ceremonial Head of State stuff is left to the Governor-General. For example, he opened the Olympic Games in Sydney. From what I understand, the US President exercises both the powers of the Executive and the Ceremonial stuff of the Head of State.
Another vote to dispose of the monarchy. I’m very bored and displeased (to say the least ) with this outdated, expensive relic of feudalism and consider it entirely unsuitable for a modern democracy.
Narrad pretty much summed up the situation regarding the “reserve powers” which vest in the Crown.
Our Prime Minister has no equivalent power to that of “presidential veto” - legislation has to be passed by both houses of Parliament AND it has to be given Royal assent. Theoretically, at least, the Crown could refuse to give such assent to a law which it determined to be against the interests of the people (it’s unlikely that any party would ever hold a substantial enough majority in both houses to pass any such law, but it’s theoretically possible).
It’s ironic that our system of government evolved in part to protect the people from abuses of power by the Crown, whereas now one of the Crown’s most important reserve powers is to protect the people from abuses of power by the parliament.
Also I’m pretty sure the Queen is part-German, and the Duke is Greek-Danish.
And these people represent Britain? (and the Church of England!)
A minor royal, Princess Michael of Kent, pays £70 (about $100) a week to live in a 5 bedroom suite in Kensington Palace in the heart of London. Estate agents reckon £7,000 a week would be more market value.
And she also gets 7 full-time staff thrown in free.
Actually, there’s probably only four reserve powers: the powers to appoint and dismiss the PM and other Ministers and the powers to force the dissolution of Parliamanent or to refuse to dissolve Parliament.
However, it is not generally accepted that the G-G has a reserve power to refuse consent to laws passed by the Government. It’s not even “theoretically possible”. Such an attempt probably would not be upheld by the High Court; besides, the G-G would be dismissed on ‘advice’ of the PM before it even came to that.
) with this outdated, expensive relic of feudalism and consider it entirely unsuitable for a modern democracy.