# Queen Elizabeth is 90. Should she have held power as Queen this long vs letting Charles rule? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 26, 2016, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeth-is-90-should-she-have-held-power-as-queen-this-long-vs-letting-charles-rule/775632 "2016-12-26T06:02:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 123
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeth-is-90-should-she-have-held-power-as-queen-this-long-vs-letting-charles-rule/775632/123 "2017-01-01T22:55:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Again, the Australian example is relevant: as I understand it, one of the reasons the referendum failed to pass was that it was relatively minimalist in its approach, which failed to win support from some of the republicans who wanted more radical change. Curiously enough the 1999 Australian Republic Referendum and the 152 member Constitutional Convention which met for two weeks in 1998 which framed the referendum was focused on three questions, 1. whether or not Australia should become a republic; 2. which republican model should be put to the electorate to consider against the status quo; and 3. in what time frame and under what circumstances might any change be considered. There was little discussion as to what would/should constitute the powers of the new Head of State and it was either taken as read by the vast majority of delegates that the existing reserve powers would be maintained or they accepted that to propose amendments to the reserve powers of the President would have doomed the proposal from the starting gate. There is a consensus (before and since) that the GG’s reserve powers cannot be codified, even if that was desirable. Within the current model this represents no great issue and indeed should be regarded as a feature. On the first question the Convention voted by 89 to 52 to support ‘in principle’ Australia becoming a republic. 11 delegates, mostly monarchists were sufficiently muddle headed that even after all the preamble and debate they abstained from voting. That would be consistent with broader polling of the question. On the second question, four models were presented, two direct election models with main differences being the nomination process, the minimalist McGravie model and the Bi-Partisan Appointment model. Notwithstanding they generated most of the heat & light, the two direct election models were first two eliminated, the “most direct” going out first. The key failing was the argument that a directly-elected President would possess a mandate allowing a new centre of political power in opposition to the Prime Minister/Elected Government and were a conflict to occur the HoS powers would be uncodified. The McGarvie Model could be argued to hardly achieve being a republic at all. > [@](#): > > A three member Constitutional Council, who could act by majority, would appoint and dismiss the head of state, the Governor-General in accordance with the Prime Minister’s advice (unfaithful members would be dismissed). Council members to be determined by a , first to former Governors-General (with priority to the most recently retired), and any excess places going to former state governors etc. Richard McGarvie refused to amend his model which was seen as elitist and devoid of public involvement (as is the current system). Had he been more pragmatic his model could quite conceivably got up, but it is highly doubtful that it would have been ultimately successful at the referendum. The endorsed model was a Bi-Partisan Appointment of the President Model, with very little direct participation by the people with the real power undoubtedly lying in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition > [@](#): > > From shortlist vetted by parliamentary committee, the Prime Minister would select and present a single nomination for the office of President, seconded by the Leader of the Opposition, for approval by a Joint Sitting of both Houses of the Federal Parliament requiring a two-thirds majority for approval. However it most clearly established a protocol that the nominated HoS could not be a person with partisan views who harboured aspirations of exercising executive power. The radical republicans termed it the “Politicians President” which became an electoral Mickey Finn. There is no underswell for radical amendment for the model of Australian government. Whatever support the radical republicans want is more than outbalanced by the number of monarchists. The number of Australians who want a directly elected President with executive power in the style of a US president would be less than 5% (only 2 of 152 @ the Convention) while monarchists and status quo consistently tracks above 50%. Polling has always shown that a majority of Australian want to elect their president. Australians love elections. That there is compulsory voting here is immaterial. We make it easy to vote and 95-97% of eligible voters do. We vote on a Saturday and the TV rating of the election night coverages are off the dial. We like the States being majority Labor and the Feds being LIB/Nat or the other way around. We like no party holding a majority in the Federal Senate. It’s our form of checks & balances. We like elections to be close but to deliver a workable majority. We expect the government to get on with their elected platform and the opposition/Senate to take the rough edges off. We don’t like demagogues and ideologues in equal measure and the phenomenon of the Trump & Brexit “oh shit, did we really do that” popularism will kick the republican cause in the goolies. But while they want to elect their President, Australians don’t want a politician to be President. Alas too many can’t join the dots to realise that the first inexorably begets the second. For an referendum to succeed in Australia it needs a double majority i.e. a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the States i.e. 4 out of 6. Longstanding Prime Minister of the 50s/60s in the Bob Menzies said it was the political equivalent of a Labour of Hercules. The 1999 republican referendum got totally shellacked 45%:55% in the popular vote and winning in 0 of 6 states. And that emphatic rebuttal, as Northern Piper has noted, is just on the easy part of the question --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeth-is-90-should-she-have-held-power-as-queen-this-long-vs-letting-charles-rule/775632)._