Stephen Forrest wrote:
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 20:33:51 +1100, Skyring
<skyring(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The two terms are not exclusive. Australia has a
republican form of
government where sovereignty resides in the people and executive power
is given to and exercised by elected and appointed officers, Howver,
the Queen has a highly visible symbolic role and has some remnant
functions, chief of which is the formal appointment of the
Governor-General.
I think that describing Australia in its present state as a 'republic'
would be highly confusing.
It's a bit like the difference between "de facto" and "de
jure". Law
and the way things are done are often quite different.
Australia and Canada (with which I'm more familiar)
are constitutional
monarchies. They are not republics, at least not under any definition
of the term which would be commonly accepted here in Canada. The
movement in Canada to remove the queen and install a citizen as head
of state is called 'republicanism' (see e.g. [[Canadian
republicanism]]). I don't imagine things are too much different in
Australia.
Canada, unlike Australia, India and South Africa, has not taken taken
steps to become a republic. Not being a republic does help to
distinguish us from the Yanks even if it does mean putting up with the
vestiges of a mediaeval European form of govenment. Even in Quebec
where they have even less use for the Queen than the rest of us, I can't
see any groundswell of republicanism. And Lizzie is not about to step
in and make a fuss about it. Occasionally, some republican individuals
will grumble about the apparance that Canada is not independent, and the
old crones having afternoon high tea at the Empress Hotel will feel
properly offended, but for most of us the fact that we have a "Queen of
Canada" is perfectly ignorable, and the statement comes with an
appropriate giggle.
All that said, I think this sort of technical
discussion should
probably not be happening on the list.
I prefer to treat the subject as an expression of humour rather than a
technical discussion.
Ec