History
Direct election of the Governor-General was considered in the conventions leading to the federation of Australia, however rarely revisited until the advent of the modern republican movement.
In 1993 direct-election was reviewed as one of four options by the Republic Advisory Committee, chaired by Malcolm Turnbull. A partial and complete codification of the reserve powers of this model were presented. Prime Minister Paul Keating rejected this option saying it would "constitute a very dramatic and undesirable change to a system which all of us agree has served us well"
Under Prime Minister John Howard, two models were closely examined and criticised at the 1998 constitutional convention. During voting, the Hayden model was first to be eliminated, however supporters of that model did not transfer all their support to the more popular Gallup model which was consequently next to be eliminated.
At the 1999 Australian republic referendum, many direct-election republicans voted NO and ensured the defeat of the bi-partisan appointment model.
After the defeat, the Australian Republican Movement changed tactic and presented six republic options, of which three involved direct-election. Model 4 was developed from the Hayden model and Model 5 was developed from the Gallop model. Model 6 proposes a directly elected executive president, which would not retain the existing parliamentary system.
The 2004 Republican Senate Inquiry included models 4 and 5 in a recommendation that a plebiscite be conducted offering five alternative methods of selecting a head of state. According to opinion polls, if such a plebiscite were held, electors would be more likely to support direct-election models over alternatives.
Read more about this topic: Direct Election Republican Model (Australia)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)