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Emperors Faithful wrote:But I, the- ...DAMN your logic, sebster!

To be honest I had never even thought about it that way. At all. Although I am against a republic in principle, having read this, I can see that this model is prefferable to a popularily elected president. But I am ignorant as to how candidates for presidency would have been put forward. Would each party have thier own candidate? If so, then that isn't very much to be happy about at all with each party backing thier own horse.

Reading my post again this morning it sounds pretty snippy, I apologise. My cold was giving me a headache, and well it wasn't meant to sound snippy but it did, thanks for ignoring that and accepting the substance of my post.

The position would have needed approval of two thirds of parliament, which would mean all of the PM's party, and a significant portion of the opposition. This means the person appointed to the role would be non-political, well thought of by both sides of politics. This would be good, but given we get that now (thanks to culture instead of a formal procedure) there isn't much reason to change.

So only the PM's party could put forward a President?

Also, I'm not entirely sure as to the actual powers of the President. Does he simply replace the Queen and Governor-General, or is it more extensive than that? Does s/he fulfill the same roles as the PM?

Emperors Faithful wrote:So only the PM's party could put forward a President?

The referendum didn't specify. In effect it would have to have approval of the PM's party, as it would be pretty hard to get a two thirds majority if you didn't have the support of the major party.

The point is that if you need two thirds, you won't be able to have a political figure in the role, the opposition will reject them.

Also, I'm not entirely sure as to the actual powers of the President. Does he simply replace the Queen and Governor-General, or is it more extensive than that? Does s/he fulfill the same roles as the PM?

He formally has a lot of powers, but for the most part it is just a rubber stamp. He designates the times parliament is open but in reality he just accepts whatever the PM puts forward as the times for parliament to be open. He places the Queen's consent on all bills passed by parliament, which is a major power, even greater than the US president's power of veto (as that can be overridden by a two thirds majority) but in reality no bill has ever been rejected, nor has any bill ever been considered rejection - it is simply not something the Australian system accepts the GG should ever do (if the position were popularly elected that might change). He is supposed to nominate ministers, and to create new ministries, but again the GG has always accepted the leader of the majority party as prime minister, and then accepted his reccomendations for ministerial appointments.

The reserve powers of the GG are real ones, though, as it includes the power to sack a government, appoint a different one from among the members of parliament, and to call a general election. This has been used once, during the constitutional crisis, in which the Whitlam government was having every bill it proposed blocked in the senate (which was controlled by the Fraser's Liberal party). Fraser was doing this as the Whitlam government was very unpopular and he was trying to force an election. Being very unpopular, Whitlam was trying to avoid it. The GG, Kerr, sacked the government and called an election, ending the stalemate.

Basically what we need in a GG is someone who'll do nothing until government completely stops functioning, at which point he'll tell them he's had enough of their silliness and call a general election, letting the people decide who they want instead. We have that, right now, and would likely have had the same under the proposed amendment. But under alternative suggestions it's likely we might end up with more active GGs, and I don't think that would be good.