Canada did that years ago, don't blame your Queen for Australians being too scared to cut the cord.

Is that all you'd do? Remove the Union flag. We demand a kangaroo on there somewhere....and a great white shark.....and a didgeridoo.

I'm not blaming the Queen.

And I'd also get rid of the whoe Governor General/Queen still having some jurisdiction crap.

I don't see it happening until the Queen passes away. Charles has mentioned to Australia and Canada not to wait until he becomes King so....perhaps we should.

The 1999 Referendum was confusing, there was a lot of lobbying from John Howard to keep it the way it is. He probably wanted knighthood for it.

When I was younger I was pretty keen to become a republic, but now days not so much, mainly because what will actually change? As it stands the GG is selected by the parliament, we elect the parliament, so all that changes in a practical sense is the GG becomes a President with the same powers as before, at the cost of hundred million dollars.

And frankly, with the calibre of Australian politicians at the moment, I'm glad none of them can aspire to call themselves President, they don't deserve it. I'd rather we just wait out until the Queen/King actually tries to make us do something stupid, and then just flip them the bird and go republic, doing it beforehand just seems like a symbolic but overall meaningless change that'll cost money we could be spending on more useful things.

I'm an Australian and I see absolutely no sense in changing at the moment. I think our political system works fairly well, I'd rather keep it as far away from an American system as possible (Seriously, how do you guys expect anything to get done when Obama only has majority control over one house :s). The Queen has no real power here anyway.

This has absolutely no chance of happening whilst Elizabeth is still Queen, the vast majority of the people like her, once Charles is King (if he doesn't die before her of course) then maybe. People seem to want to change out flag when becoming a republic too, but every alternate design I've seen has been awful. Green and Gold are not an appealing mix on a flag at all (Sorry Brazil) :s The National Anthem though could use a change (NOT Waltzing Matilda, I am Australian or True Blue, they're all awful without giving them the spectacle of being an official anthem)

Australia and the USA have a lot in common historically, both good and bad, with the exception of a declaration of independence.

Get your buddies together and dump so crates of tea into a harbor. Don't dress up though, times have changed.

Im Australian.

Personally, i think we don't need to be in the commonwealth.
We are more than capable in deciding our fates, we don't need britain
Economically we need china and america more.

But i don't want australia to leave the commonwealth.
Firstly i like the culture ties with Britain. Its part of our history
i love the Cricket rivalry and commonwealth games.
This is coming from an asian australian

I'd say we'd follow a path closer to India, in which we become a republic, but still participate in Cricket and the Commonwealth Games (until the poms get sick of us beating them..)

I didn't know that we had any kind of authority over Australia. I think we should let you guys become an independent nation if you want to.

It might not be necessary though, the monarchy has next to no power and there is no tension between us (Brits love Australians, fuck it, everyone does).

Actually we sit side-by-side in the Commonwealth. Canada, Australia and Great Britain (Scotland and Wales are represented in Westminster with England, right?). We're connected at the common point of having the same monarch.