A direct election for the head of state is a rusted on opinion. It is not going to be changed, so people wanting a republic may as well start drafting their new models from that base position.
The rusted-on nature of the direct election is evident from research to be published next week in the Australian Social Monitor by Professor Jonathan Kelley of the ANU, Bruce Headley and M. D. R. Evans of Melbourne University and Malcolm Mearns, principal of the Canberra research firm Datacol.
The reserachers have cruched a lot of numbers and have come up with some surprising and significant results about Australains’ opinion on the monarchy and republic. Giventhe Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says the republic will beackon the agenda if Labor wins the election, Professor Kelley’s results are well worth looking at.
Their research (which can be viewed from mid-week at www.social-monitor.com) starts with some historic crunch poitns in the debate. The first was in 1980 when the number of people who thought the Queen and the Royal Family were fairly or very important to Australia fell below 50 per cent. That fell below a third in 1994 and has remain below a third ever since.
The second crunch point came between 1990 and 1994 when a majority thought Australia should be a republic with its own head of state rather than having the Queen. It has remained over 60 per cent ever since. The last crunch point is the subject of the most recent detailed research. That reveals the rusted-on nature of support for a direct election, most critically that support comes from across age and sociao-economic groups.
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