What might be the republicans' last stand took place in style last night in the time-honoured tradition of a "chook" raffle in a workingmen's club in Sydney's sprawling suburbia.
Despite opinion polls, which indicate Australia is likely to remain a monarchy after today's referendum, the republicans went ahead in defiance with their final event of the bitter five-week campaign.
The actor Michael Caton handed out the prizes from the raffle, which once used to included chickens, or chooks as they are known, to a Labour Party audience, which should represent the republican heartland.
"Australia's a great place, and changing the queen and the governor general to the president is not going to alter that. It just means that the symbols that we look up and respect are our own," he said.
But the message has not been getting through, especially to blue-collar workers and women.
The Yes side, in favour of a republic, was trailing the No side of monarchists by 41 to 47 per cent in a poll released yesterday.
There's been a late swing to the republicans, who have been deeply divided between those who want a popularly elected and a politically appointed president, but barring a miracle it will not be enough to deliver an Australian president in time for their 2001 deadline.
The scene at the glitzy Revesby Workers' Club said it all. More of the punters were interested in playing the pokies, or poker machines, than listening to another speech about the referendum which has left many of them confused and uninterested.
The undecided vote has fallen from 26 per cent last week to 12 per cent but turned almost equally to the Yes and No cases.
And the second referendum question, about a new preamble for the Constitution, looks equally likely to fail after 40 per cent of those surveyed said they knew nothing about it.
Ironically, a victory at the rugby World Cup in Cardiff tonight could see the Wallabies' captain presented with the top prize by the queen. However, Revesby's local Labour MP, Mr Daryl Melham, said if England were in the final instead of France it would highlight the queen's divided loyalties.
"The truth is if Australia was playing England in the rugby union we'd be going for Australia, not the poms, and the queen would be going for the poms, not Australia," he said.
One self-confessed pom at the club, Mr Ron Kennedy, who left Liverpool 31 years ago on a £10 ticket, said he was going to vote for the republic because it was time for a change.
"We've got mixed feelings, you know. We are half-pommie and half-Aussie now, but I'm going to bite the bullet and go for Yes tomorrow," he said.
Another man with a broad Australian accent exclaimed: "I've had the queen around me neck for 200 years and it's about time I threw her off."
In contrast, the monarchists marked their final day with a breakfast at the exclusive American Club, also in Sydney.
Their confidence could hardly be retrained given that their generally negative campaign has provoked fear among the voters who historically tend to reject referendums. They require a majority of voters in a majority of states to pass. Since Federation in 1901, only eight referendums out of 42 have made it.
Mr Julian Lesser (23), one of the leading lights of the No campaign, accused his rivals of being elitist and focusing on the symbols and not the substance of their proposed model which would see any president appointed by a two-thirds majority of federal MPs.
"It's time we told them we are sick of them dividing Australia. It's time we told them we have one of the best constitutions in the world and it's time we told them you can buy the media, you can buy the celebrities, you can buy the politicians but you can't buy the Australian people," he said.
A federal cabinet minister and senior monarchist, Mr Tony Abbot, invoked the battlefields of past Australian triumphs and disasters in his final appeal for a No vote.
"Voting Yes means ripping the royal out of the Royal Australian Regiment which is currently in East Timor," he said. "Voting Yes is a rejection of something which has become part of us, and the idea that we can celebrate 100 years of nationhood by ripping out the cornerstone of the constitution strikes me as absolute nonsense."
More than 12 million have to vote today on pain of a £25 fine. The result, unless it is very close, should be known about midmorning Irish time.