The Australian people will decide in a referendum next year whether to replace Queen Elizabeth as head of state after a special Constitutional Convention in Canberra voted yesterday to transform the country into a republic. The convention was a singular triumph for republicans, voting 73-57 in favour of a republic and endorsing a compromise system in which MPs will elect a president. With well over half the electorate declaring support for a republic in current opinion polls, the Commonwealth of Australia could be in place by the year 2001 - although the instinctive conservatism of many voters means the result cannot be taken for granted.
The decision of the Constitutional Convention to support the establishment of a republic was no great surprise. The retention of the British monarch as head of state appeared increasingly out of kilter with Australia's own stature as a modern, outward-looking country. The link to the British throne may date back over 200 years but it has become an anachronism. A significant number of Australia's 18 million population has no direct family link to Britain; the country has looked increasingly to Washington for security and defence; and it now forms an integral and dynamic part of the Asia-Pacific region. Its British heritage has also become less important economically, as Australia's main export markets are among its regional neighbours.
Some will see the drift towards republicanism as evidence of anti-British sentiment in Australia but this is at best a half-truth. At issue is the need - once explained by the former prime minister, Mr Paul Keating, to Queen Elizabeth at Balmoral - for Australia to come of age and assert its own identity. Australia's move to a republic may be compared with a young adult who leaves the family home.
The complex presidential method favoured by the convention is a hybrid of various models; the public will be able to nominate presidential candidates but the president requires two-thirds support of parliament to be appointed. The prime minister will retain sole power to dismiss the president. Ironically, the prime minister, Mr John Howard - an avowed monarchist - emerged as a hero of the convention. When the vote in favour of the presidential model supported by republicans fell short of an absolute majority by four votes, he declared a republican victory. It would, he said, be a "travesty in the common sense terms of Australian democracy for the proposition not to be put to the Australian people." Whatever the Australian people decide in next year's referendum, it is to be hoped that the strong political and economic ties between Australia and Ireland will be enhanced. According to the foreign minister, Mr Alexander Downer, who visited Ireland recently, some 30-40 per cent of Australians have an Irish background. Both countries have much to gain. Australian business could look increasingly to this State as a gateway to the EU, while Irish companies will see Australia as a bridge to the Asian-Pacific region.