Declaration by Republicans for a YES Vote

This is the year we can finally cast a vote of confidence in Australia.

This is the year we get a chance to vote yes for our people and our future.

This is the year we can show how proud we are of our country by voting to make sure that our Head of State is not the monarch of another country, but an Australian - one of us.

The referendum will propose amendments endorsed by the Constitutional Convention in February last year. They will allow an Australian President to be chosen in a bi-partisan way, exercising precisely the same duties and having the same powers as the Governor-General.

The amendments improve the current system in two ways:

• Our Head of State, the President, will be an Australian - one of us
• Our President will be selected with the support of both sides of politics, unlike the Governor-General now, who is selected by the Prime Minister.

These amendments, while of immense symbolic importance, do not involve wide-ranging constitutional change. They reflect a continued commitment to our Australian system of federal parliamentary government.

The debate about the amendments is over. The simple question now is whether we have the courage to change our Constitution to have an Australian head of state. We join other Australians in urging our fellow citizens to have the courage to make our nation better.

Some Australians believe the amendments do not go far enough. They would like to see further change to our political system. We believe that the measure of the worth of political change is not whether it goes far enough, but whether it is a step in the right direction.

The republican cause unites Australians from every background and every party. It is not a rejection of our enduring links to the United Kingdom. Rather, it is an affirmation of our Australian identity and our pride as Australians.

The referendum will be a test of our commitment to Australia and our belief in its people.

We cannot carry a no-confidence motion in ourselves. We cannot say to ourselves and to the world that no Australian, not even the best of us, is good enough to be our Head of State.

We call on all Australians to vote YES in the referendum and to work to ensure this great national vote is carried. The last year of the millennium is where our destiny challenges us to vote YES.

Vote for Australia and make sure our nation enters the new millennium declaring our pride in its people and our commitment to its future.

Vote Yes for Australia.