'Royal Hotel Resolution' puts republic back on agenda

abc.net.au, 3 Dec 2001

More than 380 delegates at a conference on choosing an Australian head of state have voted for a plan known as the "Royal Hotel Resolution".

The proposal recommends a plebiscite on whether the head of state would be called president or governor-general and how they would be elected.

The proposal was named after the hotel in which it was developed overnight, in the New South Wales Riverina town of Corowa.

It recommends the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee toprepare a plebiscite on questions such as whether Australia should become a republic, the convening of a constitutional convention after the plebiscite and then another referendum.

The deputy chair of the conference, Sarah Henderson, says the proposal was not passed by an absolute majority, but after preferences received 195 votes.

"Everyone recognised there was always going to be dissent over which was going to be the model chosen, but at the end of the day the conference as a whole adopted this," she said.

An enabling committee has now been established to move the proposal forward and will meet for the first time in about four weeks.

One of the proposal's developers, historian Walter Phillips, hopes there is a vote on an Australian head of state in about five years.

"Now we have to persuade our political leaders that it is something they should take up, that's going to be one of the problems," Mr Phillips said.