Three cheers from Australian republicans to John Manley and The Globe and Mail for supporting replacing the Queen with a Canadian as head of state.

But a word of warning: If the Australian experience is anything to go by,
your battle will be bruising, nasty, treacherous and divisive, particularly
if you have a monarchist prime minister.

Mr. Manley put the argument for a Canadian republic very sensibly and simply when he said, "Having the oldest son inherit the responsibility of being head of state, that's just not something in the 21st century we ought to be entertaining."

That's what the majority of Australians think too. Surely we are grown up
enough to have our own head of state, whose selection or election reflects
our democratic and meritocratic values.

The propositions put forward by Mr. Manley and other Canadian and Australian republicans should seem extraordinarily non-controversial in an era when both countries have a strong sense of nationhood and when Britain's interests lie firmly in the European camp. But as those of us who ran the 1999 Yes for a Republic campaign in Australia found out, monarchist supporters are utterly unscrupulous when it comes to protecting their beloved and hopelessly arcane symbol.

A referendum was held in 1999 on whether or not Australia should become a republic. The question proposed that a two-thirds majority of both the lower and upper houses of our federal Parliament should select a head of state from a list that would reflect the public's nominations. The vote was 45.5 per cent Yes and 54.5 per cent No.

In Australia, for a referendum to be successful, four of six states must
vote Yes and the overall national vote must be over 50 per cent. Only seven
of 46 referendums have succeeded since 1901. With this referendum, the
republicans' task was made even more difficult by the fact that the nation's
Prime Minister, John Howard, like Jean Chretien, is an avowed monarchist.

In fact, the republic is an issue that splits the conservative parties in
Australia. While the Prime Minister is a monarchist, his likely successor,
Treasurer Peter Costello, is a passionate supporter of an Australian
republic. The federal Liberal Party, to which both Mr. Howard and Mr.
Costello belong, was divided on the issue in 1999: There was a lot of heat
generated on both sides of the party.

That division in the government ranks made the prospect of the Yes case
succeeding much less likely. Mr. Howard made it clear that he was going to
campaign hard against bringing Australia into the 21st century. Campaign
hard he did -- with great effect.

While the opposition Labor Party and its Leader Kim Beazley worked hard for the Yes case, the Prime Minister and those in the government who supported him were the ones who set the rules and approved the public education campaigns -- campaigns that were grossly underfunded, inaccessible and biased.

For example, the government-approved television advertising campaign
advising people that the referendum was coming up pictured a couple stopped at a T-junction wondering which way to head -- left or right. The clear implication from the advertisements was that Australians were being asked to make a radical choice in the referendum. The reality was that little would change other than that we would cut the umbilical cord to Britain and select our own head of state with the same authority and powers of the
governor-general.

But it was the leading monarchist group -- Australians for a Constitutional
Monarchy -- that did the most harm. Their campaign tactics were unscrupulous and downright dishonest, but effective in scaring Australians into voting No.

The monarchists' argument was that Australia would radically change under a republic and that our freedoms would be put at risk. At various times in the campaign they argued that if Australia became a republic we would become like Indonesia, turn into an antipodean Weimar Republic or get thrown out of the Commonwealth (even though 36 of 52 nations in that organization are republics), and that the change to a republic would just about send Australia bankrupt.

But the monarchists' most effective tactic of all was to split republicans
and run an antipolitical-establishment line. Two high-profile republicans
who favour the direct election of a head of state joined the monarchists on
the No campaign. This division among republicans sowed confusion in the
minds of voters.

Where does the republic issue go in Australia now? It needs either Peter
Costello or Kim Beazley to be elected as prime minister for a start. Mr.
Beazley has committed his Labor Party to putting the issue before the people
in a series of plebiscites with the aim of an Australian republic by 2010.
Mr. Costello will look for visionary issues that mark him as a different
kind of conservative than his predecessor. The republic is an issue he can
embrace to demonstrate that difference.

Hopefully, John Manley's comments and The Globe's editorial will galvanize Canadian republicans and the community generally into doing something about the ridiculous situation that your country, likes ours, now faces -- having a head of state who represents no one's interests except Britain's and who visits Canada and Australia on average once every five to 10 years.

And don't let the monarchists do to you what they have done in Australia --
their argument that the monarchy must be retained because the alternatives
are untried and therefore dangerous is insulting to their fellow Canadians
and Australians. Our nations have been through two world wars, a Great
Depression, and in the case of Canada, great constitutional difficulty --
yet we still enjoy enormous freedoms and liberties. Surely we can be trusted to have our own heads of state.

The bottom line for republicans is unity, unity and unity. The lesson from
Australia is that division on this issue creates confusion and increases the
chance of failure. And get a prime minister who is on side -- it's a
powerful office and John Howard sure showed Jean Chetrien how effective it can be in destroying millions of peoples' dreams.

Greg Barns is national chairman of the Australian Republican Movement.

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