Peter Coroneos is the Tasmanian State Convenor of the Australian Republican Movement and President of Republica, the University of Tasmania Society for an Australian Republic.

Bob Mainwaring warned me in advance of your loyal toast! I just want to reassure you that I will not take offence; but I'm gently putting you on notice that after we become a republic you might want to think about changing that.

It is timely that I speak to you tonight on the issue of the republic. This Wednesday night the Prime Minister will at last release the preferred government position on the republic some 13 months after the handing down of the Republican Advisory Committee report. So the government has had a long time to consider the issues and I would expect that we will be seeing a renewed public debate on some of the key issues in the coming weeks.

But before moving to one of these issues, the topic for tonight's address being the options for the appointment of an Australian head of state, which is after all the prime objective of republicans, I would like to make a few general observations.

Firstly we should all bear in mind the importance of not allowing this whole debate to degenerate into a contest between the different sides of politics. It is far too important an issue to become a political football, and to be honest there is a degree of cynicism in the electorate towards politics in general.

At the very least, whether Australia become a republic or not, this whole debate provides us all with the opportunity, as we approach our centenary of federation, to take stock of how we have developed as a nation over the last 100 years.

To the men, and they were all men, who drafted the constitution late last century, this country would be unrecognisable today. They attempted to create a document that would stand the test of time, that would lay down the basis for a stable system of representative government and, by and large they did. Yet they also understood and made provision for us to change the constitution as society itself changed over the years. The constitution was designed to be a living, working document, and not something carved in stone, carried down from the mountain on two tablets.

So we should all remember that as we grow and mature as a nation, it is appropriate to sometime pause and take stock, see where our best interests lie and I believe continually engage in a process of re-evaluating and redefining ourselves, without turning our backs on our history, but with an eye always to the future and what is best for our children and their children.

Yet I think our founding fathers would be very disappointed to know that so many Australians are so unaware of our civic systems - the very systems which guarantee our stability are so much taken for granted. Indeed an officially conducted opinion poll in 1988, the year of our bicentenary, showed that 40% of Australians didn't even know that Australia has a written constitution.

As republicans we are obviously promoting change. But we are well aware that we must prove our case to the majority of Australians. And to do that we take every opportunity to encourage the raising of people's awareness of the options and more importantly, their implications. We believe a more informed Australia will be in a better position to judge the options objectively, and be able to distinguish between what are the real issues and what are not. People should not be subject to manipulation from either side in this debate and their best protection is knowledge, not propaganda, not hype but objective knowledge.

I believe that in the long term a democracy is a bit like a marriage. If you want it to work, you have to work at it. Good communication and an attitude of goodwill among the participants is essential. Complacency, apathy and taking for granted today's stability is a risky strategy for long term harmony in a marriage and in a democracy.

That's why we are trying to get more and more people involved in this debate - because while the high flyers may have put the issue on the national agenda, this is not Keating's republic, it's not Turnbull's republic or any other individual's republic. If we are serious about a republic, it must be Australia's republic - to borrow a phrase: a republic OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people. That is the true essence of a democracy. Because we are democrats first, republicans second. It is because we truly believe in democracy that we want a republic. But if at the end of the day, the people do not, we will still be at least partially satisfied. Because at the very least, this whole process by raising the level of understanding of important constitutional issues, will strengthen our democracy.

Now one of those issues, the one I wish to address tonight is the question is whether the people directly elect the head of state or whether he/she should be appointed by some other means. As I say, by going out into public forums like this and examining the options, you will be better placed to evaluate the pro's and con's of the different positions people are taking on this issue, and then be better placed therefore to make up your own mind.

Before we can answer this question, we must ask the more fundamental question, what role do we want the head of state to perform and the related question, what powers do we want the head of state to exercise?

Once we have an answer to these, the next question to ask is what are the options for appointment of head of state and which of these is most conducive to the role and powers we as a nation have said that we prefer?

If we want the head of state to perform the kinds of tasks and exercise the kinds of powers that the current Governor-General performs and exercises, then I suggest the best way of achieving this, that is preserving the status quo (but with an Australian as head of state) would seem to be by appointment by parliament as opposed to direct election by the people.

If we look at the Irish model whereby the head of state is elected by the people there are a number of potential consequences which by all accounts the people of Australia would not wish our head of state to have, namely a mandate equal to if not superior to the head of government, that is the Prime Minister.

We must remember that the individual Prime Minister owes his or her position to the election by his or her party machine (the federal Labour caucus or the Parliamentary Liberal Party - for example that might only be 50 or 60 votes out of double that number) - a very unrepresentative process, indeed undemocratic if we define democratic as best representing the will of the majority of Australian voters.

Indeed the Prime Minister's very position in parliament is the result of only the votes of a majority of electors in their own electorate - and that might only be 50 or 60 thousand voters. If you add both those figures together, that is the number in the electoral majority and the number in the caucus majority, you get a number infinitesimally smaller than the number representing a clear majority of Australian voters across the entire Australian electorate which is what a head of state by election would achieve. Indeed on these calculations there are senators with a greater numerical mandate than the Prime Minister!

And yet look at the powers the Prime Minister has. As head of government and chair of the cabinet, he or she wields a potentially vast power - the power to appoint other ministers of state, to greatly influence every aspect of domestic and foreign policy, to raise taxes, to call elections, to declare war.

Now a head of state who could point to a majority of Australian electors (say 3 million) as his/her power base would command a significant moral authority and democratic mandate greater than the Prime Minister, any individual Minister, any individual MP, any state premier, indeed a mandate greater than the entire Federal Cabinet collectively - and in fact would only be matched, and in some situations not even then, by the entire government - backbenchers, cabinet AND Prime Minister!

That is one mandate!

Now of course we could say that having a mandate is one thing, but a mandate to do what?

The government has a mandate to govern, to make laws for all Australians, whether they voted for the government at the last election or not.

At present, the Governor-General has by virtue of his constitutionally defined powers at least, less power - particularly when we take into account the conventions which limit the exercise of his/her powers and require him/her to act only on the advice of the Prime Minister. Yet in relation to his/her reserve powers, there are instances e.g. in 1975, where he is not bound to follow prime ministerial advice and can trigger a constitutional crisis.

At least, under our present system of government the people voice is ultimately heard with the dissolution of parliament culminating in a fresh election.

Nevertheless the powers are there - and with the benefit of a popular mandate, a future Governor-General may feel less constrained by convention, (particularly when we remember that conventions are unwritten and in the case of those pertaining to reserve powers, discretionary) - to go beyond their limits.

Indeed while those who argue for the retention of unwritten conventions on the basis that they provide flexibility for coping with previously unforeseen circumstances, the question is well put, how do we tell the difference between the legitimate extension of an existing convention to deal with a new situation, as opposed to a breach of convention.

Some argue that conventions should be committed to paper to avoid this kind of problem. While I don't wish to pursue that question here, I simply make the point that we must be very careful in how much scope we provide the head of state for `lawmaking' particularly when it is not our intention to extend their powers beyond that which they currently exercise.

So while the concept of a popularly elected has has some superficial appeal to the notion of democratic rule, we must be careful that we don't inadvertently give rise to undemocratic consequences.

In fact I suggest that the present system whereby the Prime Minister alone appoints the Governor-General may in some ways be a safer one to popular election since that mandate problem is avoided. It is interesting that there has been very little debate in recent times as to this inherently undemocratic method of appointment, and the scope for abuse it provides. It can certainly raise questions about the perception if not the reality of jobs for the boys, and repayment of past favours.

I don't know that prime ministerial appointment is therefore an optimal solution. Indeed in the post mortem of the 1975 debacle, and I use that term advisedly, given the turmoil and division those events created in Australian society, questions were raised about how much Sir John Kerr's actions were the product of panic and a pre-emptive strike against Whitlam, before Whitlam could dismiss Kerr. Given the seriousness of the events, one would have thought a better checking system would give rise to a more considered and perhaps democratically acceptable solution to the gridlock that the Governor-General found himself in.

It is for these types of reasons that the appointment of a head of state by the vote of a say a 2/3 majority of parliament has more attraction. The advantages are threefold:

1. It is at least an indirect democratic appointment, since it is our elected representatives, to whom we must remember, we have delegated the task to make laws on our behalf.

2. Presumably, appointment by this method would also mean dismissal by a similar 2/3 vote, thereby alleviating the risk of a head of state acting hastily for fear of a potentially arbitrary dismissal by one person (as it now stands, it is the Queen who actually appoints and dismisses the Governor-General, but by convention she is bound to act on advice of the Prime Minister). In a republic without a Queen, there may be no practical difference except perhaps a time element, which may make it more important that the decision to dismiss be one of consensus.

3. The mandate problem is largely overcome because the head of state's power base is at least one step away from the people themselves, and a 2/3 majority of both houses is more likely to represent a greater range of political values than say a 51 per cent direct majority of electors would give - this also has implications for the type of person we are likely to get as head of state, an issue to which I will now briefly turn.

Australians when asked in the polls what kind of person they would want as head of state are fairly united in at least one regard - they don't want a politician in the job!

Whether this is a statement about politicians, or about the job, I'm not sure, but I suspect it's the former.

This is an interesting observation when we consider that if you ask people what they think of the present Governor-General, most will tell you he's doing a pretty good job, or at least not a bad one. In fact we have had 4 ex politicians as Governor-General since Federation, and by all accounts they all performed competently. I suspect that if you asked many Australians living today (politics aside) who they remember as a not so good Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, and ex Supreme Court chief justice would not rate as highly. I make no statement about Sir John himself, but only to illustrate the apparent logical inconsistency underlying the opinions that many Australians seem to hold in this debate. Part of the problem may be an apathy to look further into the issues before forming an opinion. Part may be selective coverage of issues by the media.

I should mention while I'm on this point that the major task confronting the republican movement is the teasing out of inconsistencies like these and reflecting them back to the public. It is remarkable how when you do this that people become a lot more receptive to the republican position in general, and more willing to change or at least moderate their opinions on specific issues.

Not that I'm saying that we should have a politician as head of state - this is simply an observation on how some people think.

And on that point, while many people I've spoken to tell me, almost as a reflex action that `OF COURSE the people should elect the head of state', popular election is actually far more more likely to deliver a politician or at least an ex politician into the job. By the way, I should tell you I've noticed that if you refer to the head of state as `president' the popular election response is all the more vehement. I have a theory that this may actually have something to do with a subconscious influence of US or French style of appointment, yet the US system of government is so fundamentally different in terms of the powers of their president that the two systems are really not comparable at all. I find that when I refer to our head of state as simply `head of state`, the insistence on popular election seems to mellow. We can in fact call our head of state anything we want: Governor-General, top banana, boss cockey, the possibilities are endless... in fact it could be a good competition question.

Getting back to the issue of how to keep a politician out of the job, if that's what we want to do, we have to bear in mind a number of realities:

• political parties are experts at promoting candidates, playing the media, doing all the things that need to be done to get people popularly elected; they would also be the ones most likely (unless Kerry Packer wants to have a run) to have the funds to wage a US style presidential campaign; and who are they likely to be putting up ? ... well you can bet it won't be a retired opera singer.

• there is also the observation that non political figure may be less willing to expose themselves to a campaign for popular election, and so we may be deprived of some top prospects by insisting on this method of appointment. As I wrote in reply to `the statue' affair, the present Queen were she an Australian living in Australia would make an outstanding head of state. But I couldn't see her running the electoral gauntlet.

I am not saying that I don't think a politician couldn't make an effective, honest and inspiring head of state. Indeed Constitutional lawyer Michael Stokes made the observation at our Hobart seminar on this very question , that if Sir John Kerr had been a ex politician, he may have had the political savvy to stonewall both Fraser and Whitlam into negotiating a way out of the bind they were in, knowing that as supply was running out the intractability of their positions may have given way to a compromise. But we'll never know the answer to that one.

What I am saying is that if the people of Australia truly want a head of state who has no political past, perhaps popular election is not the best way to go.

In closing, I must emphasise this. The republican movement generally favours the appointment of a head of state by the parliamentary route, it being the best means of achieving a head of state with the kinds and extent of powers closest to what we have now.

But if after listening to all the arguments, and understanding the implications of the various options, Australians, from an informed position, still want to elect the head of state, then we will happily go along with that. It will simply mean that the constitutional powers will need to be far more clearly defined and limited in accordance with the role and the powers that we as Australians wish to confer on our first truly Australian head of state.

Thank you.