Paul Keating is a former Australian Prime Minister

When I last spoke in this auditorium in June, I talked about the growing interdependence between our domestic and foreign policy concerns. I said that the old divisions between what we do internally and what we do externally no longer substantially exist.

I also spoke of the need for governments and others involved in foreign policy in Australia to confront growing fears in our society about the future and our engagement with the rest of the world.

I said these fears were linked with a yearning for an Australia which no longer exists.

Tonight I want to reflect on these problems from the other direction, from the inside. And to discuss Australia itself and what being an Australian means in the last decade of the twentieth century. And what perhaps it should mean in the twenty first century.

Public debate in Australia over the past few months has been heavily concentrated on issues like immigration and Aboriginal affairs, on what the parameters of public debate should be and the issue of so-called political correctness.

It does seem a remarkable thing to me: here we are in the last half decade of our first century as a nation, 18 million of us on a continent almost the size of the United States, one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the world, sitting adjacent to the most extraordinary economic revolution in the history of the world, and what appears to concern some of us most is the colour of people's skins.

It seems an eternity since we were talking about parallels between our own constitutional ambitions and those of federation's founding fathers. We who favour a republic drew some inspiration from the achievement of federation and nationhood. We concerned ourselves with Native Title, education in civics, a modified multiculturalism, a new relationship with the countries of Asia.

Culture and identity, the structures and symbols of our government and the way we define ourselves as a nation are not distractions from the concerns of ordinary people, their income, their security, their mortgage payments and their children's education and health. Rather, they are an intrinsic part of the way we secure these things.

Two years ago, some people were calling these matters diversions. They were not then, and they are not now.

In truth I think the pity is that at this mature stage of our national life we are still arguing about the most basic issues of our identity. By rights the argument should have been settled years ago. I would be glad if I never heard the word "identity" again.

That is one of many reasons why I am utterly convinced that we should be a republic. It seems to me that the republic should be and can be the most natural and necessary step. We should be able to take it in our stride. And really we must.

And if Paul Keating saying these things sounds all too familiar or arouses suspicion in some hearts, here is the Australian Financial Review - hardly a republican organ or one easily diverted from the economic main game - in an editorial a month ago. We are going through `Throwback' they said:

Australia cannot retreat behind a white picket fence...rather Australians must embrace the future and the Government must take the lead. This means adopting a positive outward-looking attitude to all parts of the world, including Asia, and encouraging an understanding of the benefits of immigration so that fear does not drive discussion of it. It means coming to terms with the various, and sometimes painful, histories of Australians and working towards creating a tolerant and inclusive society.

It means pursuing a republican constitution and a new distinctively Australian flag in time for the centenary of federation and the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

It seems to me that we will be able to debate these issues and to resolve them as a community much more successfully when the structures of our government and the symbols of our nation reflect better the underlying realities of who we are, where we live, and what we must yet do together.

One of the most important of these structural shifts is the move to a republic.

Last June I set out the then government's preferred approach to what I continue to regard as one of the most critical steps we must take as a nation.

This is much more than shallow symbolism. Those who still argue that our continuing links with the British Monarchy do not handicap our international efforts, and those who think we should go on waiting until every last one of us is in total agreement, simply do not understand the stakes we are playing for.

The overwhelming logic of the argument is not difficult to follow. Australia at the end of the millennium occupies a unique place in the world and makes a unique contribution to it.

An Australian head of state can embody and represent our values and traditions, our experience and contemporary aspirations, our cultural diversity and social complexity in a way that a British monarch who is also head of state of fifteen other member countries of the United Nations - can no longer adequately hope to do.

One of the impediments to the nation at large in accepting a design for the shift to a republic is the question of what powers the Head of State might have and how that person ought be appointed. Is he or she to be elected at large or appointed upon election by both Houses of Parliament?

Let me take this opportunity, on November 11, to say a few further things about this.

In the model propounded by me when Prime Minister, I proposed that the so-called reserve powers should remain with the Head of State but that the source of the Head of State's authority should be the two democratically elected chambers of the Parliament.

Some have argued the Head of State's power should be defined down to remove the reserve function, making it explicit that such persons may act only upon the authority of ministers via the Executive Council. Such people argue that if the powers are less, and largely ceremonial, it is then safe to have the Head of State popularly elected.

The problem with this argument is that no one will agree as to what explicit powers should remain with the Head of State, how a deadlock between the House of Representatives and the Senate should be resolved and whether the powers of the Head of State to deal with such a deadlock ought be removed.

There is no agreement about this - none between the political parties or even within political parties.

Yet even if agreement was likely on the general principles, writing it down explicitly and succinctly for the purposes of a referendum for a change to the Constitution would, in my opinion, be nigh on impossible. The proposals would fall under the arguments about the detail.

Yet to leave the powers as they are with the Head of State, and see that person elected at large would be to change our system of government absolutely.

In such circumstances, and in a very quick time, the premier person of power in the political system would be the Head of State and not the Prime Minister. The whole notion of power in a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister would change, and the greater powers in the land would be vested in one popularly elected person - the Head of State.

On November 11 each year we reflect on the events of 1975, and on the powers that Sir John Kerr used and on his use of them.

It is particularly instructive now that we are debating what powers a Head of State ought have under a republican model and now that we are more aware of the power of the Senate to frustrate or block the will of the House of Representatives.

In my view Sir John Kerr did not abuse the reserve powers per se by using them to dissolve the House of Representatives for an election.

His abuse occurred in not taking the elected Prime Minister into his confidence, and appointing as Prime Minister the leader of the party who lost the previous election. And in persisting with this appointment after the House of Representatives expressed no confidence in his appointee.

The other abuse of the powers was his failure to wait within the timeframe governed by the appropriation to see if the Opposition Senate tactic would hold - that the appropriation bills would actually be blocked. To wait for an impasse to actually occur.

But if in fact a full deadlock had occurred, if an impasse had truly been reached and he had advised the elected Prime Minister that he believed advice from the Prime Minister to him recommending an election was the best course of action, it would be difficult to argue that the use of the powers in these circumstances would have been irresponsible or abusive.

These issues are still with us. With the nexus between the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Senate is bound to grow in size as population growth expands the numbers in the House of Representatives.

And as it grows, under its system of proportional election, the quotas for the election at large of a Senator for each State will gradually get smaller. They are small now.

Many more independents and single issue representatives will be there over time. This will diminish the stabilising influences of the major parties; perhaps leading to more institutionalised instability.

In the event of an impasse or a deadlock, how should the nation secure a resolution of a problem? Does the maintenance of a reserve power in the hands of a Head of State provide a proper device to resolve an impasse or force a resolution of a dispute? Or would it amount to an anachronistic use of a residual and old power in a contemporary political setting?

If the source of the Head of State's power is not popular election and is the delegated authority of the House of Representatives and the Senate, if the source of the power is diffuse and, in the case of the House of Representatives, fully representative of the community, then the source - as distinct from the instrument - derives from a contemporary and representative political authority. In these terms, the use of the powers would simply allow the country to avail itself of a device that could be useful in certain circumstances.

And given that the power has been used once, and only once, in 96 years and given that its operator subsequently suffered the broad admonition of the country for what was seen as his capricious use of the power - it is unlikely that any incumbent as Head of State would want to visit the same contumely on himself or herself.

And if it was used once and only once in 96 years, and given that the Senate is becoming more inherently unstable yet enjoys a wide panoply of powers given to it under the Constitution, and given that no agreement is likely about a delineation of the reserve powers or the power of the Senate itself - I do not see a grave threat to our polity by leaving the powers with the Head of State provided that the source his or her power derives from the House and the Senate. Any such constitutional change should also be complemented with appropriate provisions for recall for improper or dubious behaviour by the Head of State.

I believe this approach is preferable to an unpredictable, unsettable situation between the Houses and where a collection of members in the Senate may bail up the House of Representatives and the political system with it.

And if a collection of anti-migration candidates, a collection of Pauline Hansons, or Greens, or such-like were to bail the system up, in whose hands and judgment are we best left for a measured course of action to resolve an impasse: a Bill Deane sitting above the system? Or Senate independents or a major party behaving opportunistically; given that the likely path through such an impasse would be an election?

Such a system would ensure that whoever was elected was, as far as is humanly possible "above politics."

It is surely one of the great oddities of this debate that so many people have been both against a politician becoming head of state and yet for a popular election.

It was also extraordinary that while I was advocating the minimalist position - and that to be achieved only by referendum - my opponents succeeded in convincing people that something sinister was afoot - even to the point of claiming that I wanted to be the President of "Keating's Republic" - when I was advocating an approach which guaranteed that it could never be.

On this day also, Remembrance Day, many Australians who fought in war will feel a huge attachment to the ethos and symbols of their period and their youth. But they fought for the right of younger generations to make their own stamp on Australia, to make their own way in the world.

Just as younger generations of Australians have appreciated and recognised the role of those who served in these great conflicts, they must now be afforded their own rights to their time in our history.

There is no better place to argue these issues than here at one of Australia's great universities.

Because our campuses show us more clearly than almost anywhere else in the nation how far Australia has changed in the past thirty years and, more importantly, what the next thirty years will be like.

And because what I have been talking about tonight is a debate about the future, in which our young people hold the strongest stakes.

I want to end, therefore, by saying to the students here this evening and to those at other universities and schools and workplaces - this is your debate, about your country's future, and its resolution will be yours.

I tried in my public life to say what I thought and how I felt about these matters, and to set in train processes which would help set Australia up for the twenty first century.

But it will be for you and your generation to provide the good ideas and see that they don't just stay that way: good ideas never acted upon. Never made reality.

It will be for you to decide how Australia preserves its place in a globalised world; how we cement our engagement with Asia; how well we are regarded and how well we regard ourselves. You will decide how, in the information age, we construct a society in which the wealth and knowledge and the opportunity and influence flow to the many and not the few. You will decide how much the idea of the fair go - the oldest Australian idea - is a reality of Australian life in the 21st century.

You will decide whether we can continue to persuade ourselves and the rest of the world that we are earning our privileges or simply enjoying them; making the most of our advantages or squandering them; facing up to the realities of Australian life - past, present and future - or pretending something else about them.

As you go - if you go wholeheartedly - I can assure you of two things. You will make mistakes - you will go too far in one direction, and not far enough to another; you will bring on consequences unforeseen - and you will have to wear the blame.

That's the first thing, but it's not the most important.

The most important thing is not to be frightened off. It's useful to put an ear to the ground, but there's nothing more debilitating than trying to put both of them there. Think and do. Do even the things that don't have to be done.

Better to wear some criticism than to never take responsibility for what should be done.

After all, what does a democracy mean if not the right, the privilege, the chance to take responsibility?

And when you've got a democracy like we have why settle for anything less than taking it?

For remember this - if we lose momentum, if we drift or retreat; if we begin to let fear, ignorance or prejudice govern us - it won't be me or my generation who pays the greatest price. We'll drop off the back of the cart. It will be young Australians who will have to ride it into the twenty first century - and just now I reckon they should be seriously planning the means by which they can get hold of the reins.