Neville Wran is a former Premier of New South Wales

The Australian Republican Movement was launched in July 1991. The central aim of the Movement is to ensure Australia has an Australian Head of State by the centenary of Federation on 1st January 2001.

At the time of the launch of the Movement in 1991, it appeared to those of us involved, that 10 years was a more than sufficient time frame in which the issues relating to the republic could be examined, debated and resolved in the Australian way - that is to say, the way by which every Australian would be given the opportunity to express his or her view through the ballot box at a referendum, without fear or favour.

It all seemed so simple. After all, all that is being sought is to have one of us as our Head of State: to have an Australian man or woman as our Head of State: to have a citizen of our country, eligible to vote, as our Head of State.

I would have thought that even that well known libertarian, Bruce Ruxton, or that upholder of fairplay, Reg (Toecutter) Withers, could hardly argue seriously that our Head of State should not be an Australian. But no, I was wrong.

At first, the constitutional monarchists who argued for the status quo took up the cry that the constitutional monarchy had served us well. So did the horse and buggy. But time, circumstance and imperative have seen that form of conveyance overtaken by the automobile. Morse code was a wonderful contribution to communications technology of its day. Somehow the telephone, fax and the internet have rendered it no more than an item of historical interest in technological museums. And no-one would dare say that the cut-throat razor did not serve its users well, but a long time has passed since that formidable instrument has given way to the Gillette Sensorblade and the safety razor.

The argument that the constitutional monarchy has served us well is, in truth, not an argument at all.

As the debate has proceeded, however, the monarchists, by force of logic and circumstance, have been compelled to virtually abandon that argument and have fallen back on the argument that the Governor-General is Australia's Head of State.

This is the weakest and most false argument advanced by the monarchists. It is an argument which belittles the intellectual integrity of those monarchists who propound it. The argument totally ignores the position of the English monarch under the Constitution, a document which, at times, I wonder whether most of the constitutional monarchists have even bothered to read.

A fine Sunday morning in this historic city of Ipswich is hardly the time for an in depth examination of the Australian Constitution. But do let's take a quick look at a few of its relevant provisions which debunk the monarchists argument that the Governor-General is our Head of State.

Section 61 of the Constitution says, amongst other things, and I quote: "The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative." The Queen of England is Australia's Head of State and the Governor-General is the Queen's representative - that proposition is unarguable.

Under Section 64 of the Constitution, Commonwealth Ministers of State are described as "The Queen's Ministers of State for the Commonwealth".

As extraordinary as it may seem, in the context of contemporary Australia, Section 66 provides that "Salaries of such Ministers of State shall be payable by the Queen."

The Queen of England is the Head of State of Australia. The Governor-General is her representative and no amount of chicanery can avoid that undeniable, uncomfortable and intolerable fact. For the Governor-General to be the Head of State, the Queen must be abandoned. You can't have two Heads of State, else you would finish up with a constitutional version of Roy & HG, without the humour.

If, as some monarchists falsely argue, the Governor-General is the Head of State, then what is the position of the Queen? Are the constitutional monarchists prepared to dump the Queen? Well, at least one of their close colleagues is. For I am sure that you might have noticed, as I have, that the Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, argues that all references to the Queen in the Constitution should be removed with an Australian Governance Council taking over the Queen's power to appoint a Governor-General.

I don't know how far the Fischer model has been thought through, and personally I don't think much of it, but at least inherent in the Fischer model, is acceptance that an Australian - not an Englishman, nor a person of any other nationality, but an Australian - an Australian man or woman with whom Australians can identify - should be our Head of State.

Let me hasten to add, that with an Australian as Head of State, the Commonwealth of Nations, for instance, would continue to exist. Australia would still be a member. The Queen would continue to be recognised as the Head of the Commonwealth and the relationship between Australia and other members of the Commonwealth would remain unchanged.

As a matter of interest, of the 52 member nations in the Commonwealth of Nations (including the United Kingdom), 30 are republics, 7 are monarchies with their own sovereign, and 15 (other than United Kingdom, but including Australia) have the Queen of the United Kingdom as their Head of State.

So Australia, along with important countries like Tuvalu, Grenada, Jamaica, the Solomon Islands and so on, shares the Queen as Head of State, whilst India, Singapore, South Africa and so on, have a Head of State who shares with their citizens their own nationality.

So when the majority of Australians declare themselves in favour of an Australian Head of State, it is not some wild and radical step being advocated. Put simply, the overwhelming majority of members of the Commonwealth of Nations, (37 out of the 52), already have their own Head of State. So should our country - Australia.

What, of course, the constitutional monarchists are resisting, is change. Change, brought about most of all by the positioning of our country in the Asia Pacific region, with historic ties to the northern hemisphere generally, and the United Kingdom in particular, becoming less and less relevant.

Of course, a lot of us grew up in Australia when circumstances were almost entirely different. When I was a little boy, which was a long, long time ago, I attended a small primary school in the east end of Balmain, Nicholson Street. Each Monday morning we had a school assembly. We would sing stirring tunes like Rule Britannia, and There'll Always Be An England. I still remember the words:

"There'll always be an England
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me."

With what breath we had left, we then sandwiched in the first verse of Advance Australia Fair, after which as the Union Jack and the Australian Flag were slowly run up their respective flagpoles, we (under the baton of the Master of second class, Mr Moody) used to engage in a soul-stirring rendition of God Save the King.

We felt really good. Somehow it was comforting to know that there would always be an England and, more importantly, that England would be free. After all, we were Australians, but our forebears, by and large, (with the exception of the Italian greengrocer's sons) came from some part of England or the British Isles.

In those years, the map of the world was liberally plastered with red denoting the possessions of the British Empire. Australia was then part of that Empire and proud of it. We had cracker night to celebrate the Empire Day. India was still part of the colonial crown indeed the jewel in that crown. Whenever a member of the royal family came within a bull's roar of Australia, we struck a medallion to commemorate the importance of the occasion. When a member of the royal family, despite the divine right of kings, had the misfortune to die, we draped our cities in the purple and black of mourning and our churches bulged with his majesty's subjects, who prayed for the repose of his soul and the safety of his subjects.

Asia was the mysterious Orient and generally regarded by Australians with all the circumspection with which one would treat a puff adder. England, Mother England, took our apples, our butter, our beef, and sent us back motor cars, machinery and household appliances.

Everything was orderly and predictable. We Australians were an English conclave in a sea of yellow faces, and our Monday morning ritual at Nicholson Street Primary School seemed as natural as barracking for Balmain's Rugby League team.

The Second World War and its aftermath, especially the formation of the European Economic Community and the emergence of Asian countries as industrial and economic powers, changed all that. England stopped taking our apples; Japan became our biggest trading partner and even the most rabid Anglophile conceded that Australia's future was in its own region and England and Europe were no longer so important to us as before.

The post-war immigration changed forever our demographic mix. The Whitlam years saw the start of the demolition of the walls of protection and Australia behaved thenceforth subservient to none, proud of its past, and confident of its future.

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, in the days of King and Empire, was pretty much the same as it is today. The King (or Queen) was the Head of State. The Governor-General was his/her representative, and the constitutional monarchy fitted the member countries of the British Empire like a glove.

The real issue today, however, is whether a constitutional monarchy any longer fits, as snugly, an Australia which is an independent nation and member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

An Australian republic, as distinct from a constitutional monarchy, reflects the realities of the mix of Australian society and our relationship with the nations in the region in which we live. Our own Head of State, in itself, in the light of our history, will provide recognition, not only nationally, but internationally, of Australia's maturity as a genuinely independent nation seeking closer economic, political and cultural involvement with our nearest neighbours.

I know that many of the well established Ipswich industries, as well as the more recent technologically advanced enterprises being attracted to this city, are well placed to take advantage of developing opportunities in the Asia Pacific Region. It stands to reason that Australia's apparent acquiescence with the remaining constitutional relic of our colonial past, the acceptance of the Queen of England as our Head of State, must inevitably place communication barriers in the way of our economic and cultural discourse with many of our neighbouring nations.

To say the least, the arrangement is confusing and might even be described in this day and age as bizarre.

Having said that, let me emphasise that the Australian Republican Movement is not antagonistic towards the British Monarch; we are not anti-England; indeed we are not anti-anybody - except the constitutional monarchists. We are pro-Australia. And we believe that the adoption of a constitutional change which delivers us, as a country with our own Head of State, into the 21st Century, would have a powerful moral and philosophical significance for all of us, our children, our grandchildren and for the successive generations in the years to come.

We believe it would preserve and advance our society's natural inclination to give people, whatever their race, colour or religion, a fair go.

We have a unique country which holds dear special values that come from egalitarianism; a country where newcomers are accepted (as distinct from tolerated); a country from which the humblest can aspire to the highest position in the land; a country in which we have the opportunity to live with dignity and security. Yet human nature does harbour prejudices - in some of us more than in others.

Mercifully, so far in this country we have successfully learned to contain and control prejudice and to live together in an extraordinarily tolerant society. We should be jealous that we do not squander these values and their benefits by succumbing to the provocation of racism and prejudice which have a tendency to spread like a pernicious contagion.

Today, I am privileged to be here to launch the Ipswich Forum for the Australian Republican Movement. This is happening a few short months before an election to choose some of the delegates for the Constitutional Convention to be held in December this year.

The Federal Government has determined that the Convention will consist of 152 delegates: 76 of whom will be appointed, whilst the remaining 76 will be elected. The election method proposed by the Prime Minister is by voluntary postal vote. The ARM strongly disapproves of this method of voting.

The ARM believes that all delegates to the Convention should be elected. We understand that the Government proposes that 40 out of the 76 non-elected delegates will be representatives of Territory, State and Federal Parliaments and that 36 will be appointed by the Government. While the ARM recognises the sense of including parliamentarians in the Convention, there is no justification for including delegates who are simply appointees of the Government. This is especially so in the light of the Prime Minister's statement that the Convention must reach "a consensus" on the questions to be considered. If the Government insists on there being 36 delegates who are appointed, they should be appointed in a non-partisan fashion, for example, having the support of a two thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament.

The ARM believes that the voting method employed for the election of delegates should be compulsory secret ballot. This is our view notwithstanding recent polls published in The Australian suggesting that the ARM would benefit from voluntary postal voting. The ARM also submits that so far as possible the voting system, and in particular ballot papers, should be the same as used for the Australian Senate. A familiar system will encourage a higher participation rate.

Australians are entitled to expect that an issue of this importance should be dealt with in the same way as parliamentary elections and referendums. Since voting at every federal and state election, and most local government elections in Australia is compulsory, the adoption of voluntary voting is likely to downgrade the significance of the Convention in the minds of many electors. It might also suggest that the Government hopes for a low response which would diminish the significance of the Convention and the decision it might reach on the main question before it, as to whether Australia should have an Australian citizen, chosen by Australians, as its Head of State.

There is a further ground of objection to postal voting. Postal votes are particularly susceptible to interference. An elector whose ballot papers are stolen may not have time to request the AEC to provide another ballot paper. There is immense scope for electoral fraud in this process and only a few examples of such fraud would be required to taint the whole ballot. The only certain way of ensuring a secure election is by means of compulsory, secret ballot.

We note that the Prime Minister has often said that this debate should belong to the people. Ensuring that all Australians vote is the best way of achieving that desire.

The simple fact is that a voluntary postal ballot discriminates against the less educated, the migrants, the aborigines and Australians living overseas.

In a normal parliamentary election the very large number of Australians who for various reasons have trouble understanding the ballot papers are assisted by electoral staff or by representatives of political parties at the polling stations. These people will not have that sort of assistance available to them at their home.

The vote for the election of delegates should be no different from any other popular election in this country. It should be compulsory; the votes should be cast in person with provision for absentee and postal voting and the properly accredited campaigns should be funded by the government of the day. By those means, at the end, win, lose or draw, the issues will have been discussed widely and deeply enough to be understood and it will be open to no-one, Prime Minister or pauper, to complain that his/her point of view did not get a fair airing, or that the supporters of the monarchy or the republic did not get a fair go.

One thing is certain. We will not get another bite at this cherry for a long time, so why not do it right, do it fairly and properly, in the Australian way.

Already many people regard the holding of a People's Convention, before a plebiscite, a delaying tactic. It is critical that such fear is allayed and such perception is dissolved. Delay should not defeat the determination of the view of the Australian people. Delay will not defeat the ultimate decision of the Australian people.

I believe that the dominant opinion, properly organised and motivated, is on the side of an Australian Head of State, and that those who practise the tactics of delay will risk the condemnation of the huge numbers of Australians who wish to see the issue resolved honestly and fairly.

In a campaign such as this where constitutional change is involved, the need for rational debate and discussion is imperative. But there is plenty of room left for strong feeling, indeed for passion, in the debate and discussion. After all, it is the future of the young people of Australia which is at stake here. It is their jobs, their lifestyle, their dignity, which will most be affected. Of course, all Australians are involved, but none more than the young, and the future young, of this country.

Of course, the republican debate has been in full swing at various times since the middle of the 19th Century. Whilst the environment now for change is as favourable as it has ever been, the road to final confirmation of nationhood will not be easy. The Prime Minister has declared his preference in favour of the present constitutional monarchy and he has many influential people supporting him in his preference.

On the other hand, some leading conservative politicians have entered the debate on the side of change to an Australian Head of State.

A short time ago, a reputable poll reported that 56% of Australians supported a referendum on a republic before or at the same time as the next Federal Election, due in 1999. The task ahead for those who support change is to articulate simply and clearly what the change is about - to explain to the Australian public what the change involves. The changes are not all that complicated. They only become complicated in the utterances of the monarchists whom I suspect are not about facilitating, but rather obfuscating, the debate which will lead Australia to a republic with its own Head of State. The changes involved are:

1. removing all reference to the Queen in the Constitution;

2. creating an Office of Head of State;

3. defining the powers of the Head of State;

4. providing for the appointment and removal of the Head of State;

5. and doing nothing that affects in any way our present representative parliamentary democracy.

At the end of the day Australia would have its own Head of State and all other institutions, including the parliament, would be recognisably the same.

The powers of our Australian Head of State would be spelled out in the Constitution with absolute certainty. There would be absolutely no change whatsoever to our system of Parliamentary democracy, except that we had one of our own as a symbolic Head of our country.

Let me warn against falling for the argument that a republic is inevitable. The more inevitable a republic is, the more people will rely upon that inevitability and feel justified in taking no part in the process by which an Australian Head of State will be achieved.

In other words, the inevitability of having an Australian Head of State risks becoming a blind to hide behind for those who know the time is morally, philosophically and socially correct, but prefer to sit back and wait - and wait - and wait, for nature, as it were, to take its course.

For others, inevitability is a cop-out. It gives them the opportunity to support the republic notionally, but not actually. To put it another way: to embrace the inevitability argument is a form of fence sitting. You can't be accused of being out of touch, or out of date, or old-fashioned. Nor do you have any obligation to engage in debate on the issue and to progress it to finality one way or another.

We must reject the inevitability argument and embrace a pro-active campaign; we must take the discussion to the highways and byways, to the farms, to the factories, to the homes, to the schools, the airwaves and the internet - wherever Australians congregate and contemplate.

I said earlier that we are only likely to get one bite at this cherry. Certainly there will only be one bite this century. This means the campaign ahead will need the involvement and support of a great many Australians to achieve the goal we seek for Australia - an Australian Head of State. This goal represents the end point of the political development of our nation. I have no doubt that the Ipswich Forum will play a vital role in reaching that end point. I only hope that the participants on both sides in the campaign adopt as their obligation the principles inherent in the words of Sir Robert Peel, the 19th century English reformer:

"Let's try and raise our views above the fears and suspicions, the jealousies, the reproaches and the recriminations... let's look onward to the time of our children, and of our childrens' children."

It is a great privilege for me to officially launch this Forum in this historically significant city.