Editing Republicanism in Australia (section)

==Arguments for change==

===Independence and head of state===
{{see also|Australian head of state dispute}}
A central argument made by Australian republicans is that, as Australia is an independent country, it is inappropriate and anomalous for Australia to share the person of its monarch with the United Kingdom. Republicans argue that the Australian monarch is not Australian and, as a national and resident of another country, cannot adequately represent Australia or Australian national aspirations, either to itself or to the rest of the world.<ref name=keating>{{cite web|url=http://www.australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/950607republic-speech.shtml |author=Paul Keating |title=An Australian Republic – The Way Forward |date=7 June 1995 |publisher=australianpolitics.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110910182312/http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/950607republic-speech.shtml |archive-date=10 September 2011 |author-link=Paul Keating}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/speeches&articles/spa_costello2.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071031034428/http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/speeches%26articles/spa_costello2.htm|url-status=dead|title=Monarchy v Republic, P. Costello from ''Options'' editor C. Pyne|archivedate=31 October 2007}}</ref> Former [[Chief Justice of Australia|Chief Justice]] [[Gerard Brennan]] stated that "so long as we retain the existing system our head of state is determined for us essentially by the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|parliament at Westminster]]".<ref>Official Committee Hansard, Senate, Legal and Constitutional References Committee, 13 April 2004, Sydney, p21 [http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S7541.pdf] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204035037/http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S7541.pdf|date=4 February 2012}}</ref> As ARM member Frank Cassidy put it in a speech on the issue: "In short, we want a resident for President."<ref>Address by Frank Cassidy Part of "Australia Consults" community debates, Saturday 25 January 1997: [http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/speeches&articles/spa_cassidy1.htm Source] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060820221423/http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/speeches%26articles/spa_cassidy1.htm |date=20 August 2006}}</ref>

===Multiculturalism===
Some republicans associate the monarchy with British identity and argue that Australia has changed demographically and culturally, from being "British to our bootstraps", as prime minister [[Sir Robert Menzies]] once put it, to being less British in nature (albeit maintaining an "English Core").<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/report/c02.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110925115424/http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/report/c02.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Road to a republic, p5|archivedate=25 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.republic.org.au/arm-2001/speeches&articles/spa_peach6May2005.htm|title=The birth of the Republic of Australia, B. Peach 6 May 2005|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071107015459/http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/speeches%26articles/spa_peach6May2005.htm|archive-date=7 November 2007}}</ref> Many Australian republicans are of non-British ancestry, and feel no connection to the "mother country" to speak of. According to an Australian government inquiry, arguments put forth by these republicans include the claim that the idea of one person being both monarch of Australia and of the United Kingdom is an anomaly.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/report/c02.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110925115424/http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/report/c02.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Road to a republic, p6|archivedate=25 September 2011}}</ref>

However, monarchists argue that immigrants who left unstable republics and have arrived in Australia since 1945 welcomed the social and political stability that they found in Australia under a constitutional monarchy. Further, some Aboriginal Australians, such as former Senator [[Neville Bonner]], said a republican president would not "care one jot more for my people".<ref>{{cite web |last=Bonner |first=Neville |date=4 February 1998 |title=Neville Bonner; speech to the Constitutional Convention; 4&nbsp;February 1998 |url=http://www.norepublic.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=888&Itemid=24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110222142806/http://www.norepublic.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=888&Itemid=24 |archive-date=22 February 2011 |access-date= |publisher=[[Australians for Constitutional Monarchy]]}}</ref>

===Social values and contemporary Australia===
From some perspectives, it has been argued that several characteristics of the monarchy are in conflict with modern Australian values.<ref name=keating /> The hereditary nature of the monarchy is said to conflict with [[egalitarianism]] and dislike of inherited privilege. The laws of succession were, before amendment to them in 2015, held by some to be [[sexism|sexist]] and the links between the monarchy and the [[Church of England]] inconsistent with Australia's [[secularism|secular]] character.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/report/c02.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110925115424/http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/report/c02.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Road to a Republic, p5|archivedate=25 September 2011}}</ref>

===Sectarianian divides===
Under the [[Act of Settlement 1701|Act of Settlement]], the monarch is prohibited from being a Catholic. Monarchism and republicanism in Australia have been claimed to delineate historical and persistent [[Sectarianism|sectarian]] tensions with, broadly speaking, [[Catholic Church|Catholics]] more likely to be republicans and [[Protestantism|Protestants]] more likely to be monarchists.<ref name=knightley>Knightley, Philip. Australia: A Biography of a Nation. London: Vintage (2001).</ref> This developed out of a historical cleavage in 19th- and 20th-century Australia, in which republicans were predominantly of Irish Catholic background and [[Ulster loyalism|loyalists]] were predominantly of [[Anglo-Australian|British]] Protestant background.<ref>Rickard, John. Australia: A Cultural History. London: Longman (1996)</ref> Whilst mass immigration since the Second World War has diluted this conflict,<ref name=knightley /> the Catholic–Protestant divide has been cited as a dynamic in the republic debate, particularly in relation to the [[1999 Australian republic referendum|referendum]] campaign in 1999.<ref name=knightley /> Nonetheless, others have stated that Catholic–Protestant tensions—at least in the sense of an Irish–British conflict—are at least forty years dead.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/04/1096871814394.html|title=New Life for that Old Time Sectarianism|last=Henderson|first=Gerard|date=5 October 2004|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|access-date=30 January 2011}}</ref>

It has also been claimed, however, that the Catholic–Protestant divide is intermingled with class issues.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s938041.htm |title=The Religion Report: Sectarianism Australian style |date=3 September 2003 |publisher=Radio National |access-date=6 July 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704143759/http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s938041.htm |archive-date=4 July 2008}}</ref> Republicanism in Australia has traditionally been supported most strongly by members of the urban working class with Irish Catholic backgrounds,<ref>Rickard. Australia (1996).</ref> whereas monarchism is a core value associated with urban and rural inhabitants of British Protestant heritage and the middle class,<ref name=knightley /> to the extent that there were calls in 1999 for 300,000 exceptionally enfranchised<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/British_subjects.htm|title=British Subjects Eligibility|date=3 August 2007|publisher=Australian Electoral Commission|access-date=6 July 2008}}</ref> British subjects who were not Australian citizens to be barred from voting on the grounds that they would vote as a loyalist bloc in a tight referendum.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s48403.htm|title=Ausflag calls for Brits to be barred from republic referendum|date=1 September 1999|publisher=The World Today|access-date=6 July 2008}}</ref>