Editing Republic Advisory Committee

{{Short description|Australian committee}}
{{more footnotes|date=February 2013}}
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{{Use Australian English|date=May 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2018}}
The '''Republic Advisory Committee''' was a committee established by the then Australian Prime Minister [[Paul Keating]] in April 1993 to examine the constitutional and legal issues that would arise were [[Australia]] to become a republic. The committee's mandate was to "prepare an options paper describing 'the minimum constitutional changes necessary to achieve a viable Federal Republic of Australia, maintaining the effect of our current conventions and principles of government'."<ref>{{cite book|last=Turnbull|first=Malcolm|title=Fighting for the Republic|location=South Yarra|publisher=Hardie Grant Books|year=1999|page=9}}</ref> The committee was asked to consider issues such as

* a name for a new elected head of state;
* the method of selection for the head of state;
* what powers he or she should possess;
* the constitutional amendments and legal changes required to replace the [[Queen of Australia]] and Her Representative, the [[Governor-General of Australia]] by an elected head of state.

==Republic Advisory Committee membership==
{| class="wikitable"
! Name !! Notes
|-
| [[Malcolm Turnbull]]|| Chairman (and leading Australian republican campaigner and future Prime Minister)
|-
| [[Nick Greiner]]||Former New South Wales Premier
|-
| Dr. John Hirst||La Trobe University, Convenor of Australian Republican Movement
|-
| [[Mary Kostakidis]]||media presenter, SBS TV; member, Constitutional Centenary Foundation
|-
| Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM||Chair, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Commission
|-
| [[Susan Ryan]]||Former Labor Party senator & Education Minister
|-
| Professor [[George Winterton]]||Professor of Law, University of New South Wales
|-
| Dr. Glyn Davis||School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University
|-
| Namoi Dougall||Solicitor
|}

The Republic Advisory Committee submitted two Volumes (Volume I - The Options and Volume II - the Appendices) to the Australian prime minister in late 1993. Part of Volume II was concerned with the international experience in moving from monarchical to republican headships of state. Six international reports were commissioned from local experts; four of the countries were former [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] [[Commonwealth realm|monarchies]], while two had experienced their own regime change when their own monarchies (the [[Hohenzollern]]s in Germany, the [[Habsburg]]s in Austria) were replaced by republics.

==Reports commissioned by the Republic Advisory Committee==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Country!!Report by!!Qualifications
|-
| Austria||Professor [[Bernhard Raschauer]]||Professor, Institute for Public and Administrative Law, University of Vienna
|-
| Germany||Professor [[Klaus Von Beyme]]||Professor of Political Science, University of Heidelberg
|-
| India||A.G. Noorani||Formerly at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, now working as a freelance journalist
|-
| Ireland||[[Jim Duffy (journalist)|Jim Duffy]]||Author of major study on the Presidency of Ireland and political commentator/analyst
|-
| Mauritius||Madun Gujadhur||Barrister at the English, Indian & Mauritian bars and chairman of the Mauritian Law Reform Commission
|-
| Trinidad and Tobago||Sir [[Ellis Clarke]]||Former Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago, who went on to serve as its first president
|}

The recommendations made by the committee were never voted on by the Australian people. A [[Constitutional Convention (Australia)|Constitutional Convention]] was held in 1998, resulting in a slightly different proposal which was rejected by the Australian electorate in the [[Australian referendum, 1999 (Establishment of Republic)|1999 referendum]].

==Additional information==
Copies of the Reports were published under the following ISBNs

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| Volume One - The Options||{{ISBN|0-644-32590-9}}
|-
| Volume Two - The Appendices||{{ISBN|0-644-32589-5}}
|}

==See also==
{{portal|Australia|Politics}}
*[[Republicanism in Australia]]
*[[Bi-partisan appointment republican model]]
*[[Direct election republican model (Australia)|Direct election republican model]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20011108190819/http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/history/history_rac.htm Republican History - the Republic Advisory Committee]

[[Category:Republic Advisory Committee| ]]
[[Category:Republicanism in Australia]]