Last month when I was watching the Chris Smith TV show one evening there appeared a clip showing Prince Charles at the Davos meeting shaking hands with Greta Thunberg (no problem) and then going along a row of important attendees, including Mike Pence, the Vice-President of the USA and shaking their hands and making the occasional comment. When he arrived at Mike Pence, who held out his hand for a handshake, the Prince deliberately passed him by and shook the hand of the next person, with Vice-President Pence looking flabbergasted at this obvious snub. I could not believe it – here was the person who is to be the next Head of State of Australia displaying contempt for a high ranking representative of an important ally not just of Australia but also Britain and other Commonwealth countries. Up to that point I had not taken much notice of Prince Charles’ views on plants, homoeopathy, etc, but this was something that could not be ignored. In 2010, my wife and I were visiting some friends in Canada and while there I read the local newspapers. In one paper there was an article about how the Canadian Government should consider having in place a succession plan for when the Queen died and Prince Charles took over the Monarchy. Like Australia, Canada is signatory to the Statute of Westminster 1931 which requires for Commonwealth countries sharing the Queen as Head of State “…that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom”. The Canadian article acknowledged that while the Queen had carried out her role in the traditional manner it was likely Prince Charles would be very different and that needed to be factored in with some sort of review of his relationship with the Canadian Parliament. The Canadians had insisted on implementing the above Statute of Westminster convention in 1936 when Edward VIII abdicated and Canadian laws needed to be changed to recognise the new line of succession. In 2015, in accord with same convention, Australia has agreed with other Commonwealth countries that the first born of the Royal Family, irrespective of whether male or female should be the Monarch and that being a Catholic is no barrier to being the Monarch (Succession to the Crown Act 2015). According to Bagehot, the Crown’s role in Britain is described as follows: “To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights – the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.” Those three rights were developed in the context of the power struggle over the centuries between the Parliament and the Monarchy and have been regarded in practical terms the rights of the Monarch to be consulted by Parliament, to encourage Parliament and to warn Parliament - not the general population. The Queen has adhered to this process scrupulously, not only in Britain where she regularly meets with her Prime Minister, but also in Australia where she consults in private with her representative the Governor- General who in turn consults with the Prime Minister. This tradition of neutrality in public affairs means the Monarch is well respected in the community, and hence the role of the Monarch per se. In contrast to her approach, Prince Charles seems to want to bypass Parliament and speak directly to his subjects via modern media. This not only goes beyond the three agreed rights outlined above, but also brings the Monarchy into disrepute by his taking partisan positions on controversial issues and this is divisive in the community and inimical to democracy, and to the Monarchy itself, which is hereditary and not elected. Given that the Queen’s reign is almost at an end does the Australian Government have a position on endorsing the reign of Prince Charles when he becomes king? I believe that Parliament should have a fall back position on the death of the Queen that severs formal constitutional ties with the UK Monarchy and replaces that Monarch as our head of state by an Australian Head of State, chosen by election. That does not mean Australia leaves the Commonwealth or adversely affect its cultural and economic ties with Britain. I have put a proposal previously to State and Federal Parliamentary leaders along the following lines: 1. Each State Parliament and the Federal Parliament choose a candidate using the existing methodologies for choosing a State governor and the Commonwealth Governor-General. 2. These candidates publish a simple CV in selected media and without further campaigning put themselves up for election by the public for the position of Governor-General/President Discussion In 1999 the Referendum question was as follows: “To alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and the Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed by a two-thirds of majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament”. After the referendum failed in 1999 it was obvious that it had failed mainly because the pro-republic supporters were split over the model that was on offer. There were other reasons which are set out and discussed in the attached paper by the Hon Justice Michael Kirby in March 2000. I personally agreed with the 1999 Referendum model whereby Parliament was in control of electing the President. This reflected the status quo relationship between the Parliament and the Queen’s representative in Australia, the Governor-General and the Head of State (The Queen), while reflecting the result of hundreds of years of power struggle between Parliament and the Monarchy and which had resulted in a stable and democratic system of government. The alternative of having an elected President conjured up visions for most people the spectacle of a USA type election resulting in Australia in a President with as yet undefined powers that may usurp the powers of Parliament, and thus the preference was for the “minimalist model”. The preparation for the referendum had been very thorough and cannot be faulted. A Constitutional Convention was held in Old Parliament House from 2 to 13 February 1998 following election of delegates in 1997. I attended public meetings here in Canberra where the process was outlined and obtained excellent official booklets on the issue that were made freely available to the public. In anticipation of a possible “Yes” vote the Attorney-General’s Department had prepared a draft “Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution and to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with a President chosen by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament” accompanied by a comprehensive “Explanatory Memorandum – Constitution Alteration (Establishment of Republic) 1999”. (Appended below). These two documents (on the same website) spelt out the alterations to the relevant sections in the Constitution to change Australia into a republic. The Federal government of the day had obviously obtained the permission to go ahead by the State Governments as they also had a direct relationship with the Crown. In 2011 I retired and again took an interest in the question of Australia having its own Head of State and came to the conclusion that it was necessary to reconcile the opposing views of the two factions of the pro-republic supporters, along the lines of the proposal outlined above. The rationale behind that proposal was that the Parliaments of our Federation would still have control over the suitability of the candidature for Head of State and the public were able to exercise their democratic right to elect the President. After all, we elect our Australian Parliaments to govern on our behalf, and I could not see a problem in their choosing candidates on our behalf. Since then there have been moves firstly to have a plebiscite asking “Do you want a republic or a monarchy”? and if successful to have a further plebiscite on a range of models and once the model is decided then to have the referendum. That sounds good on paper but it won’t work. As part of my interest in this question in retirement I assisted for a couple of years at the ARM stall at Canberra’s annual Multicultural Festival where interested passers-bye were asked the same question – “Do you want a republic or a monarchy” and the bulk of respondents said while they favoured a republic they would not vote for a republic in such a plebiscite unless they knew what model was on offer. I don’t blame them – neither would I, after the disaster in 1999. As a result of this feedback I realised the only way around this dilemma was to put before the public a composite model of the two competing models and that proposal to be put to the public either as a plebiscite followed by a referendum (assuming “yes” in the plebiscite) or going directly to a referendum. As the changeover of the Monarch approaches, I believe it should be Parliament who makes the running on this issue rather than activist groups like the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) and Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM). These may have a role in advising Parliament on their respective views and promoting the two opposite sides of a plebiscite, but they are not bodies democratically elected by the whole community. Australia’s constitutional relationship with the Monarch is government business as can be seen from the following selection of legislation, both from UK and Australia: 1900 – Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act,