Australians could soon be partaking in another voluntary postal plebiscite if Malcolm Turnbull succeeds in his bid to have the nation vote on whether it should become a republic.
In the wake of the recent same sex marriage legislation change, Mr Turnbull proposed a similar method be used to ‘kickstart the debate’ on how Australia will be led in the future.
Speaking at the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club on New Year’s Day, the prime minister suggested an ‘honest open discussion’ was how a president should be elected, if the Queen were to pass during his leadership.
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) has propositioned another postal survey to ‘kickstart debate’ over whether Australia should become a republic
‘I think the first thing that you would need to do is to have an honest open discussion about how a president would be elected,’ Mr Turnbull said on Monday.
‘That is the rock on which the referendum foundered in 99. You’ve got to have that discussion and you know it may be that a plebiscite — maybe even a postal survey given the success of the marriage postal survey — could be one way to deal with that.’
His opinion has divided politicians, namely former prime minister Tony Abbot, who slammed republicans for ‘running Australia down’.
‘We don’t need to dump the Queen to be a great country. Republicans will never win by running Australia down,’ Mr Abbot wrote in a heated Twitter post Monday morning.
Speaking at the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club on New Year’s Day, the prime minister suggested an ‘honest open discussion’ was how a president should be elected in future
Meanwhile, Mr Turnbull’s stance was encouraged by Australian Republic Movement chair Peter FitzSimons, who said a republican future was ‘what the country needs’.
‘We are thrilled with the return of the PM — long the most passionate republican in the country — to moving forward the process of becoming a republic,’ he said.
‘The leaders of both sides of politics clearly want this to happen. Now it’s not a question of if, but how.’
But fellow republican and former prime minister, Paul Keating, accused Mr Turnbull of having ‘no policy ambition’ and for being chameleon-like in his beliefs.
‘He has little or no policy ambition and commensurably little imagination, no system, of prevailing beliefs … Was (his republicanism) just Malcolm being another chameleon doing another chameleon act as he has on so many other things?,’ Mr Keating told The Australian.
former prime minister Tony Abbot, who slammed republicans for ‘running Australia down’