At 09:59 AM 28/10/99, Laurie Forde wrote:
>Howard can lose,Trudy.----He loses if, despite his best efforts to weaken
>the Republic case,and divide Republican supporters, the YES vote still gets
>up on Nov.6.
>
>He loses because there is one less major division in Australian
>society ---Republicans v Monarchists---and division is the lifesblood of
>unwanted politicians like Howard.
>
>Laurie.
>
>Laurie and Desley Forde [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think Howard has played this issue very carefully and effectively. Unless
there is a real turn around in the last week then the "No" case will win
the referendum. Without the nonsense about the "people's republic" etc the
monarchists (and Howard - who I suspect really sees this issue in purely
cynical, political terms rather than being the simplistic Menzies accolyte
that he pretends to be) would have been down the gurglar at the end of week
one.
If the "NO" case wins, then Howard goes along saying "see, I told you so. I
offered the referendum as I promised I would and you didn't really want it
did you."
Anyone who really believes that this whole issue will be easy to revisit in
the near future is kidding themselves. It certainly won't occur while the
Libs are in power and even after a change of government it would take a
brave Labor leader indeed to risk the schism between the "direct election"
and "parliamentary election" factions within his or her own party. Nobody
with any sense would even try to run such a debate. All it would do would
exacerbate divisions that would be hard to heal. The labor party have had
enough trouble in the past with internal divisions over matters such as
state aid, pragmatism versus idealism etc etc. Only a fool would stir the
hornets nest. I'm sure Howard is well aware of this and is doing his
damndest to engineer a situation where the Labor party would split over the
issue when it is next in government.
This is it folks. You either want a republic or you don't. Those who
suggest that you vote "no" to get what you want further down the track are
being either naive or mendacious in my opinion. I suspect that the latter
is true of the Reiths and others of their ilk. Some, like Phil Cleary, seem
to simply be on a jaundiced ego trip. Others probably simply haven't really
thought it through.
If you want a republic, vote yes. If you don't, vote no. As I said in an
earlier post, I don't think it is really an issue of critical importance
any more. But don't delude yourself that voting "no" is a clever way of
getting some kind of "people's republic". You won't get it.
Cheers
Rod
Rod Hagen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia
WWW http://www.netspace.net.au/~rodhagen
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