I am going to vote Yes to the republic and informally on the preamble. I will vote Yes on the republic because all I can see ensuing from a No vote is a long, irrelevant debate about the merits of a direct election or the parliamentary model. This will distract everyone from far more important issues. If there is another vote further down the track on the matter I suspect that it may again produce the same result as this one (which will almost certainly be "no". The idea of direct election is, I think, fatally flawed. It will inevitably create a situation where the "president" is essentially beholden to one or the other of the major political parties. If you really want a "politician's republic" then go for direct election. You are certain to get one. The dishonesty of the monarchist's campaign in this regard has, to my mind, been breathtaking and I find it staggering that so many people have fallen for it. Ultimately the punblic will realise this, but a lot of time will be wasted (as it has been here) in the mean time. Ultimately, as I have said before, I don't really think it matters much whether we are a monarchy or a republic. There are perfectly respectable democracies of both types in the world. But I do find the ease with which the monarchists have been able to prey on the naivety of the electorate both sad and worrying. If, by some extreme fluke, the Yes vote gets up, then perhaps we can get on with the business of genuinely reforming the impoartant elements of the constitution to achieve ends of more real worth instead of wasting our time on the current nonsense. If it doesn't , then I fear that we will still be talking about irrelevancies for a decade or two more. For the preamble, I am going to write nothing in the square on the ballot paper. I am going to write "Yes I want a preamble, but No, I do not want the preamble suggested by John Howard" underneath or beside the square, with both the words yes and no underlined. This vote will, I am told, be clearly informal. If we are to have a preamble it must do more than the current proposal suggests. It must genuinely recognise Indigenous interests instead of using silly and inappropriate anthropological terms to describe their relationship with the land (and hey, I'm an anthropologist. I should be rejoicing!). It must also avoid the fatal sin of presuming that the religious or other beliefs of proper Australian citizens involve the notion of a God (with a capital G). Unless our constitution is capable of incorporating us all it isn't worth the paper that it is written on. So vote Yes for a republic, vote informally on the preamble and lets get down to the real issues once again! Cheers Rod Rod Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia WWW http://www.netspace.net.au/~rodhagen ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
