Hawke urges free vote on republic model

Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke has called for a free vote in the parliament
on the form an Australian republic should take, and for the matter to again be put
to the people.
Mr Hawke has urged republic supporters Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition
Leader Malcolm Turnbull to advance the issue.
"I don't think it's a question of lacking courage but I'd like to see their passion
loosened a bit," he told reporters in Canberra, as he opened the new Museum of
Australian Democracy on Saturday.
"It seems to me that there is a clear majority of the Australian people now in
favour of a republic."
Mr Hawke said he was certain more than 90 per cent of people would vote `yes' in a
referendum if asked whether they were in favour of a republic after the end of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth II, who is aged 83.
"This would be a unifying thing in Australian life," he said.
Mr Hawke, who served as prime minister between 1983 and 1991, said on issues where
there are genuine grounds for difference such as a republic, the government should
introduce a draft bill on the basis that there be no pre-determining party room vote
binding MPs.
"There should be unfettered debate in the chamber," he told an applauding crowd of
hundreds gathered outside Old Parliament House.
"The government would undertake to abide by the decision of the parliament."
Mr Hawke said there were valid arguments for both a president being directly elected
or chosen by an indirect vote.
He said the government should introduce a draft bill detailing the mechanics of
setting up a republic.
"If members of parliament knew they had to cast their own vote according to their
own conviction - they weren't bound by their party, the caucus or the conservative
party room - then obviously the members of parliament would be in much closer
contact with their electorate," Mr Hawke said.
"I believe this concept that I have would breathe real life into that immortal
phrase and definition of democracy, and that is government of the people, by the
people, for the people."
Mr Turnbull said he agreed with Mr Hawke that the best time to revisit the issue of
a republic was at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign.
"I recognise other people take different views," he told reporters in Sydney.
"I don't agree with Mr Hawke on everything but on that issue I do."
After a Constitutional Convention in 1998, a bi-partisan appointment model for a
republic failed when put to the public at a referendum the following year.