Re: Australia as a republic
marc171 wrote:4. Being a republic , there will be a perfection of democracy
Speaking as an American citizen, who knows more about American history than most American history teachers, i'd have to say that this is the goofiest thing you have said so far.
Becoming a republic guarantees nothing about how the Australian government would be constituted, it only would have significance if Australia created a constitution which would, for example, create "more democratic" institutions at the Federal and State levels.
A comparison of Canada and the United States (about which i know far more) can provide some good examples.
Canada, basically, continues to be much the same as it was as a dominion. The Queen no longer appoints the Governor General or any of the provincial Lieutenant Governors, but that ceased to be true a long, long time ago. Even before Canada took control of its own constitution, the monarch only appointed a Governor General and Lieutenant Governors who were already chosen in Ottawa. Canada became a dominion and an independent nation in 1867. However, what passed for a constitution in Canada continued to be the British North America Act, although the monarch and the Parliament at Westminster amended that act in whatever manner the Canadians demanded.
In 1980, or thereabouts (i'd have to look it up), the Queen returned the British North America Act to Canada, which is a fancy way of saying it was revoked, and the legal formalities were brought into line with the political realities. All of the British North America Acts (there were more than one, as the Parliament amended or replaced them at the demand of the Canadians after 1867) serve to form the Canadian constitution, with the crucial observation that the Canada Constitution Act, passed in Ottawa after the British North America Act was returned to them amends that constitution in any place where it contradicts or expands the previous Acts. Significant in all of that was the establishment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which serves much as the Bill of Rights does in the United States, but which is more comprehensive than the Bill of Rights.
But there are several crucial differences between how Canada is constituted and how the United States is constituted. There is an ironic dichotomy going on there. Canada is a confederation, which means that the Provinces voluntarily join together to form the nation, while in the United States, you have a federation, which means that once a state joins the Union, they can't leave. Theoretically, a Province in Canada could chose to leave the confederation--which is why the Québec separatist movement sticks in the craw of "English" Canada--there is nothing in law or the Canadian constitution which would prevent the French from leaving the confederation and setting up on their own, if they ever vote for it (they've come close, but have never quite attained a majority vote for separation). Furthermore, to amend the basic constitution, there has to be unanimous consent of all the Provinces, which means that the French can (and they do) hold the rest of the nation hostage to their agenda about their place in Canada. Then the "Maratimes" (the Provinces on the Atlantic Ocean) get snippy about things, and the prairie Provinces start hollering about how they don't need Ontario and Québec and get in a snit, and everyone goes home unhappy and nothing gets done.
So, in Canada, you have a confederated nation which is formed because the Provinces chose to be joined and accept a Federal government.
That being said, the Provinces in Canada have far less independent power than the States of the United States, and the power of government is top-heavy in Canada. All power ultimate resides in Ottawa, and the Provinces only control what Ottawa doesn't regulate. That continues in the Provinces. So, for example, in Ontario, the counties are only administrative districts--they have no real power. If you pay property taxes in Ontario, they got to Queen's Park (the area of Toronto where the Provincial Parliament sits), and the counties only get money if the Province decides to give it to them. In the United States, counties or parishes (Louisiana and Marland) have real power, and collect and spend their own tax revenues. In Ontario, parts of the Province which don't have large towns or cities are often organized into regions, with a mayor, and are just administrative districts of the Provincial government, like the counties. Some regions are completely within a county, and in less populated areas, a region may encompass parts of or all of more than one county.
A good example of this is zoning. Zoning means deciding whether an area will have residential housing, or a commercial district (shops, etc.), or will be an industrial area (factories, warehouse, etc.). In the United States, zoning is controlled by the counties or parishes, or by the municipality in large towns and cities. In Ontario, there is a provincial board which controls zoning ultimately, and that board can overrule a municipal or county or regional board. There has been a big fuss over this in Toronto recently, when developers wanted to build apartment buildings and condominiums in a single dwelling (houses) part of the city, and the Mayor and city council said no. So the developers appealed to the provincial board, which said the developers could go ahead and build. The people in Toronto are really pissed off, and have called for the provincial board to be eliminated. But they can't do anything unless Queen's Park goes along with it.
All of that being said, any Province which decides it doesn't like the top heavy system can change their internal organization, but they can't change the effect of Federal regulation. They can, in theory at least, secede (separate) from the confederation, but that is not very likely. The French of course, keep that pot on the simmer--basically, the French have been doing everything in their power since 1760 to make the English regret ever having conquered Canada.
In the United States, the States are more firmly bound to the central, Federal government, but have far more power. The Constitution of the United States guarantees that every State shall have a republican form of government, and everyone takes that very seriously. The American Civil War, 140 years ago, served to show that once in the Union, you're stuck, no State can voluntarily leave the Union.
But the principle of dispersed government works, all the way down. If the Constitution does not give the Federal government power over an issue, or if Congress does not pass constitutionally acceptable legislation to give power to the Federal government, the power resides in the States, or in the People. (The Constitution says just that, in the Ninth and Tenth amendments to the Constitution.)
So, for example, cigarettes which are manufactured in North Carolina are far cheaper in North Carolina than they are anywhere else in the country. The brands Winston, Salem and Camel are manufactured in North Carolina, so if you buy one of those brands, you don't pay any Federal tax. The Federal government can only tax tobacco or alcohol which is shipped across state lines to other states. The same is true in Virginia, where the brand Marlboro is manufactured. Same thing in Kentucky and other "tobacco states." So, basically, there are lots of aspects of every day life which the Federal government cannot control, and which are regulated by the States, whose legislatures have real power in comparison to Provinces in Canada. It's a matter of degree though--States in the United States have a lot more power than Provinces in Canada, but neither the States nor the Provinces have ultimate power in relation to the Federal governments in Washington and Ottawa.
The principle seeps down into local government in the United States, too. If you pay property tax in the United States, you, or your ancestors, voted for it, and it is collected by the county or the parish, or the school district (school districts in the United States operate by getting a share of the property tax, which is paid directly to them, after the county or parish collects it). Municipalities collect and spend the property tax within the city limits, although many large cities and counties are co-terminal (means the county and the city occupy the same space, such as Columbus/Franklin County, Ohio, or Chicago/Cook County, Illinois). In that case, the municipality and the county share the money. Even in those cases, the counties have real power, and spend real money. So, you will have a County Sheriff with his own deputies or police, at the same time that there is a municipal Police Chief with his own police force. Generally, the two police forces work together--the County usually takes on functions the city police don't want, and patrol and control parts of the County which are "unincorporated" (not a part of the city, and lacking their own government), or small towns which are completely surrounded by the city.
In many respects, Americans have far more democratic power over their own everyday lives than people do in other countries. But your claim about a republic giving Australia "perfection of democracy" is not automatically true. It could be true, but only if the Australians decide to amend or re-write their constitution to effect the change.
