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Flint: Young Australians kill off Republic
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Support for a republic has collapsed among young Australians. The latest Morgan Poll also shows a referendum will be lost on whatever model is put to the people. Worse for republicans, it also means their silver bullet, a plebiscite would also go down. Kevin Rudd will be thinking twice about running one with the next election. If he doesn’t, his minders will. A vote on a republic will not be like a vote, say, on the retiring ages of judges. Nothing will excite the media more. So it will soak up too much valuable media time, and this on an exercise he is doomed to lose. The latest Morgan Poll shows the young especially can’t see the point of a republic. Those who say, like Nicola Roxon, that no new monarchists are being born, will have to revise their views. Even at the time of the referendum, polling showed that the strongest support for a republic came from the Baby Boomers, especially those in inner city electorates. The young voters have always been less interested. And the trend since then has been down. The West Australian 2006 survey of youth attitudes showed that support for a republic in the 18-30 age group had fallen to 38%. Then the Morgan poll of 22 February 2005 found that only 37% of those aged 14-17 were in favour of a republic. Now in 2008, this has fallen to a dismal 23%, with 64% supporting the constitutional monarchy and 13% undecided. Some undecided voters may be just unwilling to reveal their intentions; in any event they tend to vote No in a referendum. The overall result is equally dismal for republicans. Support for a republic is at 45%, the lowest for 15 years. Apart from the youth vote, the Morgan Poll is bad news for those republicans who say John Howard tricked voters in 1999 with the model. Of course he didn’t. The model was the choice of the overwhelming majority of republicans at the 1998 Convention. The point is that unlike Newspoll which does not define the word “republic” in its question, Morgan refers to the supposedly most popular model, the one where the people elect the president. Take the polls together and you have to conclude no model will get up. These results contrast glaringly with the 2020 Summit where the governance panel voted 98:1 with one abstention in favour of republican change. Actually they recommended ending links with the UK. This was curious for such a gathering. The last links went in 1986. |
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12 Comments
I must apologise to Professor Greg Craven. He was oncea strong monarchist, but is of course now a well known committed conservtive republican.
He is a sound and witty constitutional lawyer, and well worth reading.
He believes a republic witha popularly elected president will be rejected overwhelmingly.
His view is that after the debate people will see the problems in such a model.
I think he is right.
Incidentally those interested in the termination of links with the UK in 1986 should refer to Anne Twomey’s ” The Chamaleon Crown,” Federation Press 2006.
Jonathon Matthews argues, as I understand it , that this means The Queen must act as an automaton. No, she is Queen of Australia. The Autralian Crown is separate from the UK or for that matter Canadian Crowns: see Sue v Hill (1999) where the High Court disqualified Senator Hill.
What we have is a personal union of 16 Crowns, which is not a link with the UK , but a personal link with our Sovereign.
David: you have gone from being mad to being ludicrous. Have you ever got out there and done your own leg work? Ha! I used to live in the heart of the nightclub scene in Prahran and would often speak with our yeowth. Admittedly they were usually legless, but apart from being very noisy and inclined to toss their used condoms and syringes into our gardens and peeing against our fences, they were polite enough. Once, after one of your infantile raves, I made a point of asking a few of their number, over a period of three weeks, what they thought of being a monarchy. The usual reply was, “what’s that?”. When I explained what it was they usually couldn’t believe that our head of state was a foreigner. And quite a lot of them thought Republic was to do with old Hollywood westerns. You are a tiresome old man who will stop at nothing to re-enforce your anachronistic colonial ar*e-licking, royalty groveling climaxes. Go back to fairyland and your pathetic web-site.
(Disclosure: I work with Prof. Flint). For some reason we are expected to take every poll alleging support for republicanism at face value but woe betide the poll that uncovers evidence to the contrary. Since “the” republic is inevitable this poll *must* be wrong. Whatever. And just explain what is wrong with the questions? Is it that like the question in 1999 (and much to the displeasure of republicans back then) the terms republic and president are included? For those who think Howard rigged the referendum in 1999, take a look at the organisation of Keating’s Republic Advisory Commission or Rudd’s Summit - that’s how you rig something - not by setting up a ConCon where the majority of members were bound to be republicans. If the Morgan poll was trying to push a monarchist line, how come it includes that weasel question about Prince Charles? How can anyone possibly know *now* how he or she will feel at some future unspecified date about an event he or she has *never* experienced?
Mate… “Our Founding Fathers”? Leave that w*nker talk to Americans would you.
Dear Marshall,
Our Founding Fathers were well aware of the dangers of vague blank cheque plebiscites. They had seen them misused in France.
That is why they chose the Swiss style referendum. The details are on the table before you vote, not decided after.
In any event, Newspoll asks precisely the question you would love to see. On the last occasion, Newspoll gave precisely the same answer overall as Morgan.
Gary Morgan always gives an opinion after the poll in which he tries to give its practical effect. No one has ever suggested this is push polling.
You know, I always enjoy reading Prof Flints rants about his precious Monarchy. I think maybe in his case its a matter of if he writes it, it must be true…”maybe, just maybe, it will catch-on”!
Give me a break! The sample size and the wording of the question is ridiculous…
I wonder what the responses would have been like if it were:
“In your opinion, should Australia remain a MONARCHY and continue with the QUEEN as a head of state — or become a REPUBLIC with an elected President.” or a question similar to the one suggested by Marshall below?
David, since you’re desperate to call some attention to your facetious little closer, let’s see…hmm, actually the 2020 Summit Initial Report recommends severing ties with the Crown, not the UK. so what are the ‘preliminary recommendations’ you speak of elsewhere? preliminary i guess. but you’ll keep referring to them regardless, long after the semantics have been corrected. your article above as evidence of this, your last post as further evidence. “silly republicans, don’t even know it’s the link with the Queen our Sovereign that will be severed”. weak to begin with and too weak to milk.
More Monarchist Push-polling! Australians were not asked if they wanted Australia to be a Monarchy, they were asked: “In your opinion, should Australia remain a MONARCHY — or become a REPUBLIC with an elected President?”
I would love to see the results of the question: “In your opinion, should Australia remain a MONARCHY — or become a REPUBLIC?”
The Monarchists love to cloud the waters with discussion surrounding models, elected Presidents, etc, because it keeps debate away from the central issue. How is that in this country of freedom, liberty and opportunity we are happy to have our head of state decided as birthright and not open to any Australian?
I think this part of the article says it all: Garry Morgan says: “Kevin Rudd and his “Republican” colleagues should forget about changing the Constitution over the next few years and concentrate on making sure working Australians can “survive” with higher interest rates and higher prices.”
An impartial poll? I think not.
Will Crikey please stop giving the Professor oxygen - on this issue at least! Howard did trick voters in 1999, but his trick was played primarily on the monarchists. How else does one explain that the bulk of his foreign relations subsequently consisted of rimming the US President and a fair proportion of his domestic affairs involved hiding the GG away? I don’t think Howard really cared either way - his objective was to wedge the opposition and scare the voters so he could remain in power for eternity.
The reporting of this latest poll does young people a disservice. If the media is to be believed lately, Australia’s yoof are much more interested in getting legless and partying than developing a political consciousness. Rudd needn’t worry on plebiscite day - young voters will be too hungover to bother.
The trend in both the youth vote and particularly the overall vote has been confirmed by other polls. These have consistenly shown that republicanism is concentrated in the “baby boomer” generation in the inner cities,and is weaker in other age groups and awy from the inner cities.
In 1999, in the poll that counted, and in the most auspicious circumstances, Australians in all states and 72% of electorates said No to the republican movement’s preferred model, with legislation drafted by a passionate republican and on a question settled by a mainly republican committee and a cabinet with a constitutional monarchist minority.
Senior republican politicians know another referendum would be overwhelmingly rejected. Putting the same or similar model would be pointless.
But Professor Greg Craven, a strong monarchist, says that a referendum on the directly elected model would result in a defeat greater than in 1999.
ok david, the total sample size was 650 - how many 14-17 olds were questioned? 50-100? that’s an awful few to base your entire case on. extrapolating Morgan’s margin of error equation down to 50-100 sampled works out to - i don’t know maybe a 40-50% margin of error
which is totally worthless, not unlike your article.
Prof Flint, thanks for the link, I’m pleased to see support for a Repuplic with an elected President is still higher than support for the status quo.