It was a very clever ploy by Howard to split republican sentiment on the specific referendum questions and it worked beautifully. But it does not change the fact that opinion polls consistently showed that the answer to the straight question "Should Australia become a republic?" was always 'Yes" by 55-60% of people. And if you polled them tomorrow on that specific question it would still be so. The referendum was *not* a test of genuine public opinion on this matter because of the way the question was put.
The question that should have been put in the referendum would have been the in-principle one that I just asked, and IF it showed a majority of people favoured it, THEN the bunfight on how and when could have started. It wouldn't have come in for years anyway, because there are serious questions about how to do it, but the Canadians managed it with very few problems at all.
Rubbish (though any of them would still have done better than John Kerr...).
All I want it to see *genuine* majority sentiment on this issue responded to. If the answer to the question I put above was less than 50%, then I'd be happy with the status quo. But the waters were totally muddied by Howard in that waste of time and money that was inflicted upon us on the last occasion.
Rifty
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