Australia’s failure so far to become a republic diminishes the quality of our public life. It does so because of the dominating presence at the time of our great national moments of members of the British royal family. Their presence restricts the opportunities for Australians to play what should be their natural nation-defining roles in speaking to other Australians about our values. All the fancy intellectual footwork in the world cannot disguise the fact that Australians are being displaced on these occasions by people of another nationality who cannot reflect Australian identity. 

With this major problem in mind we should become a republic with an Australian head of state because the rational arguments for doing so are so much stronger than those for retaining the existing constitutional monarchy. Those positive arguments have not always been put as convincingly by republicans as they deserve to be, but, however they are put, they have great force and should therefore be considered first.