The poll, conducted by Roy Morgan yesterday, found that 60 per cent of people want to remain in the monarchy – an increase of five per cent since last November – while 40 per cent would prefer to be a republic. There were 1012 people surveyed by SMS for the poll.
An increasing majority of Australians, 60% (up 5% points since November 2012) believe Australia should remain a Monarchy while only 40% (down 5% points) say Australia should become a Republic with an elected President.
The survey of 1,075 people, taken after Queen Elizabeth II's death, gives little hope to the republican cause with fewer than half of the respondents (43%) supporting Australia becoming a republic – a figure that has barely moved over the past five years.
Australia is a constitutional monarchy and our head of state is the King. However, the King does not have a role in the day-to-day running of Australia.
Australia is a founding member of the modern Commonwealth and has been an active participant in Commonwealth organisations, programs and meetings for over 70 years. Australia supports the Commonwealth to promote human rights, democratic norms and good governance among member countries.
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900: Original Public Record Copy (1900). The Australian Constitution does not contemplate any state or territory leaving Australia. The only legal path to secession would be by a national referendum.
Through our assistance to Commonwealth development programs, Australia is supporting democratic processes, small states, climate change, youth and civil society engagement, education and the rights of LGBTI persons. In 2021-22 Australia provided an estimated $5.9 million in total to Commonwealth development programs.
Abolition has been carried out in various ways, including via abdication leading to the extinction of the monarchy, legislative reform, revolution, coup d'état, and decolonisation.
The simple answer is No. Australia does not pay a cent for the maintenance or security of the Sovereign.
The Crown Estate is not owned by the public and the public do not pay out of their own taxes to operate the Crown.”
With a total population of around 22 million people, Australia is a busy place. Who are all these people? Well, Australia has a unique ethnic distribution. About 85–90% of the population identifies as ethnically white (meaning of European ancestry), but this is actually a compilation of several ethnic categories.
A history of migration
Today, Australia maintains its status as an ''Immigrant nation'', with almost 30 percent of the population born overseas and around 50 percent of the population having both that were born overseas.
“Although those who have non-European and Indigenous backgrounds make up an estimated 24 percent of the Australian population, such backgrounds account for only 5 percent of senior leaders,” the report states.
In May 2021, a YouGov poll showed reduced support for the monarchy, with 61% in favour and 24% against among all over-18s; there was a particularly high rise in republican views and an overall plurality for its replacement with an elected head of state in the 18–24 age group (41%–31%).
That is, while Australia's head of state is the King, the functions of head of state are performed by the Governor-General. The King's only necessary constitutional function is to appoint the Governor-General, and in doing this the King acts as advised by the Australian Prime Minister.
In accordance with the Australia Act 1986, the sovereign has the power to appoint, on the advice of the relevant state premier, a governor in each of the Australian states, who themselves appoint executive bodies, as well as people to fill casual Senate vacancies, if the relevant state parliament is not in session.
Obviously the Queen does not reside in Australia, but she is represented by a resident Governor-General, now always an Australian. We do not pay the Queen any money for her upkeep or even for her duties as Queen of Australia. We do pay a salary to the Governor-General and pay for the upkeep for the official residences.
The Queen receives a yearly sum through what is known as the Sovereign Grant , which is equivalent to £1.29 per person in the UK. In Aussie dollars, that's around $2.23 per person, which last financial year amounted to a whopping $148 million.
The sovereign grant was set at £86.3m for 2021-22, according to the royal household's annual financial statement, which it said represented £1.29 per person in the UK. Prior to 2017, the Queen received 15% of the crown estate profits from the two previous years, while the remainder was kept by the government.
A total of 45% of respondents said either it should be abolished, was not at all important or not very important. In 2022, the year of the late queen's platinum jubilee, 35% of respondents gave one of the same three answers.
By any measure, the British monarchy does not seem like it is going anywhere – even if republican feeling grows stronger. All of Britain's major political parties are pro-monarchist, and in a country grappling with strikes, inflation and the fallout from Brexit, the issue remains a low priority.
If the monarchy was abolished, then the Queen's consent or King's consent would also disappear. There would be no royal family to influence the country's legislation. The people of Britain would have a more fair and even democracy.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. As membership is purely voluntary, member governments can choose at any time to leave the Commonwealth. The first state to do so was Ireland in 1948 following its decision to declare itself a republic.
Commonwealth member countries benefit from being part of a mutually supportive community of independent and sovereign states, aided by more than 80 Commonwealth organisations. The Commonwealth Secretariat, established in 1965, supports Commonwealth member countries to achieve development, democracy and peace.
A Commonwealth of Republics
Membership is voluntary and a number of countries have left and re-joined. Ireland left never to return and Zimbabwe left and is now seeking to re-join. Other countries looking to join the commonwealth include South Sudan, Suriname, Burundi and the as-yet-unrecognized Somaliland.