Klaas Woldring | Republic movement needs a rebrand and constitution could do with major reform

I would say that is a most heartening by-product of a sad event. Clearly the movement needs a rebrand. The minimalist approach was never convincing. It was in fact a major part of the problem.

Why a republic unless major governance issues are tackled at the same time? Some have begun to question whether we need a new head of state at all, the prime minister can do it, they say, but the problem here could be that we had six PMs in the last 10 years or so.

Australia has a lot of serious governance problems which are at least as important to fix. One of them is that knowledge of political system problems is very inadequate in Australia, the result of lack of objective political education. Most people don't know how it all works, why it doesn't work very well, and what can be done about it.

Essentially, it still operates like a British federal colony with the governor-general representing the monarchy. Thus, it is quite out of step with the reality.

Political education at both high school and university levels is seriously inadequate in Australia. The universities used to do a reasonable job until about the mid-1990s and after that then much less so. The number of students who majored in political science declined significantly. Neo-liberalism and a growing number of paying foreign students, who opted for different subjects, reduced offerings of government and politics-oriented subjects.

The conservatism of the two-party system prevailed over other options. Alternative systems in European countries were rarely studied. Students who went "overseas" to do higher degrees, primarily went to other English-speaking countries.

As a result, they actually missed out seeing remarkable, often superior alternatives compared to what is happening here. Even long service leave was not often used to study alternatives in non-English-speaking countries. So, before returning to another fully fledged republic campaign we might consider fixing some serious governance system issues or, ideally, at the same time. It really is not all that difficult.

What matters most of all surely is: What kind of a republic? That is an attitude that was basically absent from the start in the 1990s. The approach was "nothing else would change, except the head of state would be an Australian".

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What else could or should change would be a more profitable approach. Certainly now. Right now the discussion by the joint standing committee of election matters will look at the desirability of adopting proportion representation-party list, used in 85 countries.

This would end the bipolar adversarial mess of the current electoral single-member district system. What are we still doing with a federation structure in a country that has excellent communication systems incomparably superior to the situation of 1901 when the colonial federation made sense. Why don't we rewrite the entire constitution, keep the bits that are useful and add several others that are missing, an unbelievably large number of important matters not mentioned at all!

Let alone that it can hardly be amended as it is. The Voice of Indigenous people could easily be included in that new constitution. The conservatism in relation to the constitution and the electoral system is holding this nation back every day.

How about upgrading our archaic industrial relations system? Fifteen per cent union membership: what does that tell us? How about workplace democracy? Employee share ownership? We urgently need women recognised in the constitution, the Indigenous people, the enormous cultural diversity of this nation as compared to 1901, a source of immense pride and productivity. Then, we can add the republic and venture into something to be proud of.

Anthony Albanese, what is your view on major system change?