The Republic Advisory Committee was a committee established by the then Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating

Paul Keating

Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...

 in May 1993 to examine the constitutional and legal issues that would arise were Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 to become a republic. It was asked to consider issues such as

• a name for a new elected head of state;
• the method of selection for the head of state;
• what powers he or she should possess;
• the constitutional amendments and legal changes required to replace the Queen of Australia and Her Representative, the Governor-General of Australia
  Governor-General of Australia
  The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
  
   by an elected head of state.

Republic Advisory Committee membership

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull is an Australian politician. He has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives since 2004, and was Leader of the Opposition and parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party from 16 September 2008 to 1 December 2009.Turnbull has represented the Division...	chairman (and leading Australian republican campaigner)
Nick Greiner Nick Greiner Nicholas "Nick" Frank Hugo Greiner AC, is an Australian businessman and former politician. He was the 37th Premier New South Wales from 1988 to 1992. He was Leader of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party from 1983 to 1992 and Leader of the Opposition from 1983 to 1988. He is married...	Former New South Wales Premier
Dr. John Hirst	La Trobe University, Convenor of Australian Republican Movement
Mary Kostakidis Mary Kostakidis Mary Kostakidis is the former weeknight SBS World News Australia presenter.Mary Kostakidis was the first woman appointed to present a national prime time news bulletin in Australia....	media presenter, SBS TV; member, Constitutional Centenary Foundation
Lois O'Donoghue CBE, AM	Chair, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Commission
Susan Ryan Susan Ryan Susan Maree Ryan AO is an Australian educator who served as a Senator for the Australian Capital Territory 1975–87...	Former Labor Party senator & Education Minister
Professor George Winterton George Winterton George Graham Winterton was Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney. Prior to his appointment to Sydney University in 2004, he taught for over 28 years at the University of New South Wales...	Professor of Law, University of New South Wales
Dr. Glyn Davis	School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University
Namoi Dougall	solicitor

The Republic Advisory Committee submitted two Volumes (Volume I - The Options and Volume II - the Appendices) to the Australian Prime Minister in late 1993. Part of Volume II was concerned with the international experience in moving from monarchical to republican headships of state. Six international reports were commissioned from local experts; four of the countries were former Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 monarchies

Commonwealth Realm

A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 134 million, of which all, except about two million, live in the six...

, while two had experienced their own regime change when their own monarchies (the Hohenzollerns in Germany, the Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

s in Austria) were replaced by republics.

Reports commissioned by the Republic Advisory Committee

Country	Report by	Qualifications
Austria	Professor Bernhard Raschauer	Professor, Institute for Public and Administrative Law, University of Vienna
Germany	Professor Klaus Von Beyme Klaus von Beyme Klaus von Beyme is Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg.- Education :...	Professor of Political Science, University of Heidelberg
India	A.G. Noorani	Formerly at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, now working as a freelance journalist
Ireland	Jim Duffy Jim Duffy (author) Jim Duffy is an Irish historian, political commentator, and served as a policy advisor to then Irish leader of the Opposition, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny prior to the 2011 general election...	Author of major study on the Presidency of Ireland and political commentator/analyst
Mauritius	Madun Gujadhur	barrister at the English, Indian & Mauritian bars and Chairman of the Mauritian Law Reform Commission
Trinidad and Tobago	Sir Ellis Clarke Ellis Clarke Sir Ellis Emmanuel Innocent Clarke, TC, GCMG was the second and last Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago and the first President of Trinidad and Tobago. Clarke was one of the main architects of Trinidad and Tobago's 1962 Independence constitution.Clarke attended Saint Mary's College, winning...	former Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago, who went on to serve as its first president

The recommendations made by the committee were never voted on by the Australian people. A Constitutional Convention

Constitutional Convention (Australia)

In Australian history, the term Constitutional Convention refers to four distinct gatherings.-1891 convention:The 1891 Constitutional Convention was held in Sydney in March 1891 to consider a draft Constitution for the proposed federation of the British colonies in Australia and New Zealand. There...

 was held in 1998, resulting in a slightly different proposal which was rejected by the Australian electorate in the 1999 referendum.

Additional information

Copies of the Reports were published under the following ISBNs

Volume One - The Options	ISBN 0-644-32590-9
Volume Two - The Appendices	ISBN 0-644-32589-5

External links

• Republican History - the Republic Advisory Committee

See also

• Australian republicanism
• Bi-partisan appointment republican model
  Bi-partisan appointment republican model
  The Bi-partisan appointment republican model is a proposal for Australian constitutional reform. If approved at referendum, the model would have established Australia as a republic with a Head of State appointed by the Australian Federal Parliament...
  
  
• Direct election republican model
  Direct election republican model (Australia)
  A direct election republican model is a proposal for Australian constitutional reform. If proposal of this type is approved at a referendum, it would establish Australia as a republic with a Head of State chosen directly by the Australian electorate....