Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.
Briefing Paper No. 19/1999 by Gareth Griffith
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- On 6 November 1999 the Australia people will vote in a
constitutional referendum on whether Australia should become a republic and
whether to insert a preamble to the Commonwealth Constitution. The two
questions, on the republic and the preamble respectively, are independent and
the result of one does not affect the other.
- This paper looks at the background to the referendum. It
presents a brief historical overview of the debate on the republic, pointing
out the landmarks in the movement towards presenting the republican issue to
the Australian people in the form of a constitutional referendum (pages 3-14).
- The paper also presents the main arguments for and against a
republic, both generally and in relation to the specific republican model which
forms the basis of the referendum question (pages 14-30).
- The issues relating to the preamble question are considered
subsequently in a separate section of the paper (pages 30-34).
