Republican chief concedes defeat in Australian monarchy vote

November 6, 1999
Web posted at: 6:35 p.m. HKT (1035 GMT)

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- The leader of the campaign to turn Australia into a republic and oust Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as head of state conceded defeat Saturday as voters rejected the proposal in a national referendum.

Australian opposition leader Kim Beazley admitted the proposal's defeat Saturday, but said his Labor party would keep the republic issue alive. The proposal put to voters on Saturday was for a president appointed by parliament -- a point used successfully by monarchists to knock down the referendum.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Australia

Opinion polls suggest a majority of Australians would have backed a popularly elected president.

"The referendum was quite clearly lost because of the way it was set up, setting up one form of republic against the other," Beazley said.

Beazley, whose party supported ditching Elizabeth in favor of an Australian president, said Labor would lobby for a new referendum which first asked whether Australians wanted a republic of any sort.

"Then assuming with great confidence that people will say 'yes,' we then do them the courtesy of asking them this question: 'Which sort of republic do you want?' " Beazley said.

With 54 percent of the vote counted by 0920 GMT, 'no' voters in Australia's constitutional referendum led 53 to 47 percent. Only one of Australia's six states, Victoria, looked likely to support the republican cause.

In order to pass, the measure needed to win a majority of votes nationwide and to win in a majority of the nation's six states.

Flying polling booths, compulsory voting

Voting took place at polling booths across the nation from downtown shopping malls to remote sheep farms. Authorities flew four dozen mobile voting stations from one outback settlement to another, while 42 stations were set up in prisons.

Voting was compulsory for the 12.3 million people who were eligible.

Although Australia gained independence in 1901, like many of Britain's former colonies, it continued to recognize the British monarch as its head of state.

The republican cause even united two former prime ministers, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, whose bitter rivalry once plunged the queen's representative in Australia -- the governor-general -- into the heart of a constitutional crisis.

In 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr used his generally ceremonial power to sack Whitlam's Labor government and appoint Fraser, a conservative opposition leader, in order to break a parliamentary deadlock over government spending. It was the only time a governor-general flexed any political muscle.

Even if the proposal had passed, becoming a republic would have had no impact on the day-to-day workings of government. The economy and trade would not have been affected: Under the proposal, the queen's face would remain on Australian money and Britain's Union Jack would still occupy a corner of Australia's flag.

In a separate vote, Australians were asked if they wanted to add a preamble to their constitution.

A general statement of Australian values and with no legal significance, the text also officially recognizes Australia's Aborigines as "the nation's first people," and praises them "for their deep kinship with their lands and for the ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country."

Correspondent John Raedler and Reuters contributed to this report.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.