How About Our Republic?
$28.00
by Klaas Woldring
How About Our Republic? – by Klass Woldring
Product details
Paperback: 194 pages
Publisher: Self-published
ISBN: 1419631756
Trim size: 229 x 153 mm
Synopsis
How about OUR Republic?
Just about everything has changed substantially in Australian society since 1901 except the system of Government and the Constitution. What is holding change in these vital areas back?
This book is primarily aimed at those who want to hear more about additional options for a new Australian Republic. As such it is a particularly timely text as the six years after the failed Referendum on a Republic have yielded little in the way of fresh debate about the Republic. Various aspects of the Head of State in existing Republics are highlighted on the basis of a comparative approach. Fifteen modern Republics are examined for that purpose, excluding the US.
The vital questions “What Kind of a Republic?” and “How to achieve it?” are tackled with gusto. Here the thinking outside the square reaches new dimensions. Several eminent Australian scholars and activists are quoted who have fortunately outgrown the incestuous re-fashioning and piecemeal tinkering with yesteryear’s models and thought patterns. Admittedly, that is still a minority but the expectation is that their number could soon grow as the crisis intensifies – as it does. A strategic, maximalist and inclusive approach to developing a new Republican Constitution is proposed. The inadequacy of minimalism is exposed and replaced with a maximalist approach. The prevailing electoral system, federation and certain aspects of the Westminster system are challenged head-on as costly and undemocratic relics of the past that should be discarded and replaced with superior models.
The author Klass Woldring, Ph. D. is a former Associate Professor of Southern Cross University. He arrived in Australia in 1964 as an immigrant from the Netherlands. He has edited two other books, Beyond Political Independence – Zambia’ Development Predicament (1984) and another one Business Ethics in Australia and New Zealand – Essays and Cases (1996), and written AUSTRALIA – Republic or US Colony? (2005)
One review for How About Our Republic?
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Until his retirement, Klaas Woldring was a lecturer at the Southern Cross University in Lismore. Throughout the years, he has been a passionate advocate of Australia”s political independence and of a maximalist approach to the creation of a genuinely Australian republic, that is, one which involves the Australian head of state being directly elected by the people at large.
In suggesting how Australia should prepare itself politically, culturally and economically for the rest of the 21st century, Woldring, in his self-published book, manages to think outside the square. He explores a number of ways to persuade Australians that it is safe to have a directly elected president, separate from our two houses of parliament. He cogently argues that our current federation of states and federal-state relations, our prevailing electoral system and certain aspects of the “Westminister system” are “costly and undemocratic relics of the past that should be discarded and replaced with superior models”.
How About Our Republic? is a useful text for all students of Australian politics and especially for all thorough-going republicans.
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By Ross Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald R. HOW ABOUT OUR REPUBLIC?. Bulletin with Newsweek [serial online]. January 16, 2007;·125(6603):70-71. Available from: Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre, Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 5, 2010.
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