Labor has called Malcolm Turnbull’s proposal to use a postal survey to pick Australia’s preferred form of republic a “thought bubble” but said it would consider any proposition to advance the debate.
After the former Labor prime minister Paul Keating questioned Turnbull’s commitment to a republic, the prime minister suggested a postal survey could be one way to determine whether Australians wanted to directly elect their head of state or for the parliament to appoint them if it abandoned the monarchy.
On Tuesday the deputy Labor leader, Tanya Plibersek, criticised the idea as “another thought bubble” and called on the government to back Labor’s plan to first establish majority support for the constitutional change.
“We think the threshold question is: do people support an Australian republic?” she told a press conference in Sydney. “Why have a debate that goes on for years about the best way to have a republic if there isn’t majority support for a republic?
“If Malcolm Turnbull has a different proposition ... of course we’ll talk with him about that. Labor supports Australia becoming a republic and we’re happy to work with the government with whatever proposition they have for advancing this objective.”
Plibersek said that Turnbull – who headed the unsuccessful 1999 push to become a republic – “used to be a guy who supported Australia becoming a republic” and suggested more could be done “if only someone with real power took an interest in this issue”.
“We’re committed to putting a simple proposition to the Australian people: should Australia become a republic? Should Australia have an Australian head of state?” she said. “Once we’ve done that – and I believe the majority would say yes to an Australian republic – we can then have a discussion about what form that would take.”
The shadow assistant minister for an Australian head of state, Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite, told Guardian Australia the government’s “off the cuff” planning risked dooming the idea to failure.
“We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of 1999,” he said, in reference to the fact many supporters of a republic with a directly elected head of state voted against the republic in a referendum offering only an appointed head of state.
Thistlethwaite said the Liberal party was divided, noting that the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, and the former prime minister Tony Abbott both oppose the republic.
On Monday the Australian Republican Movement welcomed Turnbull’s statement that a postal survey could be used, with its chairman, Peter Fitzsimons, calling on him to commit to a national vote during the next term of parliament.
“We are thrilled with the return of the prime minister – long the most passionate republican in the country – to moving forward the process of becoming a republic,” he said. “The leaders on both sides of politics clearly want this to happen. Now it’s not a question of if, but how.”
The Australian Republic Movement proposes two votes in 2020 on separate questions for whether and how Australia could become a republic, and has stated the vote on both could occur at the same time.
