The current republican debate shows that the cultural cringe is still depressingly prevalent among our elites.
The worthies who try to browbeat us into supporting their unpopular republican model with the claim that the planned November referendum will be a test of "national self-confidence" betray their own ambivalence and insecurity about Australia. People who feel confident about their place in the world rarely need to resort to grand symbolic declarations of their independence.
Of all the arguments which might be offered in favour of a republic, the most pathetic is the one that we must show the world we are an independent and politically mature nation by the beginning of the new millennium.
My impression is that most ordinary Australians have a reasonably healthy and balanced sense of national identity, one that is neither strident nor defensive, but which involves a sound appreciation of the nation's many strengths and less numerous weaknesses. They feel little need to become involved in the jittery efforts of our cultural elites to define and assert a national identity to some amorphous world audience.
Indeed, most Australians probably realise that the rest of the world rarely gives much thought to our constitutional arrangements, and doesn't care whether or not we become a republic.
Insofar as others do discuss and judge Australia in factual political terms (as opposed to the fantasies of wickedness promoted by many of our intellectuals), they are more likely to focus on its status as one of only a tiny number of nations that have had a continuous and thriving liberal democracy over the past century. This achievement is the ultimate proof of Australia's political maturity and independence.
I make these comments as a mild republican. I think that an Australian republic is desirable, not because we need a stronger declaration of nationhood, but because a hereditary monarchy offends the principle that all people are born equal. In this respect I agree with Labor Senator Robert Ray, who argued some time ago that "republicanism represents a further assertion of democracy".
But regrettably, there are other aspects of our society that are also in conflict with important egalitarian principles. If the price of solving Australia's more pressing problems of unemployment, growing income inequality, and an increasingly racialised politics was having to abide the monarchy for a few more decades, most of us would probably think it worth paying.
Linking a republic to the extension of democracy also strengthens the case for a president who would be elected by the people. The Constitutional Convention's preferred model for a republic, in which the head of state would be chosen by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament, clearly has not captured the nation's enthusiasm, despite its appeal to various political and business leaders.
But the Constitutional Convention, with half of its 152 delegates appointed by the government, and the other half elected in a poll in which only 46.5% of the electorate voted, did not represent a high-point in the nation's democratic history, whatever its boosters might claim.
Because we cannot really anticipate the kinds of constitutional problems we may face in the future, there are dangers in any course of action -- or inaction. Of course there would be risks in a popularly-elected president, particularly one whose powers were not carefully defined.
The sense of legitimacy that such an elected head of state might feel would probably increase the likelihood of his or her intervention during times of political crisis or deadlock, such as occurred in the 1975 impasse over supply which led to the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's government.
The potential for such intrusion worries politicians, although I doubt that it should worry the rest of us to the same extent. Such an intervention would almost certainly be rare. But should it ever become necessary again, the actions of a president with a popular mandate would be rather less likely to bring serious long-term damage to the nation than the actions of an appointed president.
For instance, whatever one might think about Whitlam's dismissal, had it been carried out by a popularly elected president, the Labor Party would probably have been more circumspect about "maintaining the rage" that poisoned Australia's politics for so long.
I would take the arguments of those who warn of the dangers of an elected head of state more seriously if the same people were not so enthusiastic about introducing a new preamble into our constitution giving a special place to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
Such a preamble might sound reasonably innocuous now. But it could provide considerable potential for some future activist High Court to encroach on the nation's integrity, particularly if the United Nations adopts the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with its promise of political self-determination and other separatist measures.
I am also unimpressed by the arguments of people like former Liberal Party Federal Director, Andrew Robb, who warned this week that a popularly elected president "sounds attractive -- until you realise that what you'll end up with is another politician".
There is nothing to fear from having ex-politicians as presidents. Indeed, they are more likely to have an empathy with ordinary Australians than ex-judges, who would be major contenders for an appointed head of state, and who have come from a working milieu which is rather more rarefied than that of politics.
Sir Paul Hasluck and Bill Hayden were former politicians who became effective and widely admired governor-generals. Indeed, if Mr Robb really finds the prospect of politicians so disturbing, it is reasonable to ask why he devoted a significant part of his professional life to getting them elected into government.
If the Constitutional Convention's republican model succeeds in the November referendum, the political and cultural elites will be satisfied, and will do their best to thwart any further changes for decades. If it fails, we can be certain that the passionate supporters of a republic will try again soon. But next time they may be less arrogant.
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