New system needed

The Queen has just indicated that she will continue to be in office until she passes away.

The leaders of the major parties in Australia have adopted the view that the republic can wait until the Queen either abdicates or dies.

The republic has been relegated to an unimportant issue which is the result of the minimalist approach meaning that a republic would just mean the replacement of the Queen by an Australian Head of State.

What we do need is a maximalist republic, a republic that would develop a new political system rather than a "new economy" that, incredibly, the Prime Minister has now been told to promote.

The two-party tyranny based on trivial adversarial invective, on which the media seems to thrive, must go.

It is most uninspiring, un-Australian and totally counter-productive.

We could do without the political amateurism inherent in the Westminster system.

Is there a political leader who will pick up the ball and run with it?

Email, 9 Feb 2012 Klaas Woldring, Pearl Beach