Push for Republic Referendum to Come After Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Treasurer

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers speaks during a press conference in Brisbane, Australia, on July 22, 2022. Dan Peled/Getty Images

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers indicated that the government would begin its push to turn Australia into a republic after the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is finalised.

Speaking on ABC’s Q and A program, Chalmers said he would prefer to see an Australian replace the late Queen Elizabeth II for the new design of the five dollar note rather than King Charles III.

“First thing that we need to do is a Voice to Parliament,” he said. “When we achieve that together, then we need to move on to a republic.

“I cannot believe that a country like us in this day and age couldn’t see itself with one of our own as a head of state. I think that’s so important.”

It comes after the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Philip Lowe, said the bank was seeking advice from the government about the design of the five-dollar note following Queen Elizabeth’s passing.

“We recognise that this is an issue that is of national interest, and there is a long tradition of the monarch being on Australia’s banknotes,” Lowe told the Reserve Board dinner on Nov. 1.

“Indeed, the monarch has been on at least one of Australia’s banknotes since 1923 and was on all our notes until 1953.”

Andrew Leigh, the assistant minister for competition, charities, and treasury, previously said new Australian coins would be made with the King’s portrait but that a decision on the five-dollar note had yet to be made.

Stacks of five Australian dollar notes are seen on Sept. 1, 2016. STR/AFP/Getty Images

The Republic Debate in Australia

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stated multiple times that the government’s priority referendum for the current term was enshrining a Voice to Parliament, suggesting the republican debate would come to the forefront if the Labor government won a second term in parliament.

“We are a great multicultural nation, and of course, we have that historic and important link to the United Kingdom,” he said on Sept. 12. “But it is, in my view, [that] the priority, in terms of constitutional change, is recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our Constitution.”

Meanwhile, the Greens party have been strong advocates for the republic movement in Australia, calling for the country to “move forward” by creating a “Treaty with First Nations people” and become a republic.

But according to a survey conducted by Roy Morgan on Sept. 12, 60 percent of Australians believed the country should remain as a constitutional monarchy.

It found those in favour of keeping the current political system where 58 percent of centre-left Labor party voters, 68 percent of centre-right Coalition voters, 34 percent of left-wing Greens party voters, and 72 percent of independent and other party supporters.

Surprisingly, this represented an 18 percent increase in support for the monarchy in Labor voters and a fall of three percent in Coalition voters compared to the 2012 survey.