Senior Coalition figures have been quick to cut down Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan’s plan to make an Australian republic a priority of parliament after the federal election.
“As far as I’m concerned the only referendum that counts is the referendum on September 14 on a very bad government,” Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, a defender of the monarchy, told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
Swan and senior Liberal Malcolm Turnbull jointly launched a book at Parliament House today championing a change for Australia.
“It is always the right time to argue for the merits of a republic and prepare the ground for this important constitutional change,” Swan said.
However another senior Liberal, Christopher Pyne, dismissed the need for change and said average Australians were most worried about issues such as the cost of living and jobs.
“You have to be in a particular kind of bubble as Wayne Swan obviously is, if you think the public want a debate right now about the republic, and they want that to be a first-order issue after the election,” he told reporters.
“I think that it is extraordinary that Labor is so out of touch with what working men and women want in Australia that he would think that was a high priority for any new government.”
Turnbull was exempt from the bubble because he had not pressed for the matter to be addressed as a priority, Mr Pyne said.
The former head of the Australian Republican Movement admitted he’d had extensive experience in losing referendums.
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“If you want to win a referendum on this you need overwhelming support,” Turnbull said of the republican debate, adding the passing of Queen Elizabeth would be a watershed on the issue.
He denied the matter was dividing the Liberal party.
