Yes - it is very simple really.

"England" are the people we beat at cricket. (though half of them are usually South Africans.)
"Great Britain" are the people we beat at Rugby League.

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I'd have no problem with the queen if I immigrated to the land down under. The woman is a figure head. Besides that you already have a Parliament so what is the major problem?

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"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Where have all the Conservatives Gone?

What do you beat the UK in?

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everything else.

I don't think we need to replicate the American system exactly. The Israelis have a nice system, with the President as the Head of State and the First Minister as the Head of Government. That would be fine. I also think the Head of Government should be chosen directly by the people, and it should have nothing to do with their parties.

Australian values include hard work, and having a Head of State that was merely born into the position doesn't reflect that very well. I also take offense to the Prime Minister having to call them "your excellency".

They have that in America. It's called PBS. What's your point?

I don't think we should have television that is funded by taxes, anyway. Why should people pay for what they don't use, and why should resources be wasted on a firm that doesn't contribute to the market via advertising and profit for investment?

Israel has a President, that doesn't mean we would start speaking Hebrew. We don't even have to call it a President - the Germans call it a Chancellor, we could call it that, or we could keep the name Governor General. We could call the Head of State anything we want.

We will start our own. The republican games

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Baby's got a place in the sun, selling people shade

You big Torrie.

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Baby's got a place in the sun, selling people shade

Wow, there is no way we will adopt the Israeli system. We will be America's (*)(*)(*)(*)(*).

So what if they are born into that position? Doesn't mean they do not work hard. The Queen has probably worked harder than 99% of all politicians. I don't take offence to the "your excellency" thing.

Frankly, I find Monarchs to be far more sincere than most politicians. I'm Australian, I have been Australian all my life, my parents are Australian, their parents were Australian, the Queen doesn't conflict with my values.

So what? Ours would become flooded with American crap, would probably become full of ads and show 10 x CSI's every day, no thanks!

Well, just my personal taste but basically the only shows I enjoy watching are produced by BBC or ABC, with a few rare exceptions. I would be perfectly happy with paying for cable if it didn't have ads. Frankly ads just annoy me, I refuse to PAY for ads. I find it especially ridiculous that commercial stations show ads during their NEWs. Surely this is a major conflict of interest in providing a decent news program, rather than stupid self promoting current affairs type crap. Tabloids vs The Age basically.

Also Australia doesn't have anywhere near as bigger commercial appeal as the US does. 300 million viewers vs 20 million, we would barely have an industry if it weren't for the ABC.

We would call it a President and we would become American hicks, I am utterly convinced of it. I see people from the American "Deep South" speaking on the TV and I can barely understand them. I can hardly tell they are even speaking the same language. In fact I find the Indian/Asian people in call centres easier to understand than them.

Screw that... we wouldn't win anything.

8 years ago if you would have asked me the republic quesion I would have been vehemently in favour. Aftter seeing how Bush hijacked democracy in the US I think that Australia as a country that has no problems with the current political process being as overtly corrupt as it is in the US, we need to be extremely wary of changing anything.

LOL hardly. I just see more important things to deal with then an 80 year old woman who lives in England. Unlike her predecessor in 1776 I don't see her repressing the rights of people .

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"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Where have all the Conservatives Gone?

Technicaly, that is also incorrect. Despite popular opinion, and their own tendency to 'forget' to mention part of their membership, there is no 'England' cricket team - the team you beat theoretically represents England AND Wales (and a number of Welsh players have been in the side over the years), and is run by what is referred to as the 'ECB', which actually stands (believe it or not) for the 'England and Wales Cricket Board'. The English do seem to try their best to write us out of existance, one way or another, but we are still here anyway!

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