Talk:Oceanic Union

Why a Senate-elected Governor-General? Why isn't the House involved in this scenario? I suppose, theoretically, you could say that the Senate, having each state represented equally, would be the only way the varying state governments would want it. In 1937, however, proportional voting hadn't come into the Senate yet, and the composition of the 36 Senators was 6 Country Party, 4 Labor, 23 UAP (United Australia Party, forerunners of the Liberals) and 3 Nationalist; that was a two-thirds majority (or greater; more like 75%) held by the incumbent Lyons government, the coalition of the UAP and the Country Party, plus the like-minded Nationalists as well. That overwhelmingly huge Senate majority would have allowed Lyons, or whoever replaced him as PM, to appoint whoever he wanted as Governor General, no real change from the system already in place. In short, having the Senate choose the G-G, even as a republic, would have, at the time, meant nothing. It's not implausible Lyons, a Catholic Irishman, would have supported a republic (he turned down a knighthood), but in 1937, Australia was still very, very much a British nation. I think any moves towards a Republic would have met with significant opposition from more traditional quarters, such as Bob Menzies, who became PM after the death of Lyons in 1939. Maybe a more likely scenario is that a republic only became a reality after decades of a de facto republic, where the Sovereign had very little to no impact on Australian governance, and loyalties were split between his supporters and detractors - the supporters perhaps advocating his abdication rather than abolition. These tensions could have led to a political restructuring in Australia, with Menzies moving the UAP towards a pro-monarchy position and Labor being pro-republic, as it always had been - this would have kept the debate going for a long time until a Republic finally emerged, under a Labor government, perhaps just after the Second World War when Britain, more concerned with Europe than Australia, was seen to 'abandon' Australia and thus a groundswell of republican sentiment became more prominent. Just some thoughts. Cprhodesact 01:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)