Esther Anatolitis

They're looking after our interests.

It's not equitable.

It's pretty risky to have a state, a head of state, whose sole focus is not us.

It is just illogical.

I think that's the great question there is, yes, since colonisation in the early days, it absolutely made sense for

Australia to be governed remotely and to have figurehead vice regals here, the governor general and then the state governors.

Australia is now a sophisticated, unique, globally connected multicultural.

It's really difficult to sort of pinpoint whose interest it possibly serves having a king, having a monarch who is based overseas.

You know, it is

not who we are as Australians in any way, shape or form.

But contemporary Australia is not a nation, a community that gets administered by a foreign power, a foreign monarchy, a head of state that is based elsewhere.

It's that fundamental question of who we are as Australians and how we see ourselves.

And nobody, very few people in Australia, I imagine, would see themselves as fundamentally

subject to a monarchy from another country.

It just makes no sense at all.

well, you know, Australians are emotional and we're also intellectual.

What strengthens Australian democracy isn't a king or a monarch who is based very far away.

When we look at the great strengths and stability that we have, it's because of our key democratic institution.

It's because of the strong separation between, for example, church and state.

It's the Australian Electoral Commission that allows us to have, you know, consistently free and fair elections all over Australia.