It very difficult to get in contact with professional people as in most cases to address a meeting due to their locality and mostly on a fly-in/fly-out basis to see their patients.

The generosity of the Griffith City Council for their grant provided to our group and the ability to connect to zoom and therefore receive latest information and make our meetings more interesting.

Our meetings are held on the third Thursday each month at the Southside Griffith Leagues Club commencing at 7pm. Gentlemen and their partners are most welcome, light supper provided.

In 1998 I was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention held in Canberra to discuss an Australian republic elected on the ticket of the former Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Clem Jones, who advocated for an Australian head of state directly elected by voters in a national ballot.

After the 10-day Convention - which spent little time considering a model for a republic and too much time on futile monarchy-versus-republic debates - a model sponsored by the Australian Republic Movement emerged that proposed our head of state be chosen by a two-thirds vote of federal parliament.

It failed to secure majority support even among Convention delegates with 73 voting in favour of it, 57 voting against, and 22 abstaining. It was soon labelled "the politician's republic" and predictably defeated at the 1999 referendum.

After two decades the ARM has released its "new" model which unfortunately echoes the rejected "politicians' republic" by offering voters only a pool of candidates chosen for them by federal and state parliaments.

Once again it has already been dismissed in predictable attacks by constitutional monarchists with one reported as saying the ARM model gives Australians "no choice" over their head of state "as only politicians will decide on the candidates".

The Real Republic Australia, which Clem Jones initiated and which since his 2007 death continues campaigning for a genuine directly elected head of state, wants to see as little involvement as possible by politicians in choosing our head of state.

The ARM is entitled to put forward its model, but they do not have a monopoly on ideas. In coming months the Real Republic Australia will release a discussion paper seeking feedback on our model.

In the end, no pro-republic group should expect to mandate the model put to a referendum.

That's why we want the next federal government to hold a national plebiscite asking Australians if they want a republic and also asking them to choose from a shortlist of models.

Whatever model is chosen in that plebiscite should be the one that goes forward at a future referendum to formally change our Constitution so that we become a republic.

In that way the final model we vote on will not belong to the ARM or the Real Republic Australia, it will be the Australian people's model.

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