Aussies lose enthusiasm for republic

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Photo / Getty Images

Support for an Australian republic is at its lowest level for 17 years, according to a poll yesterday, but republicans said the results were distorted by royal wedding fever.

The Newspoll survey, conducted for the Australian, found that 41 per cent of people - down from 45 per cent four years ago - want the Queen to be replaced by a homegrown head of state.

Thirty-nine per cent are opposed to Australia becoming a republic, while one in five is are indifferent.

David Flint, convenor of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, said the poll confirmed a trend of dwindling republicanism - and he predicted the trend would continue even after the death of the Queen, now 85.

Support for change reached a high of 51 per cent just before a referendum in 1999, which narrowly rejected cutting ties with the monarchy.

But the chairman of the Australian Republican Movement, Mike Keating, questioned the credibility of the findings, telling ABC radio: "The most reliable reporting and polling that we've had in the last 12 months or so says that somewhere between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of Australians want to pursue the issue of a republic."

The issue has been on the political backburner since the referendum, and the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard rejected criticism of her decision to attend Friday's wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton despite being an avowed republican. "I think on behalf of the nation that it's appropriate that I'm there," she said.