Out of curiosity, what was meant by "Turn Australia into a republic", isn't Australia already a republic?
Australia is a Westminster Democracy. That is, the Queen or King of England is the head of state, and can elect to overrule the Prime Minister's decision.
But because there are so many countries in the Commonwealth that are still Westminsters, for efficiency a 'Governor-General' is put in place to represent the king or queen. The Governor-General's role is to make sure that the Commonwealth countries do not behave in a way counter to Britain's interests.
They do this by having the ability to overrule any decision made by the government though this is a very rarely used power.
It works like this.
- Prime Minister gets fed up with Britain and declares war on it.
- Governor-General says 'oh no s/he didn't', impeaches the PM, charges them with high treason, installs PM of their choice (and in such a situation, probably dissolves the party too)
It's only been used once, the GG's ability to overrule. That being in 1975, where Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was ejected from power and replaced by Malcolm Fraser as PM.
Governor-General Sir John Kerr was the one who chose this; the reason being that Whitlam had some political instability present in his party, and a bare majority over the Liberals. He called for a half-senate election, but instead,
Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and installed Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister.
This among other things, caused massive outrage with the public, who felt that we were still little better than a colony of Britain as a result of Kerr's meddlings.
1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis.
As a result, in the late 1990s, a referendum was held to determine whether Australia should become a Republic, and sever our colonial ties with Britain.
It was defeated by the slimmest of margins. Voter turnout was 96%, and the results were thus:
54.8% No
45.2% yes
Most states voted no by a bare margin, but as Queensland, NSW and Victoria held the largest combined population, they ultimately had the deciding votes.
They voted no.