Tony Abbott says Shorten’s republic plebiscite plan is ‘completely toxic
Tony Abbott has blasted Bill Shorten’s two-step plan to make Australia a republic, warning it would be “completely toxic” to hold a plebiscite on a republic before a specific model is proposed at a referendum.
The former Prime Minister made the remarks at the Samuel Griffith Society conference in Brisbane yesterday, defending his decision to hold a plebiscite on marriage equality but warning a plebiscite on a republic could “delegitimise the constitution we have without putting anything in its place”. In July 2017 Shorten promised that, if elected, he would put the question “do you support an Australian republic with an Australian head of state?” to a national vote in his first term in office. If the yes vote prevailed, a secondary argument could be held about how to choose the head of state. Yesterday Mr Abbott warned the plan was a “sneaky, devious, tendentious ploy” that put “the cart before the horse, [by] seeking to gain approval for an end without any agreement on the means for making it happen”.