Australia is its own country, however we still have ties and the King/Queen can cause a ruckus if they want, however recently we’ve been left to our own devices. I see people over in the UK as ‘Royal Watchers’ and monarchists, and dont see any similar level of affection for the royalty here. Sure when we get a visit, crowds will turn up, but im confident the size relative to the population over time has declined.

Not exactly a historian, so could be a wrong with this. In WW1, When Britain went to war, a lot of the people had the intent to follow and saw it as a duty to ‘defend the empire’ . In WW2 i think we had a bit more independence and remember a story about a troop ship being redirected to fight the Japanese rather than fight the Germans. That was was seen as a lot closer to home with the bombing of Darwin and fighting on the Kokoda track.

Now, i think the population would be totally indifferent.

We have the King and Queen on our coins, and the Queen is on the $5 note, but notable australians are also printed on other notes.

To pass new laws in our Federal Parliament (i think state parliaments are similar but there might be exceptions), it needs to be voted on by the House of Representatives (151 elected politicians from 151 geographically organised electorates with roughly an equal number of voters. e.g. NT has two electorates which is effectively Darwin and the rest of the NT. An electorate in Sydney might only be several suburbs while a country electorate in WA could be a third of the state). it also needs to be voted on in the Senate which consists of 76 Senators ( Each state elects 12 Senators (QLD,NSW,VIC,TAS,SA & WA) while territories each get 2 (ACT & NT).

Once its past both the house and the Senate, it also needs Royal Assent by the Governor General. The Governor General can refuse to give assent but i cannot point to a time when this has happened. The Governor General can also reserve legislation for the Queens Pleasure which defers approval to the Queen.

The Governor General is not elected, and appointed by the Queen/King. I understand that convention recently has been that the Queen meets with the Prime Minister and appoints whoever the Prime Minster recommends. I think the Queen can change who is appointed as Governor General at will, so theoretically could call them to direct them to not give royal assent to particularly controversial legislation.

Right now, the Queen or King could take a seat in the Senate if he or she wished, but not in the House as it was seen as to be for the people. He or She wouldn’t get a vote, but I guess it would only be to give royal assent as soon as a bill has passed. If it happened, it would make national news.

Was there an Australian Revolution ? We floated the idea somewhat recently, and there was a referendum (a vote to change the countries constitution) on whether to become a republic. For it to pass it needed a majority of votes and a majority in the majority of states/territories. I think the wording was that we replace the governor general with a president elected by the people. It didnt get up, and the idea has been left alone since.

I think if you ask most Aussies, the like being in the commonwealth as we get more medals at the commonwealth games than the Olympics and they enjoy thrashing the Poms at Cricket/Rugby / Othersports.

As for our relationship with other commonwealth countries, I wouldnt say theres anything really special there except for New Zealand and this probably dates back to the ANZAC Corps and Gallipoli which is seen as our emergence of a country (i dont want to speak for NZ on this one). We might make fun of our ‘cousins’ across the ditch but i’d like to think that if something seriously went wrong, we’d be ready to lend them a hand in a heartbeat.