'Ditch royals and win'

AUSTRALIA: VOTERS WILL BACK LEADER ELECTED BY CANBERRA PARLIAMENT

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Australia ditching the British monarchy is “more important than ever” and voters would likely back a head of state elected by its parliament, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday.

Turnbull - who served as prime minister from 2015 to 2018 - led the Republic Movement’s unsuccessful 1999 referendum bid to replace the British monarchy with an Australian head of state.

Almost three decades on from that poll and as the British monarchy reels from the arrest of ex-prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor - the first of a royal in the modern era - Turnbull said an elected head of state could heal Australia’s “tribal” politics.

“I think a republic is more important than ever,” he said.

“The monarchy remains this anachronism.”