AusExit campaign for Australia to cut ties with Commonwealth gains momentum after historic Brexit vote

While an Australian academic suggested that Canberra complete its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with UK first before with the European Union after the “Leave” votes prevailed in the Brexit referendum, the head of a republican movement is even urging Australia to cut ties with the Commonwealth. It’s because the historic ties between the two nations had become less relevant since “Great Britain barely exists anymore.”

However, unlike the Brexit which was a divisive and horrible campaign, Peter FitzSimmons, chairman of the republican movement in Australia, sees Australia abandoning the British monarchy as a unifying moment of national pride, reports The Telegraph. He adds Brexit is not a model at all.

“We’re just saying that it’s ludicrous in the twenty-first century to say that Australia cannot do better than find our heads of state from one family of English aristocrats living in a palace in London. We’re better than that as a people,” FitzSimmons says.

In reply to what Fitzsimmons said, Philip Benwell, chairman of the Australian monarchist league, says, “For the republicans to say that it gives an excuse to become a republic is total, apparent nonsense.” He points out that Australians rejected in the 1999 referendum the proposed changing to a republic and since then support for change has either stagnated or dropped.

In an opinion piece on Australian Financial Review, Mark Johnson and Geoff Weir, chairman and director of the Australian Financial Centre Forum, backed Alan Oxley’s emphasis on an FTA and not losing sight of the factors that are important to the future performance of the Aussie economy.

But they also recognise that Britain has less relevance to Australia since the economic future of the country “lies increasingly in the Asia Pacific region rather than with our traditional trading partners.” The two also highlight the need to have a comparative advantage in other export sectors – such as services – as Australia manages to transition from mining to other sources of export growth.

Johnson and Weir add that Australia’s level of financial services exports is still way too low given the sector’s competitiveness and size of opportunities opening in Asia.

VIDEO: Peter Fitzsimmons on the Australian republic