"The Australian public don't really want a republic.”

Amazing things happen: The Sunday Age published an article that gives the Australian Monarchists a lead over the republicans: Says social researcher David Chalke, referring to data he's accumulated since the turn of the century that shows a steady decline in enthusiasm for constitutional change: "The majority of the Australian public don't really want a republic.”

Chalke's assessment turns the republic into a non-issue. "With only 35% of all adult Australians believing that it is important that Australia becomes a republic — and only 34% of Victorians — Rudd's antennae, or more likely his market research, will be telling him to leave the republic alone for now."

Chalke says the biggest problem for the republicans will remain the republicans themselves. "The Australian public mainly rejected the last referendum because they disliked and distrusted the most vocal republicans. They envisaged a president coming from that cast of Anglophobe elites and were not going to have a bar of it. For the republic to come about it must be a soft sell, a gradual evolution; not a 'crash or crash through' assault. The latter will only end up in republican tears before bedtime, again."

The results of the opinion polls show that there isn’t even a majority for a republic among Labor supporters.