History of the Australian Republic Movement

The Australian Republic Movement (ARM) was founded in July 1991. An archive of organisation documents sits with the National Library of Australia covering 1987-2009: https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/3294165

Past leadership

The ARM’s first Chair was novelist Thomas Keneally. The ARM’s Constitution acknowledges the first Members of the National Committee as Malcolm Turnbull, Greg Barns, Wayne Burns, Brendan Jones, Wendy Machine and James Terrie. Other founding Members that supported them include Franca Arena, Faither Bandler, Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, Ian Chappell, Mark Day, Geraldine Doogue, Geoffrey Dutton, Donald Horne, Jenny Kee, Colin Lanceley, Fred Schepisi, Harry Seidler, David Williamson, and Neville Wran.

Some of our other past Chairs or Members of our National Committee have included such Australian figures as Peter FitzSimons, Geoff Gallop, Ted O’Brien, John Warhurst, Tarang Chawla, Tim Costello, Natasha Stott Despoja, and Jenny Hocking.

The 1999 Referendum

The ARM was a key organisation in the development of and lead up to the 1999 Republic Referendum. Many ARM delegates were involved in the 1998 Constitutional Convention, where it was agreed to take a question to the referendum and propose the 2/3 majority model.

 More information about the events surrounding the 1999 Referendum can be found on our resources page.

Women’s Network

Recognising a need to increase the representation of women in the Movement, we launched the Women’s Network in 2016.  You can read more about the Network here.

The Australian Choice Model

Through 2020-2021, we consulted widely on the development of the Australian Choice Model, which was launched in January 2022. This is a conversation-starter model, proposing how the Australian Head of State could work. You can read more about it here.