Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) -- The recent Queen's Birthday holiday provided an opportunity for the more boring members of our community to start flapping their jaws about that hoary old chestnut -- the republic. By doing so, the republicans betrayed their pathological hatred of the Royal Family, but did little else. This issue is not about personalities; it is not about Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Camilla, Diana or even Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull, but it is about our system of government and a constitutional monarchy that allows freedom that is the envy of most of the rest of the world.

If our constitutional monarchy were a car, it would be comfortable, it would be economical and it would be reliable.

Republicans want us to buy a new vehicle, but they will not tell us what make or model; they will not tell us how much it will cost; and they will not even tell us if it will start or take us to where we need to go. They want us to buy a pig in a poke.

That is just not good enough for Australia and for Australians. If republicans can come up with a better system of government than Australia's constitutional monarchy, then let us see it. Let us hear what they have got. At this point they have not done it because they know, as indeed we all know, that the constitutional monarchy is the best system of government for Australia, because it has made Australia one of the greatest nations on this earth.