Commentary Australia’s so-called republicans, and those in the Queen’s fifteen realms, including the United Kingdom, would be foolish to take much solace from the constitutional change rammed through the Barbados Parliament by a political class who are clearly both wary and contemptuous of the their own people. Australia’s republicans tried the same thing in Australia in 1999 where, unlike Barbados, the founders prudently required that proposals for change set out in a bill had to be approved by the voters in a referendum. The proposed Australian republic would have concentrated the powers of the politicians so much that it would have been the only republic in the world in which the prime minister could have dismissed the president without notice, without grounds, and without any right of appeal. This would have made, and no doubt was intended, to make the president a puppet. Instead of joyously suggesting that Australia is …