[BitwiseFool]

I don't know much about Aussie politics, but is there more to becoming a republic than removing The Queen from her largely ceremonial role? I'm guessing the Governor-General she appoints would become democratically elected instead, but what other differences would there be?

[__d]

That's the roadblock: there has to be a way to appoint the governor-general-replacement (aka president?) and no-one can quite agree on what that should be.

Let's not even think about maybe tweaking the powers of the role, or even codifying that any exercise of those powers should be transparently reported to the electorate (as per a recent/current scandal).

The fact that the political class controls the process of defining all these rules, and no-one trusts the political class to do what's right for the country (vs. right for them and/or their backers), means we're stuck with the current system, which is at least a more-or-less known quantity.