Horse 1064 - Advance Australia Where?

As I walk out into the world today in the post-exuberance of Australia Day (thought ot be fair yesterday was in all actuality quite normal), I do not look out into a sea of green and gold, but a very different colour, yes, woad. Or rather Pantone colour 280, Navy Blue, #000080, RGB (0,0,128). The very same navy blue that forms the background colour of the Australian Flag.

The point being that every January 26th, someone always invariably starts a debate in the newspapers about whether or not Australia should change its flag and/or become a republic. The usual reasons are that it is not representative of our history, or that people find it offensive to have "the flag of another country" pasted on ours. "Bosh" I say top all of that! Pooh to you with highly polished brass knobs on. If the Australian Flag was so offensive then why is it plastered everywhere? This is of course just an aside to the main thrust of this post, which is:

What is the point of an Australian Republic?

It must be said that in Australia, we have enjoyed 110 years of political stability, and in the case of the states which operate under the same model, parliaments which extend all the way back to 1855; in fact the NSW State Parliament is the longest continuously operating parliament in the world.

This is not merely a case of "if it aint broke, don't fix it" because the stakes are far higher than just changing a figurehead. The way I figure, if Australia was to become a republic, the obvious question would be what form it would take.

Assuming Australia was to adopt a republican model, then presumably the head of state who would probably be called a President. If there is a President, then what is his relation to the Prime Minister?
If the President replaces the Governor-General, then is the President to be elected by the parliament or by the people? If the President is to be elected by the people, then what sorts of powers do they have? Are they to be defined or a loose sort of nebulous arrangement like the current Governor-General? And if the President is to be elected by the people, does that infer that the President would have a mandate to exercise those as yet undefined powers?

The Constitution of Australia provides that in order to change the constitution, that a referendum be held and that it be carried by a majority of voters in a majority of states. This all sounds fine and dandy, but in order to frame a change to the constitution it would either require putting forward a model to be voted either "Yes" or "No" on, or if in the event that the government of the day wanted to gauge what public opinion actually was, it would have to hold a series of non-binding plebiscites to determine the will of the people. The latter option is more likely to result in a negative outcome for those who would want to change to a republican model.

Personally I would prefer that Australia remains within the British Commonwealth, but I suspect that the will of the vocal would rather drown out my voice with a cacophonous din. Then again, I wonder if they've thought through all of the implications.