On New Years' Day, Malcolm Turnbull went to North Bondi, and got himself tangled in his own leg rope, politically speaking.
It was a quiet news day and two thirds of the way through the PM's press conference to announce more funds for surf lifesaving, a reporter decided to ginger things up.
Turnbull was asked to respond to Paul Keating branding him a "chameleon", who'd utterly failed to progress the cause of an Australian republic (along with all the other prime ministers after Keating himself, according to the Labor luminary).
"I was real, but is Malcolm real?" Keating goaded.
If it was a deliberate baiting of Turnbull, the tactic succeeded. After swatting Keating away as "barely coherent", Turnbull began mulling aloud over the question of 'what next' once the Queen's reign ended. If the issue became "live" again, Turnbull postulated, there would need to be an "honest, open discussion about how a president would be elected".
He went on: "You've got to have that discussion and it may be that a plebiscite, maybe even a postal survey, given the success of the marriage postal survey, could be one way to deal with it." Critically, he left open the question of when this might happen, suggesting "the next opportunity ??? would be after the end of the Queen's reign".
It was all a news-starved media needed. British media latched onto the story like ravenous leeches looking for an inch of flesh. The UK Sun ran the headline "Australia will scrap the Royal Family rather than have Prince Charles as King."
Back home it was off and running as well. Few bothered noting the PM's rider that "there is no point pretending that there is an appetite for change where there isn't one at the moment." Fewer still pointed out that Turnbull had canvassed the idea, back in December 2016, of an "advisory plebiscite" to test which model of choosing a president Australians would prefer.
Inside the fractured Liberal party, there was instant alarm that the Prime Minister had begun the new year by pressing on what was a sensitive nerve for the party's conservative wing. That group was already smarting from failed attempts to amend the same-sex marriage legislation just before Christmas. Why stir 'the base' up so soon afterwards?
Conservative wagons started circling. Prominent right-winger Alex Hawke tweeted "Constitutional monarchy continues to serve Australia well, as does our Queen". Similar utterances emanated from Tony Abbott and allies such as David Flint.
Turnbull's republican musings didn't survive 24 hours. Under the headline "PM bursts own thought bubble", Fairfax reported a spokesman clarifying the next day that there would be no vote on a republic this parliamentary term, even if there was a change of British monarch. A source close to Turnbull insisted he'd never intended to hint at any sense of imminence or a plan for the near future in the first place.
Reaction in the pro-republic camp has been dismay. Chair of the Australian Republic Movement, Peter FitzSimons said he didn't doubt that Turnbull was the "most passionate republican in the country" but that he found the Prime Minister's view that nothing could happen until after the Queen's reign "surprisingly circumspect".
A blunter reaction came from a former chair of the ARM, Tasmanian lawyer Greg Barns, who'd campaigned alongside Turnbull for the republican case during the failed 1999 referendum on the issue. Barns told Fairfax it was "disappointing" to see the Prime Minister "recant so swiftly" from his "utterly sensible" New Years' Day remarks.
"I think most people think the best way forward is to have a plebiscite and then go to a vote [at a referendum] having decided on a particular option". Barns added: "I can only put down his quick recanting to an unhealthy reliance on the right wing of the Liberal party".
Another broadside came from prominent Liberal backbencher Senator Dean Smith, whose same-sex marriage bill was enacted just before Christmas on the back of the national postal survey. Smith shot down the Prime Minister's suggestion of a segue from same-sex marriage to a republic.
Smith, a self-described "staunch constitutional monarchist", told Fairfax: "My assessment is that there is no good will that Malcolm Turnbull can take from the same-sex marriage debate and translate to a republic debate. None at all. The temperament and issues that framed people's consideration of same-sex marriage are not the same as the sorts of issues that will frame their judgement about a republic".
The Western Australian added that despite his own commitment to the same-sex marriage campaign, postal surveys or plebiscites were a "coward's way of resolving contentious issues". Making hard decisions was the job of parliament, "and the community judges MP's accordingly at the following election".
"People are quick to forget that I not only vehemently opposed the plebiscite concept on same-sex marriage but that I consciously did not vote for it," Smith added.
"In relation to the same-sex postal survey, we got the right result but it came at significant cost to many LGBTI Australians and their friends and families. People in my peer group and others [experienced] restlessness, anxiousness and weariness caused by the postal survey campaign. We should not forget that a YES outcome was never assured."
Smith said his backing for continuing the monarchy in Australia was not based on the personality of the Queen - despite Turnbull's recent claim that many republicans are 'Elizabethans" - but on an unwavering conviction that the existing model delivered stability.
Acting Opposition leader Tanya Plibersek has doubled down on Keating's jibe by labelling Turnbull a "ditherer", and reminding voters that Labor will put the threshold question - whether or not there should be an Australian head of state - to the people during the first term of an ALP government.
But getting agreement to that general proposition is almost certainly the easier stage of the journey. As veterans of the 1999 republic campaign know too well, the hard part is securing a clear consensus on a republican model: a directly elected President, versus one (most likely) appointed by at least two thirds of the parliament on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.
Disagreement over competing models among 'yes' proponents was the jagged rock which holed the pro-republic campaign below the waterline in 1999.
"Giving people the opportunity to say 'oh yes, we want an Australian head of state' without having to talk about alternative models is worthless and mischievous," Smith says of Labor's position.
Cabinet papers from the Keating prime ministership released this week serve as a stark reminder of the complexity of alternate selection mechanisms.
A 1995 submission from the Prime Minister's Department noted overwhelming popular support for a directly elected president but said that this would not guard against politicisation of the office, as "only the major parties would appear to have the expertise and resources to undertake the campaigning required for a national poll".
And it warned that an upstart head of state "might be tempted to assume, or presume to take moral authority from, a popular national mandate so as to exercise the powers of that office in a manner which could bring the office into conflict with the government of the day". Those dilemmas remain as fresh as ever.
The most recent polls point to there only being a slim majority currently in favour of a republic. Newspoll found 51 per cent of voters supporting a republic in August 2017, with men significantly more likely (59 per cent) to back the change than women (44 per cent). Surprisingly, the proportion of younger voters in favour had barely shifted since July 1999, with 46 per cent in support then, and 45 per cent in support last year.
Labor's answer to this has been to appoint NSW MP Matt Thistlethwaite??? as its "Assistant Shadow Minister for an Australian Head of State". The title sits awkwardly with Thistlethwaite's assurance that "we'll make sure this time that it's not seen as something that's coming from Canberra".
Republicans cling to the hope that should the throne pass to Charles, their cause will gain an instant boost. Speculation that the succession might go straight to the more popular Prince William, bypassing Charles, is wrong, according to Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, who last year was quoted as saying William doesn't want the throne yet and Charles wants to keep that burden off his oldest son's shoulders for some time to come.
In late 2016 Turnbull told the Australian Republic Movement that the groundswell of support for a republic would have to build "house by house, street by street, suburb by suburb". Such a groundswell has yet to come about, though Fitzsimons remains hopeful .
"Every state premier and the chief ministers are for a republic, so is the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader," he says. "The dual citizenship thing has absolutely played our way. It highlights the absurdity of our colonial constitution which says if you spend three months of your life as a baby in Canada then you get the hell out of parliament, but then incoming senators have to pledge their allegiance to the Queen, a British national."
Unlike Smith, FitzSimons is convinced there is a "what's next" mood afoot after the "euphoria" of same-sex marriage. "We live in hope that the PM's passion for the republic will drive him to change his position and move it forward."
