Elected, apolitical and no power - not possible: The Queen of England should not be Australia\'s head of state. She is not an Australian and does not represent Australia. However, there are a lot of problems with a directly elected head of state.
If a president were elected who would run the campaigns etc? Who would get the signatures? Sure, sometimes there might be a non party candidate, but in general there would be just party candidates. The president would then become political.
I have never voted for a Prime Minister and neither has anyone else in Australia. They have merely voted for a person in their electorate who may be leader of a political party. The president that you are speaking of would be the only person in Australia with a mandate from all Australians.
This person would have to be a very bright, capable person who won an election (after some time almost certainly someone from a political party as described in the first paragraph) then this person would be told to sign laws and not do much else. The problem is, such a person would almost certainly exercise their considerable abilities to do what politicians always do, that is, obtain more power. At this point the Australian system of government is thrown into chaos.
The idea of president being appointed from the governers of states is an interesting idea and has much to be said for it. Running some kind of vote, with perhaps judges deciding might have something to say for it. This would avoid the cost of running a campaign and would avoid politicians as well.
Australia will become a Republic in our lifetimes, the question is what kind, when and how and these sorts of things should be discussed, but Australia\'s federal parliamentary system should not be touched, if possible.
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