If Michael Keating , national chair of the Australian Republican Movement, is the model of a modern major-general, then I am glad I am out of the army, writes David Knowles of Chittaway Bay. In a letter published in The Sunday Telegraph on 21 June, 2009, he continued:
“As a major-general (retired), Keating should have been taught that it is folly to leave a position of strength without a definite aim: an identified position, a map and a plan for getting here.
"But he and his supporters want us to abandon our excellent constitution in favour of some undefined utopia, vaguely called “republic”, with no idea what form it might take. That’s like asking us to sail over the horizon with no idea of what, if anything, we may find there.
"If the republicans, or anyone else, can show me something better than what we have, I will vote for it.
"But don’t ask us to abandon ship, with no idea of where to go when we do."