A YEAR ago, Australia's republicans were riding high. They had succeeded in persuading a constitutional convention that had been assembled in Canberra, the capital, to agree to a referendum on whether Australia should cease to be a monarchy, with the British queen as its head of state, and instead become a republic. This week, as Parliament opened, republican hopes had dimmed.

The referendum is to go ahead, in November, but two recent opinion polls suggest that success is by no means assured. One gave the republicans only 48%, down from a high of 54% two years ago. The other suggested 50%, down three points. Both polls indicated that the young in particular were cooling off the idea.

Australia will celebrate its centenary as a federation in 2001, but there is little sign yet of the millennial enthusiasm that some people thought would usher in a big constitutional change. Still, it is pretty certain that, if the referendum were to ask whether the monarch should be replaced by an Australian as head of state, the answer would be yes. As yet, however, the question to be put to the voters is unframed, and there is no unanimity about how to replace a hereditary monarch with a fixed-term president.

The constitutional convention said this should be done by Parliament electing the head of state by a two-thirds majority. But some republicans want the president to be elected directly by the people. More important, this is the view of most ordinary Australians, who are notoriously cynical about their representatives. One of the recent polls, for example, suggested that 69% of respondents were more ready to opt for a republican future if it involved the direct election of the president.

John Howard, the prime minister, is an avowed monarchist. About half the ministers in his conservative coalition government are republicans of one stripe or another. But neither the government nor the opposition Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley, a republican, supports direct election. The politicians know that direct election would deliver not a figurehead president but one who could rival the prime minister. That could upset Australia's Westminster-style parliamentary system.

As republicans from all sides gathered in Canberra last week to try to sort out their differences, Mr Howard provoked a further flurry in their ranks. He proposed adding a second question to the referendum. This would ask the voters to approve a new preamble to the constitution that would recognise the “prior occupation” of Australia by its indigenous people before the British colonised it in 1788. Opinion polls indicate this would be carried more readily than a switch to a republic. Some republicans accuse Mr Howard of making mischief by trying to confuse the main issue and sabotage the republican vote.

Mr Howard denies that he has any “Machiavellian desires”. Nevertheless, he has placed the republicans in a bind. All parties are committed to making the 2001 centenary an opportunity to promote reconciliation with Australia's aborigines. So republicans who oppose the inclusion of the aboriginal question could risk harming their own cause.

Mr Howard's support for a new preamble, but not a new head of state, could be decisive in a dual-purpose referendum. Since it came into being in 1901, Australia's constitution has proved hard to change at referendums, and almost impossible when the prime minister of the day does not support the amendment. The republicans have a tough year ahead.