The debate over whether Australia should keep the Queen as head of state was reopened today, ten years to the day after the country voted against the idea of altering the Constitution to elect a president.

The Australian Republican Movement (ARM) claims support for another referendum on the issue remains high, but the Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition – who both support Australia becoming a republic – say the time is not right to hold another vote.

A referendum on Australia becoming a republic was held in 1999, but it was roundly rejected despite two thirds of voters saying in successive polls that they wanted a republic with an Australian head of state.

In a poll commissioned by the ARM which was published this week, 59 per cent of the 1,000 respondents said they supported a republic. Nearly two thirds want a referendum on the issue by 2013.

David Muir, who runs the Real Republic organisation, insisted that moving to a republic remained unfinished business in Australia and called for a new debate over changing the country’s constitution.

“Under the constitution the Queen of the United Kingdom remains at the head of our system of government,” Mr Muir said earlier today.

“How can we really establish our national identity while this remains the case?”

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull – who led the referendum campaign a decade ago – insist that they still support Australia becoming a republic.

Mr Rudd described himself this week as a “life-long republican”, but said that he was concentrating on Australia’s recovery from the global financial crisis and a referendum was not high on his list of priorities.

''[I said] it would be something which we attended to later if the Government is re-elected,'' said Mr Rudd, who promised to hold a plebiscite on severing links with the monarchy after he was elected in 2007.

Mr Turnbull, the first republican leader of the conservative Liberal party, was the head of the ARM during the 1999 referendum, and published a book on the issue, Fighting for the Republic.

Yesterday he declared that he was still a “committed republican”, but suggested that the issue should not be revisited until the Queen’s reign was over.

“Assuming the model is right, I will support a constitutional referendum on the republic when it can be successful,” Mr Turnbull said.

“The time when this issue can be successfully revisited, from the republican's point of view, is after the end of the Queen's reign.”

However, the current ARM chairman, Mike Keating, said that waiting for the British monarchy to change was impractical.

“If, and when, the Queen dies or abdicates, we're not just going to automatically going to become a republic," he said.

"This is an Australian issue – it's about us, it's not about the Windsor family. And we can move on and discuss and vote on this issue any time that we can summon the political will to do so in Australia."

Mr Turnbull famously blamed the defeat of the republican referendum a decade ago on the lack of support from the then Prime Minister John Howard, a monarchist.

Mr Howard, who was described by Mr Turnbull in 1999 as “the prime minister who broke this nation's heart”, gave a speech last night to mark the anniversary of the debate and declared he was still against the idea of Australia becoming a republic.

“The fundamental reason why it failed was that it was a citizens' rejection of an elitist proposition,” he said.

“Because the Australian people were unconvinced that we would be better off with a different system of government.”

Earlier this week it was announced that Prince William would represent the Queen on a visit to Australia next year, his first official overseas visit.

In announcing the trip, Mr Rudd said that Prince William, who was last in Australia as a nine-month-old baby with his parents in 1983, will use the visit to “get to know Australia and its people”.

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