"There is a tide in the affairs of men," said Shakespeare's Brutus, while addressing an early gathering of the republican movement,     

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Back in 1999, Australia's republicans had the tide. Rather than ride it to victory, they bickered about the construction of the boat. Then the flood went away. Republicans only had one chance to convince people that becoming a republic was a matter of urgency, and they blew it. Now everyone knows that the matter can be put off indefinitely and nothing drastic will happen. 

Non-urgent questions have gone out of style in Australian politics. If they ever come back into fashion, maybe republicanism will get a serious second wind. But the revival will have to be led by people too young to remember how it all happened last time, or else too idealistic to believe it would all happen the same way again.