Australian history is often conceptualised in three phases. There is Indigenous history stretching back some 65000 years,  colonial history from 1788-1901 and finally Australian nationhood. While these categories may appear clearly defined the transition to a post-colonial society is problematic and the cultural privileging of Britishness suggests it may not yet be complete. Australia has had no revolution, no declaration of independence, and no crossing of the psychological Rubicon from colony to nation. Rather there has been a reluctant slide into presumed independence and a state that acts effectively but not technically as a republic. This paper widens the scale of republicanism in Australia. Rather than an aesthetic and symbolic change championed by some in the 1990s, it looks at republicanism as a vital plank in the process of decolonisation in Australia. This raises important questions: do some Australians see themselves as the beneficiaries of colonisation and does this explain a reluctance to let go of Britishness? The creation of an Australian republic may well be the missing step to take Australia unambiguously out of its colonial mindset.