Part III examines the Crown and debates over constitutional reform. Twenty years ago, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, in his push for republicanism, declared that ‘the tide of history is moving in one direction’. More recently, former Prime Minister and self-confessed monarchist, John Key, declared that republicanism was inevitable, though unlikely to be realised during his lifetime. Yet despite this shared sense of historical inevitability that seems to transcend the political divide, republicanism remains a marginal political discourse. This paper seeks to disrupt the notion that republicanism is the necessary outcome of constitutional drift. I discuss the rationales of organised republicanism and the different legal obstacles it faces in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. I argue that republicans have failed to consider the symbolic transformation that the move to a republic would entail. This poses far greater challenges than most republicans acknowledge. These issues with the republican project speak to broader questions: how easy is it to create new symbols, or to replace the Crown with other symbols of statehood? How well does constitutional reform figure in nation building?