SYDNEY -- A smiling, articulate Australian schoolgirl standing before an audience of 7,000 of Australia's top dignitaries . . . it was a grand sight, worthy of this young nation's first 100 years of democratic government.

Another 15-year-old might have been intimidated. Not every schoolgirl, a republican-minded one at that, has the nerve to declare to her monarchist prime minister and the queen's representative, "I hope that one day our head of state is one of us, lives among us, and is determined by the Australian people."

It was that kind of day. Everyone was in celebratory mood last week. Not just every Canberra politician, but the heads of all civic and commercial bodies were in Melbourne, state capital of Victoria, for the centenary of the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Why Melbourne? The largest city in southern Australia is to Sydney as Osaka is to Tokyo: fierce rivals in everything from culture to commerce to sport. Recovering from decades of humiliating decline, Melburnians are sensitive souls. Never, if you are a visiting tourist, speak out loud about Sydney's beautiful harbor while standing on the banks of that muddy stream, Melbourne's Yarra River.

Still, the southern city has a few claims to fame. And last week it came into its own when the whole country looked south to the first seat of national government.

For the first 25 years, this nation's lawmakers battled it out in Melbourne's Parliament House. Finally, in 1927, Canberra's Parliament, in the specially-declared Australian Capital Territory midway between the arguing Melbourne and Sydney, was ready for debates.

Modern-day would-be equivalents of the founding fathers, those bearded gents who managed to subdue colonial jealousies long enough for this island continent to federate, sat around congratulating one another on 100 years of national achievement. Happily, TV audiences were spared the tedium and newspaper reports barely restrained their ho-hum.

For days before, the self-serving speeches bored even Melbourne, a burg whose biggest recent event was the opening of a casino. Only the Labor Party, trying to become the government in this year's national election, grabbed attention. This year is the centenary of caucus government for the once radical, now largely conservative, workers' party.

Pomp akin to the original declaration of Queen Victoria's gracious consent in 1901 returned when the mighty and the worthy assembled in the cavernous Royal Exhibition Building, lavishly refurbished up to the golden cherubim on its gaudy ceiling. Here, God Save the King rang out 100 years ago as the Duke of Cornwall and first governor general Lord Louis Hopetoun paraded in.

Hopetoun's current successor, Sir William Deane, got less fanfare but more respect last week. This Australian son retires soon after earning plaudits as Queen Elizabeth's representative for his straight-forward, unregal urging for reconciliation with hapless original inhabitants, the Aborigines.

Prime Minister John Howard, aglow with pride, reminded the 7,000-strong audience that this unique democracy "expressed the values, aspirations and mores of the Australian community."

"The three great guarantors of liberty and democracy in this country are our robust parliamentary system with the free play and exchange of political views and ideologies, an independent and absolutely incorruptible judiciary, and a strong and on occasions a very skeptical media," Howard said.

Those skeptics from Grub Street really were skeptical that day. What got up the collective media nose was the offhanded way the organizers treated them. They were perched at the far end of a cavernous hall.

"So remote were the tiny figures of our leaders that it would have required a telescope of huge dimensions to have picked up details of what was going on and about which we were obliged to write," growled one scribe in the next day's newspaper. "We might as well have stayed at home."

"But in one respect our interests were not completely ignored," he moaned on. "Painted on the high-domed ceiling of the exhibition building is Mercury, the winged god of journalists. If we were not so privileged as to observe our state leaders in the flesh, Mercury, at least, had a vantage point."

History-minded scribblers remember that Alfred Deakin would not have been so put upon. Deakin was a reporter for The Age, still arguably Australia's best daily, and later a prime minister. On that historic day his journalistic colleagues sat in places of honor beside the original dignitaries. Ah, the fall of the Fourth Estate!

Boycotting the day, former Prime Minister Paul Keating did his usual best to rain on the parade. The disgruntled former Labor leader was not among the bevy of attending ex-prime ministers. The night before he told a Labor Party caucus that the founding fathers were a bunch of lawyers and businessmen "mostly old forelock tuggers" who had made Australia a British satellite.

By contrast, Liberal Party leader Howard praised Labor hero John Curtin, prime minister in the 1940s, for offering leadership during the darkest days of World War II.

"Typical ignorance" snapped Howard when told of the Keating quip. "Far from putting down in that sneering fashion for which he is famous, Keating should be honoring the men who put together our constitution. By any measure, we ought to honor the people who put it together, not denigrate them."

More statesman-like was Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, the Labor leader who wants to become the next prime minister. Parliament was "the great clearing house of national tensions," he said. "We look to ennoble the soul of the nation through reconciliation. We look to a time when we can bring our constitution home, with a republic."

Cheekily, Beazley touched on an Australian characteristic, healthy skepticism: "It's hard to imagine Hitler or Mussolini surviving the dry wit of an Australian pub crowd."

A breath of fresh air swept into the portentous proceedings. Up to the dais stepped 15-year-old Hayley Eves.

Hayley was selected from 100 youth envoys to give the concluding message. She did it with wit, charm and, for a republican in this august company, a dash of bravery.

Born in South Korea and adopted by her British father and Australian mother when five months old, Hayley is proudly Australian.

"I hope that in 100 years' time when Australians gather here again that if they are addressed by a female head of state, a female prime minister and a female leader of the opposition, no one will think it unusual," she said. "I also hope that one day our had of state is one of us, lives among us and is determined by the Australian people."

Hayley closed a day of looking back with the promise of future achievements. "I am young, I am a woman and I am Asian Australian," she declared. "That I am standing here in front of you demonstrates that we have changed."

Later she acknowledged that not everyone would agree on Australia becoming a republic, but emphasized she had been given free rein to say whatever she pleased: "I am sure many of the youth of Australia would like a republic, so I just said what I thought."

To Australians fed up with outdated perceptions abroad of this country, the Hayley declaration is being hailed. A majority of folk here cannot remember a White Australia policy, let alone condone that part of our history. Yet some Asians still chose to use it to suit the occasional snide criticism.

Aptly, Victor Chang is one of 28 Australians honored in a newly published list of Australian achievers. Chang was a pioneering open-heart surgeon until assassins from Malaysia shot him.

Achievers named include David Unaipon and Albert Namatjira, two of many Aborigines who have contributed much to our culture.

The first liberal democracy in the world to result from a democratic vote of the people, unpressured by external threat or internal coercion. An egalitarian ethos. A constitution widely regarded as the most democratic in the world. Today we celebrate. All things considered, it's a centenary worth celebrating.