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The idea that Australia should become a republic and cease to be a constitutional monarchy is largely a preoccupation of the left in Australia - there are conservative republicans, but mostly it's a left wing idea. It comes from a few different places, but a lot of it is founded on resentment that the monarchy (in particular, the Queen's representative in Australia, the Governor General) is a brake that prevents a government from acting illegally and unconstitutionally - in 1975, the most left wing government and Prime Minister we have ever had - Gough Whitlam - who is worshipped by the left wing in Australia - was dismissed from office by the then Governor General, when he attempted to act outside the law and the constitutional conventions of Australia. Back in the 1930s, a very socialist government in New South Wales was likewise dismissed from office by their state Governor (again, the King's appointment) on similar grounds - acting illegally and outside constitutional convention. The left do not like the idea of being forced to accept that they have to govern within the law and constitution and that is a large part of why they would like to get rid of our current system of government.

This has come back into the media over the last few days, but it comes around every couple of years, and there's really nothing new in the recent revival.

I doubt there is going to be any change in the near future. It requires a referendum to change the Australian constitution - and we have compulsory voting here, and to pass a constitutional amendment, you need to get a majority of voters overall to approve the change and a majority of voters in a majority of states. There was a referendum held on this issue in 1999 and despite intensive lobbying by republicans, they failed to get either an overall majority or a majority in even a single state (they came close in one state). It's unlikely they'd succeed now.

The issue is that they really need to come up with a single model that the people would approve - they could probably get a majority vote on the issue of whether we should become a republic, but getting a majority vote on the particular model is much much harder - a large part of the reason the 1999 referendum failed for republicans is that a lot of republicans voted against the model (where a President would be elected by Parliament) because they wanted a directly elected President. If somebody put up a directly elected President model, it would probably fail because there are many republicans who regard that as dangerous (the Governor General has immense power in theory - it's limited by conventions that an elected president might not feel bound by, and by the fact that the Governor General is apolitical - a political president with the same powers could be a nightmare).

The bottom line for many Australians - even many republicans - is the fact that we have a stable government now. It works. Changing it and risking that stability is not something to be done lightly.