The republic vote: bring it on

The Age
Jul 22 2001

For a considerable time, the federal Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, has been viewed by many as lacking in political courage. For much of his time as leader of the Australian Labor Party he has largely sought to keep the operation ticking over, rarely challenging the orthodoxy and hewing to a slow-but-steady approach on policy and strategy. Increasingly, it has seemed that, after almost two terms of Coalition government, Australia has needed something more than that from its Federal Opposition. On one issue at least, the republic, Mr Beazley has now chanced his arm and taken a bolder stance than his previously stated position. Mr Beazley is now promising a definitive vote on a republic by 2005. He had previously nominated 2010 as the deadline for a three-stage process but is now raising the prospect of three votes within 12 months of the 2004 election. The first, in conjunction with a federal election likely to be held in 2004, would be a straight plebiscite on whether Australians wanted a republic. The second vote would decide on the particular republican model. The third would be the referendum that would decide whether Australians wanted to convert their system of government to a republic under the nominated republican model.

In political terms, this creates a considerable difference between Labor and the Liberals. The Prime Minister, John Howard, a constitutional monarchist, has, after the defeat of the 1999 referendum, declared the issue dealt with. Thus the hopes of republicans, especially those on the non-Labor side, rest with the Liberal Party deputy leader, Peter Costello. Mr Costello seems certain to succeed Mr Howard, either at the end of this year if the Coalition loses office or within the next 18 months should the government be re-elected. The Liberals' heir apparent is a republican of a mild persuasion - ideally, he supports the McGarvie model of a special extraparliamentary panel to appoint a president - but a republican nevertheless. Mr Costello has previously alluded to 2010 as the likely time when it would be appropriate for Australia to seriously revisit the republic question, a position that was not substantially different from Mr Beazley's former stance. But the Beazley shift to a much shorter timetable will inevitably put pressure on Mr Costello to reassess his approach. We believe that Mr Beazley's new position is a desirable one.

The procedure of an indicative plebiscite as a first step should always have been the process followed in resolving the republic question - not because it would have ensured the desired result for the republican cause but because it would have settled the threshold question of whether Australians wanted change. It is precisely because of the way that the Howard government dealt with the republic question - bypassing a referendum, using a voluntary postal ballot to elect delegates to a constitutional convention and then holding a referendum - that the issue remains unresolved. Should Mr Beazley become Prime Minister later this year, a plebiscite at the following election would achieve two things. First, it would deflect the monarchist argument that a plebiscite would cause needless expense. Second, it would settle the issue. If the plebiscite found that most Australians did not support a republic in principle, that should end the debate. If not, and we hope the Yes case would win, then that leaves open a number of exciting possibilities for Australia.

Although Mr Beazley's new timetable deserves praise, the desirable republican model continues to be the minimalist proposal put to the people in 1999. Indeed, if the referendum question that voters ultimately consider in 2005 should be for a directly elected president, it would be unlikely to gain our support. This is because the reasons for opposing direct election retain their efficacy. Irrespective of the type of directly elected president - whether constitutionally bound to exist purely as a figurehead or with executive power - there is no way that politics and big money would not take over the process. At an abstract level, the involvement of all voters in the appointment of a head of state naturally seems desirable. After all, this is a nation that is proud of its democratic traditions and impulses. But direct election would make partisan a part of our system of government that should not involve party politics. Our system of government generally works exceedingly well. Compared with other forms of government around the world, it is responsive to the desires, needs and values of the people. Some aspects of it, such as the power of the Senate, may need reform, but so far as the office of head of state is concerned the only thing it needs is for the monarch to be replaced by an Australian, in a way that least disrupts parliamentary government.