ER's irrelevant verdict may help

COMMENT by David Marr
Sydney Morning Herald, 10 March 2001

The Queen has opened the door a little wider to the republic by condemning Sir John Kerr's intervention in the crisis of 1975.

Knowing she sides with Australian constitutional authorities greatly simplifies the crucial step we still have to take before we can become a republic: finding a consensus on the powers of an Australian head of state.

The referendum of 1999 was lost in confusion over these powers and how they are to be exercised by the president of an Australian republic. Australians want that president to have the same powers and duties the governor-general has always had - but since 1975 there has been deep confusion over what they are. Whether we elect or appoint our president, this confusion has to be cleared up before we can move forward.

Australia doesn't need Buckingham Palace to tell us what happened in 1975 was wrong. Most Australians have long agreed that Kerr did not have the power to do what he did when he did in the crisis over Supply. That agreement crosses party lines. Nevertheless, consensus on the governor-general's powers has been impossible to reach while Kerr's actions have been staunchly defended by those who benefited directly from them - the Liberal and National parties.

They have persisted in this for 25 years even without the support of constitutional authorities. Their position has been that the rules surrounding the exercise of vice-regal prerogatives have always been uncertain and often controversial. That's true enough - but as a defence of Sir John Kerr it is absolutely useless once it's known that the Queen herself believes her man in Canberra got it wrong.

Not a great deal of political bravery is now required for Kerr's last supporters to admit that 1975 was a constitutional mistake.

There is no advantage now for the conservative side of politics insisting we enshrine that mistake in a new republic. If they do insist, then the republic probably can't happen. No-one - Labor or Liberal, conservative or radical - would enthusiastically welcome a republic with a president exercising power as Sir John Kerr did in 1975.

Now the Queen's verdict is known it will be easier for Australians to reach a constitutionally sensible, politically effective consensus on the powers of their head of state: first the governor-general and then the president.

But on the other hand, this winning demonstration of democratic good sense at the palace may well endear Her Majesty to the Australian people for a good while longer.