Republic split emerges

by Mike Steketee, National affairs editor
The Australian, 3 Dec 2001

A people's conference of 418 delegates has voted to kick-start moves to a republic by asking Australians a series of questions on the model they prefer before holding another referendum on the issue.

But a new split emerged immediately, with conservative republicans saying the process was guaranteed to lead to a referendum on a directly elected president – a model they could not support because it would change Australia's system of government.
"This is the end of the historic coalition between conservative republicans and the Australian Republican Movement that we saw in the 1999 referendum," Notre Dame University law professor Greg Craven declared.

The ARM, which backed the successful proposal, denied it supported any particular outcome. Rather, said its chairman Greg Barns, it gave people a choice while acknowledging the community groundswell in favour of direct election.

Professor Craven's proposal before a conference at Corowa, hosted by the Victorian Council for the Centenary of Federation, was defeated in favour of one that was the product of late-night negotiations at the Royal Hotel – draped for the occasion with an ARM banner.

The successful proposal, which combined three others and gained 159 of the 418 eligible votes (195 after preferences), provides first for a parliamentary committee to consult the community and constitutional experts, and then prepare a multi-question plebiscite – a national, non-binding vote. This would ask whether Australia should become a republic and, if so, whether the head of state should be called president or governor-general.

The plebiscite would also give Australians the choice between four models: a president chosen by the prime minister, as the governor-general is now; by a two-thirds majority of federal parliament, as proposed in the unsuccessful 1999 referendum; by an electoral college; or elected by popular vote, with the president's powers spelled out in the Constitution.

If the plebiscite vote was "yes" for a republic, an elected constitutional convention would draft a constitutional amendment to be put in a referendum.

An enabling committee, including former High Court judges Gerard Brennan and Daryl Dawon and former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, will urge the Howard Government to implement the proposal.

The Government did not send a representative to the conference and will not act without strong public pressure.

Professor Craven told the conference the proposal "programs" direct election because it offered it in a way in which its surface appeal was maximised and its faults were difficult to expose.

His proposal, by contrast, would involve an initial vote on whether Australia should become a republic and then an elected constitutional convention to debate all options and decide on one to be put in a referendum.

The proposal by former Victorian governor Richard McGarvie, who initiated the Corowa conference, came second in the ballot.