Amanda Vanstone: Keep constitutional reform simple

The Australian
19 November 2002

Political change is always hard to achieve, but constitutional change is even harder. To succeed you have to run a clever, disciplined and unified campaign. The 1999 campaign for an Australian republic did none of the above and made fundamental mistakes. Chief among these was taking simple polling as an absolute indicator of the electorate's commitments to a republic. Indeed, the last campaign had all the hallmarks of one that either did not have enough decent qualitative research or was run by people who didn't listen to the research anyway.

I'd like to outline a few things we should and should not do next time:
Get plenty of qualitative polling advice. Strong, simple numbers for an Australian head of state didn't translate into a yes vote last time. Strong simple numbers for a direct election model will not necessarily translate into a yes vote next time.

Do the voters want a direct election and everything else the same as now? Or does this mean voters want the dramatic change of shifting to a US system? Or do they want something entirely different again? The simple question without any detail, background or context is not helpful.

If republicans, having lost the argument for moderate change, let simple polling woo them down the path of radical change, the constitutional monarchists will be ordering Dom Perignon by the dozen. The complexity of the arguments associated with more radical change will ensure defeat.

Lay off the monarchy. Our Constitution is our own. Australian colonialists worked out what they wanted and convinced the British parliament to give it to them. Australians effectively made our Constitution. Since then, whenever it has been changed, it has been changed by Australians.

The British monarch is there by the choice of Australians. The British royal family has not foisted itself upon us. Quite the opposite; our Constitution ties them to us. It is not their fault. We did it. We should set them free.

Personal attacks give the attacker and fellow travellers an adrenaline shot. It is an undisciplined indulgence. You rarely win over voters to anything by, in effect, telling them that they are stupid. That's what you do when you rubbish the monarchy to a constitutional monarchist.

Run a campaign that doesn't denigrate our present system. Our system has served us well, it still does and could do so for years to come. Bagging our system as unworkable just won't work. We will never build a future by rubbishing our past.

Build a foundation of support. Don't take for granted the majority of support for an Australian head of state. It's a fundamental flaw still present in the plan to have a plebiscite to select one of a number of models. What will happen if each model is equally favoured or none gets a majority?

The constitutional monarchists will be popping champagne. Republicans will be divided again. Clearly the task is first to raise the intensity of desire for an Australian head of state so that republicans unite. Otherwise, we'll lose.

Let me explain my argument by using a good South Australian wine analogy. The present system is a good one. I like it a lot – let's call it Abbott's Prayer, to stay with this system. Abbott's Prayer is a great Henschke red. Henschke makes a better one that many believe is a rival, if not equal, to Penfold's Grange. That wine is Hill of Grace. We are moving from a good wine to a fabulous wine. So it is with constitutional change – moving from a good system to a better one. Having lost the moderate change, I think it is a folly to go for more radical change.

We should argue for the smallest possible change to become a republic. We have allowed ourselves to be pushed into thinking that the method of selection is central to us being a republic. We should have an Australian head of state who holds the powers the governor-general now exercises on behalf of the British monarch. We, along with the US, Canada and Israel, are the four great immigration experiments in the world. Over time, the fabric of our society has been enriched by people arriving from around the globe. They came to help build a new nation and a new identity. This is reality. Now it's time to make the symbols match the reality.

National symbols should unite the nation. They should touch its heart. A British monarch as our symbolic and de jure head of state no longer touches the heart of most Australians. No British monarch would suggest such a unifying symbol as wattle to be worn after the Bali disaster. No British monarch can, as Australians can, feel our dust or smell our eucalypt.

Amanda Vanstone is federal Minister for Family and Community Services.

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