Vice-regal job not just personal representative of the Queen

Malcolm Turnbull
The Sydney Morning Herald
26 May 2003

Peter Hollingworth presented himself, and the nation, with a most difficult challenge. Here was a governor-general who had done nothing substantively wrong in his office, but had, so a great many felt, made serious errors of judgement in his previous role as Archbishop of Brisbane.

These errors touched (quite rightly) on a matter of the greatest public sensitivity (sexual abuse of children by priests) and public opinion quickly and overwhelmingly demanded his resignation.

Many of our institutions rely on people doing the right thing, as opposed to sticking to the letter of the law. If you took a legalistic view of his position it was not possible to justify his removal. John Howard was quite right in not advising the Queen to remove Hollingworth.

Had Hollingworth been a judge there was no way he could have been impeached, as the constitution demands, for "proved misbehaviour or incapacity".

The real justification for his resignation was that, rightly or wrongly, he had utterly lost the confidence of the people.

While the republic referendum was narrowly defeated in 1999, the position of the monarchy in Australia has continued to atrophy. In years gone by, the governor-general's status was purely and simply derived from being the representative of the Crown.

It did not matter whether the governor-general in question was a drunk, or a fool, or a rake. What he was did not matter, what he represented (the Crown) did.

Over recent years we have come to expect our governors-general to be significant people in and of themselves.

Sir William Deane, for example, is remembered for his role as a spokesman for the underprivileged. His governor-generalship was defined by his personal qualities and his ability to communicate his own values to the Australian people.

He was not a representative or spokesman for the Queen; he spoke for himself (often controversially) but never for his sovereign.

Once the governor-general's position becomes a personal, as opposed to a representative, one the manner of selection becomes more relevant.

Sir Robert Menzies made a point of not appointing a governor-general unless the nominee both knew the Queen and was approved by her. He saw the G-G as a true viceroy. That is no longer the case.

The more the governor-general becomes a spokesman for "the nation" as opposed to a representative of the Crown, the more important will be the personal qualities of the incumbent and, as a consequence, the mode of appointment.

Republicans should not be too smug about Hollingworth's demise. Skeletons can emerge from the closets of republican presidents, and have done so, as so many United States presidents can attest.

However it is true that if a governor-general or president were appointed by a two-thirds majority of Parliament after a public nominations process, it is unlikely that someone like Hollingworth with so much trouble coming up would have been chosen.

When the republic debate was at its most intense, little attention was given to the question of whether we need a governor-general or president at all.

However in a sense, John Howard has more than any other prime minister challenged the need to have a ceremonial head of state. His leadership in difficult times has been so compelling that one has to ask why our prime minister is not simply head of government but, like the US president, also head of state.

I should note, however, with the benefit of some experience in this field, that the constitutional difficulties associated with removing the governor- general from our constitution are, to say the least, not trivial.

The remaining mystery about Hollingworth does relate to integrity. Why did he ever accept the position?

He must have known there were complaints about child abuse whirling around him. He surely knew they were controversial and the likelihood of them becoming more so was exacerbated by him becoming governor-general.

Yet he accepted the position. In resigning his office he has shown humility, but it must be said that he showed great hubris in accepting it.

Malcolm Turnbull is the former head of the Australian Republican Movement.