The Three Hurdles Republicans Face

Hugh Mackay
Social Researcher
NSW Parliament House - Friday 4 July 2003

It would be very easy to become pessimistic about the republican movement. We lost the 1999 referendum and we have been off the community's radar ever since.

Even the recent fracas over the resignation of Peter Hollingworth didn't really help our cause. When the dust had settled, the Prime Minister was able to say, with some plausibility, 'See how smoothly the system works!'.

There are three big hurdles that seem to stand in our way, and they are easy to identify. But although I want to acknowledge them and describe them, my main message is that we face, right now, a golden opportunity to tap into a yearning in this community that is not yet recognised as a 'republican yearning', but easily could be.

First, the hurdles.

1. John Howard

As long as we have a staunch monarchist as prime minister, Australia won't become a republic. It's as simple as that.

Since Federation, no referendum has ever been passed without the wholehearted endorsement of the prime minister of the day. So it doesn't matter what republicans say or do, and it doesn't matter what the Labor Party says or does on this issue: the Prime Minister is a huge roadblock.

Of course, we don't have this problem on our own. He is also a roadblock in the path of Aboriginal reconciliation. He is a roadblock in the path of those who are hoping for a more just, equitable and humane society.

John Howard won't be prime minister forever. When he goes, there is likely to be a sudden and dramatic change in our national mood. At present, his very high popularity is actually quite fragile, because it depends on a paradox: he must both keep us scared and make us feel safe. But the price he pays for maintaining this balancing act is that we know he is diminishing us; he is bringing out the worst in us; he is reinforcing our fears and prejudices; he is narrowing our focus.

But he's there, he's a hurdle, and the problem for us is compounded by his determination to run a presidential-style prime ministership (thus blurring the distinction between head of government and head of state).

2. A disengaged electorate

Australians have been destabilised by too much change, and by a growing sense of uncertainty and threat. In the past 25 years, we have lived through too many revolutions at once - the gender revolution, the economic revolution, the IT revolution, and even a revolution in our sense of what it means to be an Australian.

Worn out by the rate of social change and by the demands of too many issues and challenges, we have shifted our gaze from the big picture to the miniatures of our personal lives and our local circumstances.

We can't get enough TV programs about backyards, cooking and interior decorating.

We're obsessed with 'the village', even calling high-rise apartment blocks 'vertical villages'.

The soundtrack of our lives is not the national anthem, but the hiss of the ubiquitous espresso machine.

Our focus has turned relentlessly inward as an antidote to our anxiety. We are cocooning ourselves in self-indulgence. (Even in the case of Iraq, we have already moved on: we don't want to know about the aftermath of our invasion.)

Too much change! Too many issues! Too many challenges! No wonder the message coming from the community is 'Give us a break ... leave us alone'. This is not good news for the republican movement.

3. The wrong language

As committed republicans, we keep using two words that the community-at-large doesn't like: 'republic' and 'president'. Many Australians find these words rather spooky: they have frightening associations with assorted 'banana republics' and tinpot dictatorships. Some of us have come here from republics and presidents we didn't like, and all of us can quote nasty examples of republics in South America, Africa or Central and Eastern Europe.

Certainly, we don't mind Ireland, France or even the USA (though we don't like the association of the US presidency with so much power and money).

What we do feel comfortable with is a word we know and trust: Commonwealth.

But let's not dwell on these difficulties or on the details of why we might have failed in the past. The practicalities - even the language - are easy to sort out.

Let's look at the big opportunity that is staring us in the face, and consider whether we have the courage to seize it.

The golden opportunity

In the last election of the 20th century - a time when we were yearning for a new sense of ourselves as a nation bursting with potential and brimful of millennial confidence - what did we get? A Goods and Services Tax.

In the first Federal election of the new century, what did we get? Flagrant manipulation of our fears and insecurities - via the Tampa episode - and an almost hysterical obsession with border protection.

Both of these election themes were a huge disappointment to those Australians who were hoping for something more visionary and inspirational. And yet, in a way, those two elections were symbolic of a significant culture shift. The GST was the last gasp of the economic era, and Tampa was a potent symbol of the dawning of the security era.

The question for the republican movement is this: are we going to shrug our shoulders, accept that Australians are only really interested in security, and simply wait for a more propitious time - for some distant turning of the tide in our favour? It's true that when John Howard goes, a republican will replace him (from either side of politics), and the republic will gradually drift back onto the political agenda. Are we simply going to wait for that to happen, or are we going to seize the agenda and promote our cause in a bold and more engaging way?

There's not much point in wringing our hands about John Howard. He won't go away in a hurry, so there won't be a winnable referendum coming our way for the foreseeable future.

And endless suggestions for alternative methods of appointment of a Head of State are unlikely to capture the public imagination when the electorate is in its present mood. Too many republicans have fallen for the 'magic model' trap - as if we only have to crack the formula (public nominations/ parliamentary election; parliamentary nomination/ popular election; electoral college; advisory council; etc) ... all we have to do is find the right model and this will strike such a responsive chord that the citizens will rise up and say, That's it! Let's do it! (I don't think so.)

Abandoning the words 'republic' and 'president' would help, but there will be no inherent magic in whatever words we might choose to replace them.

The real opportunity is for us to fill the vacuum where debate about the very character of this precious Commonwealth should be.

What we're lacking - and neither side of Federal politics is going to give it to us any time soon - is a guiding story: a presentation of coherent ideals, values, beliefs that define where we've come from, where we are now and where we are going. Imaginatively couched, such a presentation could give us a framework for making sense of our national life and it could encourage us to take bolder, more confident and more independent steps towards our future. We need the present to be clearly set within the sweep of our history, so that we can see the inexorable process of national independence unfolding.

But we need much more than that. Someone needs to be telling us our own story - explaining us to ourselves - interpreting that history - enabling us to weave some meaning and purpose into our lives as citizens.

Listen to how the American social analyst, Walter Truett Anderson, explained the popularity of Adolph Hitler in pre-war Germany:

He made his mark on the world, not as a political theorist, certainly
not as a military tactician, but as a dramatist. He was a story-maker.
Other story-makers were in business in Germany at the time: Freudians,
existentialists, theologians, scientists and ideologues of all kinds were
offering their own versions of what was happening. Hitler outdid them
all - at least for a while - because he was able to place the German people
in an awesome story that thundered through their blood and bones.

And so did Winston Churchill for the British. And so did Franklin D Roosevelt for the Americans - and so, to a lesser extent, did John F Kennedy. Gough Whitlam did it for Australians in the 1970s.

Inspirational story-telling - explaining us to ourselves - is not enough, of course. We will always need workmanlike politicians, managers, bureaucrats, business and professional people and others to do the hard work of policy development and implementation. But we are in urgent need of leaders - or even one leader - who can tell us the story of who we are, where we are going, how to get there, and why the journey should be undertaken at all.

The ARM's challenge is not to perfect some model; not to lay out a timetable for a series of referenda. It is to inspire Australians with a new sense of pride in themselves as the citizens of an increasingly independent nation. It is to start painting the big picture - beyond politics. It is to restore our confidence and optimism, to enlarge our vision, and to nurture our faith in this unique and wonderful Commonwealth.

The voice of republicanism will be heard when we recognise it as a voice that is talking about us - a voice with the power not to cajole or plead or persuade, but to encourage and inspire.

The question is: are we up to it?