Republican disunity still a threat

By Professor John Warhurst
The Canberra Times
Friday 6 August 2004

Minimalist republicans seem unaware of the risks of undermining the idea of plebiscites

THE SENATE Legal and Constitutional References Committee will report next week on what type of republic Australia should consider becoming and how we should move towards having an Australian head of state.

Whatever the Senate Committee recommends about process, the leading contender at the moment is the idea of two or more non-binding votes, called plebiscites, leading up to a referendum. The Corowa conference, the Australian Republican Movement and the Labor Party have all recommended variations on the theme of consulting the people in this way.

Australians for Constitutional Monarchy is gearing up to oppose the whole idea. Plebiscites are where the action is at the moment. Those republicans least convinced about the plebiscite concept are associated with the Liberal Party. This group includes the likely new MPs, leading republicans Malcolm Turnbull and Andrew Robb. It also includes academics such as Greg Craven, newly appointed Professor of Government and Constitutional Law at Curtin University in Perth. His views are important.

While Liberal Party republicans are saying little, Craven claims to represent their views. He was at the Constitutional Convention and at Corowa and is an active member of the government's Civics Education Group that oversights the Discovering Democracy program in schools. He consistently expresses the view in speeches and articles that plebiscites can only lead to a direct-election type of republic and therefore should be opposed. His technicolour vocabulary means he has an audience.

But Craven is wrong on this issue. He misrepresents the plebiscite approach towards a second republic referendum. In his haste to demolish direct election he attributes bad faith to those advocating plebiscites and gives a false impression of how the plebiscite process will be conducted and what the likely outcome will be.

Plebiscites, contra Craven, are about giving Australians the chance "to make an informed choice on the sort of republic they want." The ARM believes that the people must be consulted at every step of the way if the eventual republic is to be meaningful.

At the Senate Inquiry hearings in Sydney in April the former Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Gerard Brennan, said in support of the plebiscite process, "We believe it is vitally important that the Australian people have ownership of their republic. It makes sense that they have a say in its defining characteristics before voting on it in a referendum." This expresses the view of the ARM perfectly.

The whole plebiscite process will be accompanied by considerable public discussion and education provided both by the government of the day and by community groups, such as the ARM and ACM. And before the second plebiscite devoted to choosing which republican model to put forward takes place there will be a number of specialised groups of republicans arguing the case for their preferred model against other models.

Should the Labor Party be elected later this year it will be two more years before this second plebiscite is put before the public. That allows plenty of time for substantial public debate and discussion. There is no reason to believe that this will be what Craven calls "a constitutional beauty contest where superficial good looks are everything". On the contrary, it will be an ugly, warts and all, contest with plenty of people ready to point out the warts on the other fellow's model.

The combatants will be led by the Government and the Opposition. Mark Latham favours direct election and Peter Costello favours parliamentary appointment. There are significant Labor figures, like NSW Premier Bob Carr, who also favour parliamentary appointment. A spirited and healthy public political debate will ensue.

Minimalist republicans, including Craven, shouldn't sell their side of the argument short. In 1999 he was a persuasive advocate for the "yes" vote. During the plebiscite campaign he is likely to be equally persuasive on the side of parliamentary appointment. Pragmatic supporters of a minimalist republic should remember that a plebiscite process might well be the only way a minimalist republic has any chance of winning. A minimal-change, parliamentary appointment model was rejected in 1999. No government will risk putting up a similar model again unless it has been shown to have popular support first. Victory in a plebiscite is a way to show that.

Central to Craven's analysis is an unsupported assertion that direct election "will win the vague encounter of a plebiscite at a canter, and everyone proposing the process knows it". Everyone will have a vote at this plebiscite, including monarchists. In these circumstances a parliamentary appointment model supported by the majority of the Coalition, important Labor Party figures and perhaps even the monarchists could quite easily win. If there is a danger for republicans it is not that one model will win easily only to be defeated at the referendum because it has not been fully tested. Rather it is that it will be such a rugged "knock em down and drag em out affair", that there will be bad blood whatever the result. The weaknesses of the preferred model, whatever it turns out to be, will have been pointed out for all to see by fellow republicans. Those arguments will be used by the "No" ease in the referendum that follows.

Republicans must share a genuine concern to address the problem of uniting republicans about process. The strength of Craven's view is that it reminds republicans that disunity is death and that we have yet to solve that problem. Doing so involves consideration of positive ideas on how to move forward. The best idea is to hold plebiscites.