Second Reading Speech
The Hon. Kim Beazley, MP, Leader of the Opposition, Member for Brand, Western Australia (Australian Labor Party)

House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra, Monday 28 June 1999

At the outset, let me congratulate the government on conforming substantially to the recommendations of the 1998 Constitutional Convention and also for the presentation of these bills as exposure drafts for public comment. I have already addressed the issues of concern that Labor has with this bill in a letter to the Prime Minister after the exposure draft bill was released. I note that the views I expressed to him have not been picked up in the bill but I believe they can be adequately addressed in the context of the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on the Republic Referendum. Let me now state Labor's intention to cooperate with the government in producing the best possible bill. All of our suggestions should be taken in that spirit.

I want to mention the long title of the bill in a bit of detail here tonight, because it is its long title which will rest in the minds of the average Australian elector as they contemplate their vote and ultimately cast it. Currently this reads:

A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with a President chosen by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament.

That is a good title but it could be better. Our concern is that this title does not sufficiently capture the essence of the proposed alteration to the Constitution, namely, the replacement of the British monarch with an Australian citizen as our head of state. Nor does it, in our view, sufficiently describe the full process of selection of the new head of state. That process includes the public nomination procedure and the requirement for a special majority of a joint sitting of the parliament. These were important features of the compromise model recommended by the Constitutional Convention. We submit that a more appropriate title would be:

A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution to provide for an Australian citizen chosen from nominations submitted by the people and approved by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the Commonwealth Parliament to replace the British monarch as Australia's head of state.

That is only slightly longer, but it is entirely descriptive of the process and its significance - the calling home of the Australian Constitution. We are constantly given reminders of how important that is - how important it is to bring our symbols in tune with our reality. If we ever needed any convincing of it, the High Court gave us another reason the other day, when it determined that the nation of origin of our head of state was in fact a foreign power. Many people can have arguments with the High Court's interpretation of that, but they set down with absolute clarity that the person that we call our head of state is not an Australian citizen and the relationship with the power of which she is both citizen and head of state is a relationship similar to that with any other of the nations from which Australians originate.

It is important that there is a proper reflection of that fact - that change in the title. It is also important to point out the role that the people have in that process - the fact that they can make nominations for the position - and the fact that it has to be approved by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the Commonwealth parliament. We are going to have many important arguments during the course of this referendum campaign. In many ways those arguments are going to be conducted at, if you like, a fairly elite level. I have absolute confidence that the Australian people know what they want in this regard: they want to change the arrangements for our head of state.

Arguments about dismissal procedures and about two-thirds or whatever are going to be dominating the air waves, but will probably be of far less significance to the average voter than that fundamental underpinning sentiment which I believe is very much out there. Nevertheless, some will be influenced by that currency of debate, and it is important that they have the clearest possible view in their minds of what it is that they are voting on and what changes they mean.

The bill's long title - as I meant to say at the outset and it is the reason why I have been belabouring the point - is the wording of the actual referendum question. Our amendment is not enormously longer than the current long title. It is more faithful, however, to the Constitutional Convention's wishes and, as I said, more informative to the voters.

Our support for this bill springs from our longstanding ambition for an Australian republic. I said in my first major address of this year, the day before Australia Day, that this is the year for ambition in constitutional reform. I spoke then of what had been a century of confounding Australian constitutional conservatism. It strikes me as strange that a nation founded in such a flush of constitutional optimism at the turn of the century should have proved so reluctant in its first full century of nationhood to use the mechanisms for constitutional change born of that optimistic spirit.

We were the great democratic innovators of the 19th century. South Australia gave women the vote in 1894, also becoming the first parliament anywhere in the world to admit women as members and the only parliament to admit women as members on the vote of people who did not think women should have the vote at all. The story of the franchise and ultimately the determination that women should be members of parliament in South Australia is a very interesting one. The initial proposition was for female suffrage but not for female membership. The anti-female suffrage members moved an amendment to add to female suffrage female membership. The consequence was that both were passed and their ambitions in that regard were frustrated. The National Party had early origins!

South Australia also pioneered the use of ballot papers printed with candidates' names and vacant boxes next to them in the 1858 Legislative Council election. The first elections anywhere in the world to be conducted by secret ballot were held for the Victorian Legislative Council in 1865. Those same elections also saw the first polling booths in the world designed for the purpose - by a Melbourne lawyer, Henry Chapman. Australia also pioneered the preferential voting system when Queensland introduced what they then called 'contingent voting' in 1892.

Taken together, all this democratic and constitutional zeal last century paints a picture of an innovative, confident and rapidly evolving polity. Strange, then, that we should have been so conservative in the intervening century. The past century's record of Australian constitutional reform has indeed been well short of dazzling. This year's referendum on the republic will be the 43rd question put to the Australian people this century.

Only eight have been successful. I pledge to this House again today, as I have before, that my Labor colleagues and I will lend the referendum's yes case all the energies we can muster. We also extend our hand to those of our colleagues on the other side of the parliament who support an Australian republic. I say to them that a successful referendum depends on their advocacy as much as, if not more than, it depends on ours.

But I do believe the gains will be considerable for us as a people if we pass it. Firstly, all our national symbols will be truly national. I was in an interesting debate recently before a forum that I would not normally appear before: the senior girls of the Methodist Ladies College in the seat of Curtin - Ms Bishop's electorate - in Western Australia. My appearance there was occasioned by the fact that I was ambushed by their politics class at a play. They insisted that I should come along, and I agreed to speak to them about the republic. They also got the local member for Curtin to speak because they thought she would be a monarchist and, despite an equivocal first nine minutes, the last minute was with us. So she was unsatisfactory from that point of view.

The monarchists did not turn up at all, but the republicans did produce a chap. The folk were interested in the speech of the member for Curtin and my speech, but I have to say, in all honesty, there was a gradual decline in fascination. And then this republican spokesperson had a flash of genius. Obviously finding it hard to get his point across, he sought a practical example, and he said this, "It's just like this, you see. Supposing the senior girl, the school captain, of Methodist Ladies College, were not a student at Methodist Ladies College at all. Suppose she were the school captain of St Hilda's, down the road. Suppose she appeared every Monday morning at the gate of Methodist Ladies College, pinned a Methodist Ladies College badge on her shirt as she went in, otherwise attired in St Hilda's uniform, gave the assembly and left forthwith, taking her badge off as she went out the gate." There was an audible gasp. The principal of Methodist Ladies College was impressed. She said, "That was the worst school you could have chosen as an example."

We have a great deal more affection for the schools from which we originated, but the point is absolutely clear: at this stage of our historical progress how could we possibly say to the rest of the world that we have made an active choice that chose somebody else from another nation to be our head of state? There are many penalties to be paid if we do not win in this referendum, which is another reason why we take this awesomely seriously. Not least would be the tabloids in London on the day after. You could guarantee "The Aussies cannot cut the paper. The Aussies cannot do it alone". I am an attendee at these cricket matches from time to time, and there is no group of barrackers I love more than the 'Barmy Army'. But don't the Barmy Army take a waddy to us, take the mickey out of us, when they get up there and sing "God Save the Queen, she's your Queen too" and so on? Through the process there is total mockery of Australian national symbols as derivatives. It is always an interesting exercise for those who have to stand alongside them. They are the games that people play at sports, but they have a deeper symbolism for all of that.

For us to be in the situation where we have a Constitution 'in continuation', if you like, is to a degree explicable both to ourselves and to the world around us. For us, 100 years on from the Federation of Australia, to make a determination to sustain somebody else other than an Australian as our head of state is unthinkable. The consequences of such an act - and I do not rule out the possibility; if this referendum succeeds there will have been eight successful referendums in 43 - are not an encouraging start for this.

I do not underestimate that difficulty, but I do think that, at the end of the day, the majority of our fellow Australians will see the impossibility of a no vote in this situation and the national humiliation involved. They will not feel good about themselves - they know that - if they wake up the next day and find that the situation is as it was before; only this time we, not the founders, would be responsible for it.

I also hope very much that if we get this referendum through - and I firmly believe we will, because there has been solid support for a long time now for an Australian head of state - there will be other benefits. We will start to use our Constitution properly. I have to say that I think, by accident, our political opponents have not hit on a bad mechanism with this Constitutional Convention. I am at the moment reading a book by Alan Clark on the history of the British Conservative Party, talking about Baldwin's approach to the difficulties of an argument between free trade and protection. It was suggested from opposition that perhaps they needed a referendum. As Alan Clark points out, a referendum is the solution sought by those in a political party who know that they cannot control the internal debate but must say something, and that has been replicated on a number of occasions in British constitutional history.

For 'referendum' in our case - which has, of course, a substantial constitutional meaning - read 'Constitutional Convention'. The Constitutional Convention proved a useful body before which to put a series of problems to be nutted through by the delegates from a broader base than even this well and broadly based parliament can provide, to generate a fascination in the rest of the community with the things that they considered. A republic is interesting, but there are other issues that are interesting as well. We have gone for work-around after work-around on our Constitution; we have never done what the founders suggested, based on that experience of failure of referendums. We have had the latest example of that failure from attempting a work-around - the collapse recently of the cross-vesting of judicial authority between the Commonwealth and the states. That was disastrous. It was a very sensible outcome, well supported by all sides of Australian politics, but the High Court said, "Forget it."

The High Court is getting increasingly interesting in its interpretations of the powers in the Constitution and increasingly unwilling to accept a pragmatic outcome. It did not accept a pragmatic outcome in relation to the question of the states' authority to raise certain excises. It did not accept a pragmatic outcome on cross-vesting. In a different context, it was prepared to overturn what had been the prevailing land tenure system in relation to native title without necessarily answering every question you could conceivably want it to answer on that subject.

We all may well have views about all of this, but it indicates that the High Court is saying to this parliament, "If you want to change the Constitution, you change it in the way the founders said you should change it. Don't try to impose on us one of your work-arounds which we find in some way inimical to a reasonable reading of various aspects of the Constitution." When you actually sit down, read the Constitution and see so many dead-letter elements, so many impracticalities

As I said, I did not much like the way the Constitutional Convention was structured - and I still would not have the same sort of structure for a future Constitutional Convention - but the process itself is a good one to put issues before. Every few years, you could put before it, say, the proposition of the powers of the Senate or the division of powers between the Commonwealth and the states. These are issues which are critical to the long-term future of our nation and a decent government in this country. If we start down the road of this republic, I do believe that not only will we get ourselves a starting point in the Constitution of which we can be proud but every Australian child can aspire to be an Australian head of state. Every Australian child, no matter what their religious or cultural background, can aspire to become a head of state who is not under any constraint in regard to that.

I am an Anglican. I feel at least satisfied in the current constitutional arrangements in one aspect, and that is that there is an Anglican up there running the show. I have to concede that I am now in a decreasing minority as far as this community is concerned. Not even at that level can the majority of Australians see a representative character. And that has its own integrity and value, no matter whether you want to change another darn thing in the Constitution or not. But, if you do think that there are other things that ought to change, we may be starting to hit on a process that is effectively maturing in our constitutional arrangements. I talked about work-arounds legislatively; there are also work-arounds in voting terms. I talk about the Senate. Governments - whether they are ours or those of our political opponents - rail constantly against the powers of the Senate and constantly their solution is to seek some way of rorting the vote to change that. Instead of rorting the vote, change the powers. That would be a far more sensible way of dealing with that particular problem.

There is one group in particular that I do want to appeal to tonight in regard to all of this - a group that I feel needs to look at this not as a static singular event in an unchanging Constitution but as part of a dynamic process. They are the ones who describe themselves effectively as the direct election republicans. I can understand their frustration with constitutional conservatism. I ask them only to consider: if they, in coalition with the monarchists, defeat this year's referendum where will we be?

Firstly, we will not be anywhere they want us to be. This is not an attack on these people. Probably a substantial portion of my party are direct election republicans. Maybe if you scratched all members of my party, most of them would be direct election republicans. I think you would find quite a lot would be of that persuasion. But what is the point of defeating this? Would that particular view be advanced by the defeat of this proposition? No, it would not be. The consequence of the defeat of this proposition would be, for the first week or two, massive national humiliation and, secondly, a marked reluctance on the part of political parties for some considerable time to place the issue again before the Australian people. There is a knowledge on the part of those who lead the political process that, if you are going to go much further than the minimal change model, you have to have a convention not only about the character and origins of the head of state but also effectively on the powers of the head of state and the relationship of the head of state to the parliamentary process. A considerable amount of detail would be required.

It may be that at the end of the day you decide to deprive that person of any powers and put them in the situation of the Irish President. But it would have to be said that that would be a substantial retreat from the current powers of the Governor-General. That in itself would contain its own argument as to whether or not that was an intelligent political course to pursue. There would be no option but to engage. It would be virtually impossible to arrive at a direct election president with the conventions that will be in place under this constitutional arrangement. It would be impossible to arrive at that position. You would have to either advance the definition a considerable way towards entrenching substantial power in the hands of the president or retreat them a considerable way to eliminate all powers in the hands of the president.

So you would not arrive quickly at a conclusion for another referendum that would necessarily reflect the views of the direct election advocates. Furthermore, in moving over to that, you inarguably lose virtually all of the conservative side of politics. One or two take a slightly more opportunist view. Peter Reith can be relied on to disagree with Peter Costello. Peter Costello declared his hand too early. But the point, nevertheless, is that you would find very few on the conservative side of Australian politics who would support that. So you have a complexity of arguments - and the direct election republicans need to contemplate this - related to the powers, combined with confronting the most vigorous argument from the Right in Australian politics, broadly defined, about making any change at all while you did it. I have to tell you that there would be very few Labor Prime Ministers who would pull on that particular debate with any form of cheerfulness at all. Furthermore, the process which gives hope to all of those who want to have in place a capacity for constitutional debate and, therefore, change would also have been massively set back.

A much more intelligent approach from a direct electionist would be this - and I know it is the position that has been adopted by the state Labor leaders, most of whom turned very much to the direct election model; they thoroughly understand the political dynamic associated with this and they understand this - pass this, give the Australian people a user-friendly view of their Constitution, and the Australian people will start to address those issues at more leisure out of a heated environment and may well start to arrive at the conclusions that they would want them to arrive at about how their president should be appointed. That is something, really, for them to contemplate.

There are very few people whom I know who are direct election advocates who are not also fascinated by the totality of the processes of constitutional change. They are interested in more than just electing presidents; they are interested in modernising the Australian Constitution. They must not take actions which make that process of constitutional change infinitely harder in this country. If we do not carry this referendum we may well render our polity comatose on the Constitution for yet another century. In many ways Australian democracy was frozen, set in aspic, at the end of the 19th century. You would have to ask the serious question today, given the record of our last 100 years as opposed to the 100 years prior to that: if the 100 years prior to our federation did not culminate in the Federation but in something else, would we now be federating today?

What would have been the consequences of that in 1939 or, more particularly, in 1941? Which states would have been neutral? Which nation would the United States and the other powers have responded to when we were under threat? Which state would have declared neutrality when it realised it was affected first by those consequences? Could we, as 18 million people occupying this territory - as a people, as opposed to a nation - have continued with confidence to occupy this territory in the way in which we want it occupied into the next century if we had not federated? Probably that eventuality that I mentioned never would have occurred. We may not have survived in a structure that we can recognise now, as the Australia that we know and love.

But we have to start to be prepared to modernise our Constitution. I do think that we are moving into an optimistic era. Australians do feel good about themselves. Australians in many ways have rendered themselves independent from political processes that they find unfortunate, unacceptable. They are much more confident these days about themselves as a people - where they have come from; where they are going. The nature of politics at a new millennium and a new century often reflects that optimism. I do believe that people in this country are going to be reaching out for new things, for changes in our society over the course of the next year or two. They are going to be focusing on many interesting features both of our society and of its structures.

Those who want to put a complete agenda before the Australian people have to address all levels of what I believe is going to be a hunger for reform. This is a great starting point. I hope the government considers seriously the changes that we propose to their proposal, because they are put forward in the best spirit. I look forward to joining those of my Liberal and National Party compatriots who are republicans on the hustings over the course of the next few months.