Introduction
I would firstly like to thank you for the invitation
to speak to this meeting of the John Stuart Mill Society.
The Republic is an issue that is of great personal interest
to me and an issue which I believe is very relevant
to Australia's future identity both domestically and
internationally.
I believe a country's Head of State should symbolise
the ethos, values and aspirations of a nation and it
is for this reason that I personally support an Australian
Republic. I do not believe the British monarchy represents
the values which characterise Australia and it follows
therefore that I do not consider a monarchy to be an
appropriate institutional format for the office of Australia's
Head of State.
History
and Incremental Change: What has already occurred
A Republic is a system of Government which holds its
supreme power in its people through its elected representatives.
I would suggest that the term Republic has and always
will imply an independent Australia and embody our egalitarian
and democratic ideals as a symbol of our national identity.
Surges in Republican support have arisen over Australia's
history in a number of forums for a range of purposes.
The 1850's, the 1890's, 1975 and of course the 1990's
can be identified as times in Australia's history where
support for a Republic was strong.
Republican sentiment in Australia first manifested itself
in the 1850's.
In the 1850's, the Australian colonies were attempting
to gain self government from Britain. The Republicans
of the 1850's identified Republicanism as a means of
gaining political autonomy. Essentially, this derived
from the axiom of nineteenth century nationalism that
all nations should be self governing.
When self government was granted to the Australian colonies
in the 1850's, Republicanism - in terms of local independence
- lost momentum and its sense of urgency. It was not
until the 1880's that Republicanism again became strong
in sentiment in the Australian community.
The Republicanism of the 1890's was driven less by a
desire to be independent of the British government as
by a desire to create a society which symbolised the
spirit of Australia. The ideal of Australia becoming
a Republic was pursued by many of those who participated
in the Federation debates during the 1890's. Amongst
those were many of the writers for the Bulletin including
Henry Lawson and his mother Lousia, who was the editor
of a Republican newsletter in Sydney in the 1880's and
1890's. However, conversion to independent Republican
status was not regarded as a feasible option by the
harder heads in the collection of small Australian colonies
who were proposing to federate to form the new nation
of Australia. Towards the end of the last century, the
economic structure of the Colonies was geared to provide
food and raw materials to the British market. Furthermore,
the world of the time, especially in our geographic
region was divided into spheres of influence of European
powers and the continued protection of the Royal Navy
was essential to the security of the Australian colonies.
Similarly, economic and security considerations constrained
the further development of Republican sentiment in Australia
for most of this century.
At the time of the first World War the links to the
Empire were strengthened when the British Government
called for support in the war to end all wars.
The young Australians who fought at Gallipoli and on
the Western Front were willing volunteers who gave their
lives for the King and Empire.
This very strong pro-British sentiment and sense of
belonging to a larger British community around the world
persisted as a key feature of Australian society until
the late 1960's.
The system of Imperial Trade preferences was
the cornerstone of the Australian economy throughout
the first two thirds of this century and the loss of
access to the British market which resulted from British
entry to the common market came as a great shock to
most Australians who felt bewildered and let down by
the mother country. However, those feelings did not
manifest themselves at that time in a discernible sentiment
for Australia to become a Republic.
Security
factors were also important through this time.
It was not believed Australia could possibly defend
itself and Australia's defence depended on the support
of powerful friends, particularly the United Kingdom
and the United States. There was little support for
any move that might have weakened the security of Australia
which saw itself as a 'Western Outpost' facing the threat
of Asian communism in our near north. Such fears were
confirmed by the Korean War, the attempted communist
coup in Indonesia in 1966 and the war in Vietnam.
However, the constitutional crisis of 1975 did result
in some rekindling of support for the concept of an
Australian Republic, particularly in the left wing of
Australian politics and this probably explains why there
has been something of an ALP flavour to the current
resurgence of Republican sentiment.
In 1975, after Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government,
Republicanism was couched in terms of redefining the
role of the office of Governor General. The conflict
between the written constitution and unwritten conventions
spurred support for the redefinition of the balance
of power between Australia's Head of State and the Prime
Minister. The most common grievance was that an elected
Prime Minister was sacked by an appointed Governor General.
It has been suggested by some commentators that the
reemergence of the Republican debate in the 1990's was
largely pursued for political reasons. It has been proposed
that Keating pursued the Republican cause for his own
political gain and as such attempted to divide the debate
along party lines, but personally I am not sure this
analysis is totally fair to him. After all, Keating
had a very acute sense of the importance of Australia
being seen in the region as a country totally in charge
of its own affairs and I believe that he also placed
great emphasis on Australian values. At the very least
we should acknowledge that he gave impetus to the present
debate which has become the most serious discussion
of the question of establishing an Australian Republic
in our history.
John Howard as Prime Minister, while making no secret
of his commitment to the constitutional monarchy, has
provided a national forum for debate on the question
of our Head of State by establishing the Constitutional
Convention to discuss the issue.
Personally, I am pleased that the Constitutional Convention
is to go ahead, because in focussing national attention
on the issue, I believe the debate will be considerably
advanced and strengthen support for Australia's conversion
to a Republic.
Incremental
steps to the Republic: what has already been achieved
Australia has already broken a lot of the ties which
once bound this country very closely to the United Kingdom
and I would like to detail some of what I regard as
the incremental steps to the Republic.
Australia's national anthem was changed, from God
Save the Queen to Advance Australia Fair,
on the 21st of May 1977. We no longer have God
Save the Queen played in cinemas before the movie
begins, as was the case until the 60's and 70's and
it would now seen strange to do so.
Australia has its own flag and has not used the 'Union
Jack' as our flag for many years.
No government since 1945-6 has appointed a member of
the Royal Family to hold the office of Governor General.
When Buckingham Palace sent out feelers to the Australian
government for the appointment of Prince Charles as
Governor General, in the early 80's, it is said it was
found that there was little political support for the
idea.
In 1965 even Menzies, the 'Great Royalist' that he was,
appointed an Australian, Sir Richard Casey, as Governor
General with the support of his parliamentary Liberal
colleagues. However, while the Coalitions MP's in the
mid 60's were willing to accept Casey as Governor General
there remained a sense that, the further step to having
an Australian as Head of State was not an acceptable
proposition.
On this subject, Billy Wentworth, a famous member of
the House of Representatives during this period made
the observation that it is not so much the abstract
idea of an Australian President which is repugnant to
us - rather it is the idea of an actual Australian as
President; and that comment itself illustrates
the point that Australia had not reached a level of
national maturity sufficient to be comfortable with
the idea that a distinguished Australian could be respected
as our Head of State.
I trust all here tonight agree that there are many distinguished
Australians who would hold the office of Head of State
with grace and dignity.
In 1942 Australia adopted the 'Statute of Westminster'.
This statue was passed in the United Kingdom Parliament
in 1931 and stated that the British parliament would
not legislate for any Dominion without the request and
consent of the Dominion concerned. It is interesting
that Canada and South Africa both accepted this independence
from the British government much earlier and more readily
than did Australia and it was probably only the imperatives
of the Pacific War which caused Australia to adopt the
Statute of Westminster because Australia needed to be
in control of its resources for the war effort.
In 1986 Australian legal appeals to the Privy Council
were abolished so that the High Court of Australia became
the final court of appeal in the Australian legal system.
Thus slowly, step by step over the last half century,
Australia has moved progressively away from and become
independent of the United Kingdom government.
Commenting on the slow ending of our dependence on the
United Kingdom, John Hirst, a leading conservative Republican
has said that all this has gone and no alternative
focus of civic loyalty and allegiance has replaced it.
John Hirst's view is that having moved away from Britain
and the Monarchy, Australians of today no longer readily
accept the appropriateness of the Queen as our Head
of State. For that reason, Hirst suggests that there
is a void in our national consciousness about our Head
of State. In effect, Hirst believes we are in a kind
of transition zone.
It seems to me to be self evident that the Queen is
no longer quite acceptable as our Head of State - for
example, no body really wants her to open the Sydney
Olympic Games - but we haven't quite decided who the
replacement should be. Most people feel that Prince
Charles is not a suitable individual to be our Head
of State, given his views on many things and especially
when there is such a wealth of talent of distinguished
Australians available as alternatives.
The incremental changes towards the Republic I have
referred to have occurred without the formal consent
of the Australian people but I would venture that there
would be few Australians who would disapprove of these
changes, few who would wish to put the clock back to
the era when all important economic and political decisions
were made in London.
Personal
involvement
The defining moment of my realisation that I wanted
an Australian institution for our national Head of State
came in 1992 when one of our Senators asked me to sign
a petition supporting the continuance of the British
monarchy in Australia. After a moment of reflection,
I said I could not support that proposition because
I did not believe the continuance of the monarchy was
appropriate for Australia.
No doubt part of the background to my view was that
as a West Australian I have been very conscious of the
importance of Asia to Australia and of Australia being
perceived as the master of its own destiny in Asia.
These views were reinforced by my years in the Pilbara
where the regional economy was linked closely to Asia
and the fact that the Pilbara has an ethnically diverse
population. As Mayor of Port Hedland, I conducted citizenship
ceremonies where I noticed that many of the new citizens
found Australia's links to the British Monarchy difficult
to understand.
Also, I was in England when the United Kingdom joined
the European Common Market and my impression was that
little consideration was given by the British to the
impact of that decision on the Australian economy. In
joining the Common Market, the British demonstrated
their capacity to do what was right for British national
interests at the time and move on and it seemed to me
that Australia needed to learn to similarly define what
were our national interests and act accordingly.
In 1993, after two prominent Liberal Federal MP's were
reported as supporting discussion of the issue of the
Republic the then WA State President, Bill Hassel circulated
a strongly worded letter in which he criticised these
two MP's and attacked Paul Keating's support of an Australian
Republic as an example of 'Bog Irish Bigotry'.
I and my colleagues in the Kalgoorlie North (Pilbara
and Kimberley Division) of the Liberal Party felt that
the debate on such an important issue should be conducted
on a higher level than claims of Irish based racial
prejudice and accordingly placed a pro-Republic motion
on the agenda of the WA State Conference.
As it happened, in response to the discussion about
a Republic, Paul Filing's Moore division submitted a
motion supporting the continuance of the British monarchy
in Australia. So the stage was set for an interesting
debate at State Conference which that year was held
in Kalgoorlie.
The results of the formal ballots on the motions surprised
many people who assumed that the Liberal party in conservative
Western Australia would be overwhelmingly pro-monarchy.
The pro-monarchy motion form the Moore division received
only 55% of the vote, which meant that 45% of the delegates
were not prepared to endorse the continuance of the
monarchy in Australia.
The pro-Republican motion received 32.4% or one third
of the vote which was regarded as surprisingly high
at that time. If the two lots of figures are considered
together that would mean that another 13% of the delegates
were not willing to support continuation of the monarchy
but were uncertain about a republic. Thus, in total,
45% of delegates did not wish to continue with a monarchy.
I think that this ties in very interestingly with John
Hirst's view that there is a void in the national consciousness
about our Head of State. That is, these results suggest
that as long as four years ago in the conservative Liberal
Party of Western Australia almost half of the delegates
did not support the continuance of the monarchy on Australia
- but where not totally sure what they wanted to replace
the monarchy with.
You may not be surprised to hear that while I was Mayor,
the Port Hedland Town Council made pro-republic submissions
to both the Turnbull committee and to the WA Government's
Constitutional Commission.
With that record, when I was elected to the Senate last
year, the ARM invited me to become a WA co-patron which
I decided to accept. The other co-patrons include some
very prominent Western Australians.
More recently because I have felt there was a need to
encourage Liberal supporters of a republic to identify
themselves and also to balance the rather left wing
flavour of the ARM, I convened a group called "Liberals
for a Republic" in WA of which membership is growing
steadily.
A chapter of "Liberals for a Republic" has been set
up in South Australia under the Chairmanship of Andrew
Southcott and there are moves in train to establish
groups in NSW, Tasmania and Victoria.
I think the political significance of the Republic issue
for the Liberal Party is that most younger voters support
the concept of an Australian Head of State and unless
the Liberal Party is at least seen to be open minded
on the question of the Republic we run the risk of being
perceived by younger voters as a Party unnecessarily
clinging to the symbols of the past rather than looking
to the future. In a way, the Republic issue can be regarded
as a kind of litmus test of relevance to the aspirations
of young Australians as the 21st century approaches.
Statistical
Snapshot
So where is Australian public opinion now on the subject
of the Republic?
Forty years ago in 1953, 77% of Australians supported
the monarchy and only 15% supported a Republic.
A December 1996 AGB-McNair poll showed a majority of
Australians in all states except Tasmania supported
a conversion to a Republic; which has been confirmed
by the September 1997 Newspoll conducted for The Australian
which stated that 54 % of Australians favoured a Republic,
while 30% supported the monarchy, with 16% undecided.
Is it a matter of an idea which has reached its time?
Personally, I think that this is the case.
What
format do I support for an Australian Republic?
I
support a largely ceremonial Head of State to replace
the Governor General and a system which preserves the
Westminster style of Government. That is, with the Prime
Minister and Cabinet being drawn from and responsible
to the Parliament. I do not believe Australians want
to abandon the Westminster parliamentary system in favour
of an executive Presidency on the American or French
model. I believe, the Head of State should be appointed
for a single fixed term of five years.
I would like to deal with some of the commonly used
arguments against the change to a Republic. Some misconceptions
and myths if I might put it that way.
The present system works well so why change it?
I think the real issue is the question of appropriateness.
Symbols of national values are important to any nation
and the monarchy does not symbolise the values Australia
stands for. A monarch selected on a hereditary basis
and which gives preference to males is not a modern
Australian ideal. By instituting an Australian Head
of State we have the opportunity to honour a distinguished
Australian by making that individual the symbolic head
of our nation.
There are more pressing issues
Perhaps, but it is also true that "man does not live
by bread alone". One of the reasons why the United States
is such a great country is that Americans have a very
well developed sense of national identity which undoubtedly
comes from the fact that they defined who they were
and what they believed it meant to be an American in
the Declaration of Independence and armed with that
belief fought the War of Independence to establish their
Nation. I believe the Republic debate will be good for
Australia in the sense that it will make us as a nation
take time to focus on who we are and what we stand for,
and that the conversion of the Commonwealth to a Republic
will strengthen our sense of 'National Identity', and
I think that can only be good for Australia.
A
Republican Head of State will be political whereas the
monarchy is not
This depends on the system devised to select a President,
but it will be no more political that the Governor General
or the Queen. Both of whom chair the executive council,
sign bills into law, seek and give advice to the Prime
Minister.
I believe direct election of the Head of State will
inevitably become politicised and would result in the
major parties running candidates. For that reason I
support the idea of appointment by an electoral college,
which would see people like the recent Governors General
enlisted as Republican Heads of State. What form such
an electoral college should take is open for debate.
A common proposal is that the President or Head of State
should be elected by a two thirds majority of a joint
sitting of both Houses of Parliament. In Germany, the
President is chosen by an electoral college made up
of delegates of the State and Federal parliaments.
Many other formats have been suggested. What do you
think would be acceptable to the Australian public ?
A Republican Constitution is too difficult to draft
Conservative lawyers such as Sir Harry Gibbs have made
fuss of the difficultly of drafting a set of words for
a Republic constitution which would recreate the balances
and political stability enjoyed by Australia under the
present arrangements. Without doubt, the task will be
complex, but I have long suspected more was being made
of this difficultly than needed to be. To me, it has
never been credible for monarchists to argue that, in
a nation which has produced so many brilliant, clear
thinking lawyers as Australia, a constitution could
not be written which protected and preserved the rights
of the Australian people, entrenched responsible parliamentary
government under a Prime Minister and cabinet and created
an institution for a Head of State not only having clearly
designed and limited powers but also embodying formulae
for the democratic means of resolution of crises should
the good government of the Commonwealth be in jeopardy.
What about a 1975 situation?
A Republican Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia
could include provision for the President to call an
election when he or she believed that the good government
of the Commonwealth was in jeopardy and just as in 1975,
the people could decide the issue.
What about the Australian States?
If the Commonwealth became a Republic it wouldn't matter
in the interim if the States wanted to remain monarchies.
This is the view of Professor George Winterton. The
Federal Republican Constitution could accommodate the
status of both monarchal and Republican states. In due
course, I believe that the States would adopt a Republican
mode.
We will no longer be 'The Commonwealth of Australia'
This is not true. The term 'Commonwealth' is really
another word for 'Republic'. Sir Henry Parkes took the
name from Cromwell's Commonwealth.
In
conclusion
The
time is right.
The circumstances of the 1990's are now very different
for Australia than at other times in our history when
Republican sentiment existed. Today the key constraints
of security and trade which made it impractical for
Australia to adopt a Republican constitution in the
past no longer apply.
Sir Richard Woolcott, former Australian Ambassador to
the Untied Nations and former head of the Department
of Foreign Affairs and Trade made a compelling case
for Australia to have an Australian Head of State in
a speech given last year, copies of which I have here
for your interest tonight.
Lord McAlpine, former Deputy Chairman of the British
conservative party, in his recently publicised book
Once a Jolly Bagman, wrote:
The monarchy is thoroughly good for Britain and should
continue. However, it does nothing for the Australians.
Take the simple proposition of a State visit to Japan.
The Queen goes there to sell Britain, and often her
visit will be timed to coincide with a British trade
mission. She does not promote Australian trade interests
in Japan or anywhere else. The monarchy is a thing
of the past in Australia; Australia will never truly
be a nation while the monarchy lasts there.
Very
powerful words indeed from a senior member of the British
Conservative party.
Finally, to me the question of the Republic is a question
of national maturity and national identity.
It is hard for me to comprehend the relevance of a foreign
monarch to Australians of the 1990's let alone understand
how migrants and the youth of Australia comprehend the
relevance of the British monarchy in their day to day
experience of being 'Australian', or how our regional
neighbours work through the implications of the Australian
Head of State being the monarch of a former European
imperial power who lives on the far side of the globe.
Contemporary Australia has carved out its own role in
the world and just as in the mid eighties we took charge
of our legal affairs by ending Australian appeals to
the Privy Council in London, it is now appropriate for
us to take charge of the political affairs by creating
an Australian institution for our national Head of State
and in so doing converting the Commonwealth of Australia
to a Republic.
I would suggest that the only real question which remains
is that of 'when' will the change occur.
As the polls show ever increasing support for the conversion,
I think the tide of history is running in favour of
an Australian Republic and I do not think the time of
change is very far away.
|
