Where to from here?

Speech by Nicola Roxon MP to ARM ACT Annual Dinner
03 June 2006

You have organised this event with a great sense of timing. You couldn't have done better as we dissect "where to from here" after such a colourful week in Parliament!

People might say that those of us committed to Australia becoming a republic have missed our chance and it isn't going to happen in our lifetime - but, after this week, I reckon ruling anything out in politics ever seems just plain silly.

I bet you there are a few Nationals whose heads are spinning this week after discovering they might soon turn into "New Liberals".

And instead of seeing the ghosts of Black Jack McEwen threatening against such a merger, you have Doug Anthony acknowledging the writing is on the wall and admitting it is time for conservatives to unite.

If Barnaby Joyce (or Barnaby Rubble as he is called by my colleagues) could end up in bed with the rather more urbane and erudite George Brandis (fondly remembered for his kind description of the Prime Minister as the "rodent") then anything is possible.

Next we will have Tony Abbott repenting his ways, and calling for an Australian President - only on the condition that the first one be George Pell? Or maybe even John Howard?

But enough of this fun - I know this is a cross party group and not the time or place for partisanship.

What it is the time and place for, though, is to look seriously at what options we have in the coming years and, to be frank, the variables in the Coalition provide for much more fertile speculation than on our side of the fence.

A strength for Labor has been that we have supported a republic for a long time, and at every opportunity. There are differences amongst us on methods of electing a President and the form a republic should take - but being a republican is a core condition of membership to the caucus.

We see our differences as reflective of those within the community (and indeed in ARM) where we can all argue of the detail of the type of republic we want. Our proposal for a way forward on this is to have a number of plebiscites to allow the community to resolve the key contests and then put the most favoured position to the public in a referendum.

So despite the endless (and tedious to us) speculation about leadership one thing that is immutable is that any future leader or deputy leader of the Labor party and the next Labor Prime Minister will be a republican.

Speculation about the Liberal party leadership may also be tedious to them - but it is certainly much more interesting in terms of where it might take the push for a republic. The known component is that Howard opposes a change and Costello supports a modest one.

But let's look beyond this.

Costello is not the only leadership contender, and those with their eye on the Deputy's position range from fervent monarchists like Abbott, to active republicans like Julie Bishop.

But there is plenty more variety if you consider Downer (a monarchist), Turnbull (a republican) or Nelson (an unknown as far as I am aware).

A divergence of views in a new leadership team whilst still in Government would almost certainly put a stop to any new referendum. But a divergence in the coalition leadership team in opposition might be a different story.

And the instability in the National Party could take this a step further. There were more nationals supporting change than is often acknowledged. Vaile is a Republican - but if he fell over who would the next Nationals leader be and what are their predilections? Most of the Nationals seem to studiously avoid pinning the colours to the mast on the issue.

Even though it seems quite clear to me that a Labor Government is a pre-requisite for another shot at change, at least in the short term, it is important for us to keep fostering republicanism in the other camp because we know from experience that bipartisan support is compulsory when it comes to a referendum.

I am doing my part to reach across the partisan divide by working with Mitch Fifield and Natasha Stott-Despoja to establish Parliamentarians for an Australian Head of State. The goal of the group is to keep the dream alive on capital hill, and of course to recruit MPs and Senators to the cause.

Mitch points out that a slim majority of Liberal candidates for election are already republicans, so there is cause for optimism. Providing opportunities for those secret cells of Liberal republicans to meet far from the Prime Ministers office is surely a good thing?

That is the personal politics of republicanism, but we also have to remember that there are deeper intellectual arguments still to be had.

It would be a big mistake for us to think that republicanism's lack of progress is a simple matter of arithmetic and personalities - even if those are important.

We republicans are rightly confident that we have the better ideas, but we can't afford to be smug. We still need to develop those arguments and put them forward to convince others.

1999 taught us we have to change people's votes to win - we can't assume everyone will see the sense of our views. And if we are to win their votes, we first need to convince the minds of our compatriots.

Over the last fifteen years, if there has a deficit in our intellectual armoury it has been on the negative arguments - the arguments against monarchy.

By nature, we are a forward thinking mob, so we tend to want to talk about the positive arguments - that being a republic would allow us to present a more confident independent face to the world or that one of our own is good enough to be head of state. These are true and powerful arguments.

But we have been a bit too polite when it comes to undermining the other side. In partisan politics this would be considered bizarre. Of course you want to emphasise the strengths of your own side, but if you fail to point out your opponents weaknesses you are doing only half the job.

Of course, the Constitutional Monarchists haven't returned the favour.

Quite the opposite, in 1999 their entire argument was a negative one. Remember the extraordinary rhetoric that equated republicanism with authoritarianism, pointing out that Iraq, the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were all republics?

I don't suggest we should stoop to that level of misinformation, but we definitely need to sharpen our attack on the institution of monarchy.

The best thing is, they are such an easy target.

I mean, seriously, if anyone were designing a constitution from scratch who would decide that a monarchy was the best model for national leadership?

Imagine selecting a person - even an exceptionally talented leader - and saying ‘Right, we are on to a real winner here. He's not just fabulous, but he is so extraordinarily fabulous that he must have fabulous genetic stock too. Let's give this guy the job for life, and then we he dies give it to the first born son, grandson and great-grandson forever more.'

The idea is ridiculous as it sounds.

For one thing, we know the pitfalls of having leaders who hang around too long - just ask Peter Costello.

But the idea that the virtues of a good leader - wisdom, courage, decisiveness, compassion, whatever you think they are - can be passed on not just through generations but down the male blood line in particular is utterly bizarre.

Perhaps as a woman community leader I'd like to think that leadership lives in the head, not further south in the more nether regions!

The Chinese have a nice saying that recognises the unreliability of genetics. They say, while it may take several generations to build a fortune, a fortune cannot survive three generations. The reasoning is that the grandchild of a self-made person, having no appreciation of life without wealth, can always be relied on to squander their ancestors' hard-earned.

The three generation rule seems to be as true in competence at the skills of government as it is in the skills of business. I am sure, for example, that Sir Robert Downer, the Foreign Minister's grandfather, would have been a man to read his cables - and avoid fishnet stockings in public.

Of course, at this point the Constitutional Monarchists will ark up with their refrain - ‘Ah ha, that is why we limit the monarch's role with constitutional conventions'.

But, in a sense, that is even more moronic. At least the supporters of absolute monarchy are living in a coherent fantasy world. In contrast, constitutional monarchists recognise the myth at the centre of their beliefs and then construct some pragmatic rules to keep it in check. Surely, if you understand the nonsense at the heart of monarchy, you would want to be rid of it, not keep it hanging around as some sort of memento of our more superstitious, less democratic history.

Of course, the United Kingdom's constitution wasn't written from scratch. At the time constitutional monarchy developed as a theory it wasn't moronic, it was a compromise - between absolute monarchism and the more liberal minded thinkers emerging through the British enlightenment. They would turn in their graves, I suspect, were they to see the likes of David Flint or Tony Abbott suggesting that their compromise was the final destination for democratic progress.

But let's look at a few places where constitutions are being written on blanker slates. None even consider monarchy as an option.

From an Australian perspective, there are three obvious examples worth looking at: East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. They are interesting because, although Australia was closely involved in negotiating new political settlements in these countries, in none of them did our Government ever suggest constitutional monarchy - despite having monarchists as both Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

It was a good idea not to, because they would have been totally ignored.

Having thrown off the yoke of foreign occupation the East Timorese were never going to accept any system that wasn't entirely democratic. Mischievous monarchists will probably point the finger at republicanism for the current strife in East Timor, but let's for a moment consider the counter-factual of East Timor as a constitutional monarchy. Paul Kelly recently made the point that East Timor is currently going through something like the crisis we had in 1975 - a political tussle between the President and Prime Minister. Of course, the stakes are even higher in East Timor because there has also been a breakdown in law and order and a split within the armed forces - but at the political level there are real comparisons with November 1975.

In that respect, East Timor is better served by being a republic. This power struggle can be resolved according to written constitutional laws, not unwritten conventions. And, because he has been chosen by the people, they have a head of state who commands genuine respect, affection and legitimacy and is therefore a person best placed to calm the situation. Imagine if instead of Xanana Gusmao the East Timorese had to rely on Sir John Kerr, as the representative of a distant foreign monarch, to restore order. One shudders at the thought.

In Iraq, Australia went to war to overthrow a dictator. Since the war ended, Mr Howard's pre-war justifications have been as hard to locate as the alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction - he just doesn't utter them any more. Instead, he now maintains the war was to bring democracy to Iraq.

Interesting it is, then, that there was no serious consideration of imposing a monarch on Iraq. Unsurprisingly, the only person who has expressed any interest in the idea was the very man who claimed to be the heir to the throne!

Even in Afghanistan, where the former King Mohammed Zahir Shah was still alive, there was little chance of a reversion to monarchy after Australia participated in the coalition to remove the Taliban. Whilst commanding some strong affection, the former King in fact ruled himself out (thereby ruling the monarchy out) and threw his support behind Hamid Karzai, now President of Afghanistan. The former King did play an important political role, convening the Loya Jirga - a meeting of the various tribal groupings in the country to determine the political path forward. But no real movement called for his re-ascension to the throne and he used his remaining good will to support a true democratic process.

Given our Prime Minister's views, why is it that when Australia plays a part in establishing new democracies around the world we never press for, or even as much as suggest, that they copy our own model?

If constitutional monarchy is good enough for us, why isn't it ‘export quality'?

If we can presume to export liberal democracy, why leave out this supposedly crucial element of our own system?

The obvious reason is that constitutional monarchy holds no water in the 21st century. If the turmoil of the last century achieved anything, it was victory for liberal democratic values: human rights, equality and non-discrimination, freedom and meritocracy.

With its prejudiced rules based on preferment, nepotism, sexism, and too often religious and ethnic intolerance, monarchy mocks these values.

Whatever you think of the ethics or good sense of the Prime Minister's brand of muscular democratic interventionism, it would lose any semblance of credibility if it involved spreading the word of constitutional monarchy.

So it is no surprise at all that Mr Howard is only a monarchist at home.

What are the arguments for monarchy here then? If it isn't credible abroad, why on earth is it credible in Australia?

The stock standard response is ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' In other words, even though monarchy is clearly a stupid idea for any country designing a new constitution, those of us already lumbered with the institution should just keep on carrying on, rather than risk upsetting the constitutional apple cart.

Of course, that is the easiest of all arguments to dismiss. Monarchy is broken. If Australia wants to be a 21st century democracy, we should be practicing what we preach, not indulging a relic of our pre-democratic British legacy. Australia's egalitarian, fair go values are just incompatible with a hereditary head of state.

And no matter how much the Windsor's try to ‘modernise' by presenting themselves as middle class, down-to-earth monarchs in the Scandinavian mould, the prejudice at the heart of the arrangement is unavoidable. This was seen most recently in the bizarre arrangements reached to allow the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. It was decided that she could not be Queen because she is a divorcee, and worse still, her first husband was a Catholic. Some arrangement has been reached where she will be called the Princess Consort. Given that a fair chunk of Australians are divorcees, and even bigger chunk are Catholics, how comfortable can we really be with the idea that our Royal system discriminates so overtly against them?

What of some of the more serious arguments for monarchy?

The monarchists argue that a hereditary head of state, fully outside partisan politics, brings a level of stability to Government that protects us against social breakdown or authoritarianism. At least that is what was implied in their scare campaign of 1999, when they warned that becoming a republic was a short step to an Australian Third Reich. This was always an infuriating argument - that conveniently ignored the success of so many long-standing republics, most notably the United States, still going pretty strong after 217 years.

But I would love to see Tony Abbot try to explain the stabilising effects of constitutional monarchy to the good people of Nepal. You will recall that in 2001 almost the entire Royal family was killed in a massacre that is understood to have been carried out by the Crown Prince. Since then, things got a lot worse. The new King Gyanendra, the former King's brother, didn't feel comfortable in the constraints of constitutional monarchy. After sacking three elected governments in three years he decided to do away with elected governments altogether, and from February 2005 exercised direct personal control. Given the fact that his only claim to leadership was the circumstances of his birth, it was not surprising that his personal rule was an astonishing failure. The conflict with Maoist rebels worsened, with the rebels taking control of ever more territory.

Last month, after mass strikes and protests in which 23 people were killed and thousands more injured, the parliament finally seized back control, with all the parliamentary parties uniting to pass what they proudly call the Nepalese Magna Carta. It is a great moment for that country and we should all wish them the best.

But the example does show that constitutional monarchy is no protection against authoritarianism. Of course, Nepal's 15 year history of constitutional monarchy doesn't compare with Britain's 320 years of experience. But neither does Australia compare with Weimar Germany or Ba'athist Iraq, comparisons the monarchists like to draw.

The real lesson from Nepal is that best protection against authoritarianism is a population who believe in democratic values and are prepared to fight for them. And it seems to me that we could only strengthen those values in Australia by removing the vestiges of monarchy, in favour of a democratic head of state.

The last argument for monarchy I want to dispense with is a more complex one. It was expressed by the great English constitutional lawyer, William Bagehot who said:

Royalty is a Government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a Government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting things.

The churlish part of me wants to say that if interestingness is the best criteria for leadership, we should have all national decisions made by the Big Brother house.

But I take Bagehot to be expressing another idea - that the interestingness of royalty goes to creating a focal point for the nation, a sort of glue that holds the nation together.

I am sure I would have disagreed with him in the 19th century, but it is even more wrong now. In the world we live in, the contribution of monarchy to our national identity is negligible, if it even exists. For one thing, the Royal family is far from the most interesting thing to watch.

The most interesting thing that the Queen has done lately was have her portrait painted by Rolf Harris! Even the Brangelina baby has probably occupied more column inches in recent weeks than the Queen might expect to in a year.

Meanwhile, we have much else to forge and sustain a national identity than a distant foreigner. We can celebrate our multiculturalism, our tolerant values, our nobel prize winning stomach ulcer scientists, the success of our films in Cannes, the Socceroos even being in Germany or the campaign to reclaim the ashes this Summer.

Does anyone really think that some myth of shared affection for the Queen, her heirs and successors does more to sustain Australianness than any of these achievements - achievements that result from hard work, imagination and generosity of spirit that is truly home grown?

Republicans, I have only tried to give you a taste of what we find when we really apply the intellectual blow-torch to monarchy. If republicanism is to gain momentum, this has to part of the strategy. But we can't let the monarchists get away without scrutiny. The fact is that their arguments are not just out-dated, they are ridiculous.

We should certainly keep emphasising the positives of Australian republicanism. There is no doubt in my mind that under an Australian head of state we would be an even more confident and secure democracy, and seen as such by the rest of the world.

Nicola Roxon is the federal Shadow Attorney-General and co-Convenor of Parliamentarians for an Australian Head of State.