Judith Sutton was the North Coast Forum Convenor of the Australian Republican Movement

When the First Fleet anchored in Sydney Cove, filled with convicts and their gaolers, they were here as a result of a revolution. The American Colonies had rebelled and declared their independence from the Crown in 1776. America was now closed as a dumping ground for the living results of high unemployment, no social services and the subsequent soaring crime rate. A year after the struggling colony on the Tank Stream was founded, in far off France, a revolution had begun which was to imprint fear in British minds for many generations to come. The French beheaded their King. In 1649, of course, the subjects of the United Kingdom had beheaded King Charles I,but that was a faded curiosity of history by then. So was the Commonwealth that followed.

Thus Australia began between these revolutions, you can imagine that when the few educated people here gathered, the talk would turn to these events, exciting the minds of those present with horrifying images. Fear of rebellion gripped the officer class in this isolated outpost, giving further excuse for ruthless suppression. So successful were they that there is no evidence of any republican movement in those early years, even though 600 Irish rebels were transported for sedition between 1791 and 1803.

In our first century, republican ideas were used to gain advantage from a Colonial Office sensitive to the enormous loss of America. The threat of separation was used to procure political rights, trial by jury, independent theatre and a free press. Mostly, the threats were used as bluff and subsided when the current grievance was rectified. In 1824, William Wentworth, son of convicts and of Blue Mountains fame had risen so far as to publish the Australian which he declared to be "independent yet consistent - free but not licentious". Soon Governor Darling was seeking to limit the freedom of the press through the newly created Legislative Council in order to limit the spread of, to him, seditious Yankee principles. So we know that republican sentiments were being aired but no republican organisation of any sort was in place. The tyrannical governor had merely caused friction near a flickering flame, igniting a few bravely out spoken individuals.

No history in a nut shell could fail to mention John Dunmore Lang, Australia's first openly avowed republican. That he had popular support is evidenced by his long history as an elected politician., elected what's more after a series of lectures called The Coming Event, advocating republican government for the Australian Colonies. He had the colony's leading radical journal and its leading political strategist, young Henry Parkes, on side to see him elected to the Legislative Council in Sydney. In the lead up to self rule in 1856, republicanism was highly visible in public debate. Again it was successfully used as a threat to a nervous Colonial Office in London. Against the wishes of the free colonists, the Colonial Office had long delayed the end to transportation of convicts and separation was canvassed in all the colonies.

Separation could only mean one thing - a republic. Resistance to tyranny featured strongly in the rhetoric of the day, although except for Lang and his close associates, it was a matter for regret for many that the old country was forcing them to this extreme. Protecting the spirit of the freedoms inherent in the English Constitution was still a cherished goal, freedoms which the colonists believed were being denied them. So the pressure mounted that culminated in both self government and the end of transportation. Australians had successfully achieved their demands by constitutional means, setting a precedence that we still follow. Talk of the coming republic faded. Henry Parkes, now opposing Lang, had come to see a republic as a last resort, maybe inevitable but not yet.

Parkes, of course, was later knighted and as Sir Henry, became the Father of Federation. The struggle for Federation was preceded by another burst of republican activity in the late 1880's. The Queen's Jubilee in 1887 was a time of unveiling the numerous bronze statues of Queen Victoria that still make wonderful pigeon roosts in our cities and, presumably, throughout the Empire. So sudden was the backlash that within three weeks of the last Jubilee event, there was a republican union, a republican journal and the defiantly republican Bulletin. The following year was the Centenary of the Australian Colonies. 1888 was a time of assertion of a distinctly Australian national identity, especially in the pages of J.F. Archibald's Bulletin. It was a sexist, racist isolationist and protectionist form of nationalism. Again the Australian Republic was an idea whose time had not yet come. Again the possibility of separation had been used to alarm the British Government into seriously considering colonial demands.

In the middle of 1889, Henry Parkes made the moves that inevitably led to Federation. Fear of a defenceless Australia cut adrift in the Southern Ocean, the 1890's recession and political energy going into the organisation of labour unions and the push for Federation combined to once more marginalise the republican debate. Sir Henry Parkes, acknowledged that the republic was probably inevitable but not yet. Pushing for Federation was a more pressing date with history for this once radical young man, now a stalwart of the Establishment. So the Commonwealth of Australia came into being under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The name itself remains a kind of two way bet: a government formed for the common good (republica in Latin) harked back to the English Commonwealth and its aftermath, the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Listen to this exchange in the Federation Convention debates:

Sir John Downer: The popular understanding of the word Commonwealth is certainly connected with republican times.
Mr Deakin: No!
Sir John Downer: It is, in my opinion connected with republican times, and it is certainly disconnected with that loyalty which we all...feel towards the Crown.
Mr Deakin: The most glorious period of English history!
Mr Clark: Hear! Hear!
Dr Cockburn: Was it under the Crown?
Mr Deakin: There was then no Crown!

Fast forward to the 1990's, it is fascinating that again the Australian people are engaging in a republican debate coming up to the Millennium. No wonder Malcolm Turnbull named his book which has acted as a catalyst, The Reluctant Republic. Once again we hear around umpteen dinner tables, in clubs and pubs across the land, the statement that the Australian republic is inevitable and fewer and fewer Australians are adding but not yet. When constitutional change is being sought so patiently in the towns and cities across Australia, through the media, by writing and meetings, who can rationally claim to feel fear of blood staining the wattle? When we have demonstrated our ability to organise our own affairs for almost one hundred years of peaceful democracy, how can anyone honestly believe that making our head of state one of our own citizens would result in instability? We are one of the world's oldest democracies. I have confidence that we can debate the issues needing to be resolved. It might get a bit tedious but I'm sure we'll manage. It is not as if we have to debate the whole document or write it as the Founding Fathers did. With all the information technology we now have we should be able to communicate the necessary information with time to spare by the Year 2000. It will take some political determination. We cannot expect to wake up one morning to find we are in a republic without some effort.

The Australian Republican Movement believes that it is inappropriate that the Constitution states that Australia is established "under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". That it was so is a matter of history. That remains so, is inappropriate in the Constitution of an independent nation. The ARM believes Australians should be sovereign citizens rather than subjects of an hereditary, sectarian monarch. The move to a republic would confirm the sovereignty of the Australian people in our successful system of parliamentary democracy while retaining the fundamental principles of our current form of government. This will mean that we can have an Australian as Head of State; a person who will be responsible to the Australian people, and who represents Australian values.

We are not defined by race or religion or cultural background, but we are committed to this land above all others. We are committed to our own unique democracy and democratic institutions. Although we are diverse, we are united by geography, our identity as Australians and by our future, and that of our children. The British Queen has been made Queen of Australia but she can never be an Australian Queen. She cannot represent many of the people who now make up Australia. It has become an Australian characteristic to promote merit rather than birthright. The institution of the British monarchy, like monarchies in other times and places, embodies discrimination on the grounds of gender and religion. Discrimination on the grounds of religion is unconstitutional under the Australian Constitution and discrimination on the grounds of gender is illegal with few exceptions under our law. The monarchy symbolises our past; the republic, our future. It is a natural step towards fully realising Australia's democratic and egalitarian traditions. It is as natural as putting a full stop at the end of a sentence before starting a new one.

The Australian Republican Movement's proposals derive from the Republican Advisory Committee's findings in attending especially convened meetings across Australia and the Advisory Committee Report became the basis of Prime Minister Paul Keating's The Way Forward speech delivered in the House of Representatives 7 Jun 95. There were some surprises for the ARM, however, notably that he had decided to leave the Reserve Powers unwritten, contrary to the recommendations of the Advisory Committee. John Howard, as Opposition Leader, gave an inconclusive statement, mentioning Alexander Downer's Peoples' Convention. Maybe inspired by Mr Downer's forebear's participation in the 1890's Federation Conventions, which were quite different, being politicians from each colony, the Convention remains a nebulous blob on the horizon of our future. I quote: "No matter who wins the next election, the Australian people will vote about the republic. Therefore no person who wants a republic should feel that it should in any way influence his or her vote." - from the Federal Coalition's Position on Constitutional Change, a document provided on request to the ARM. Yet we have seen very little indeed from the Government on this issue since the election. Maybe this Australia Day will see some movement at the station, for the word has passed around that Tim Fischer will gather to the fray. The acting Prime Minister has been bush walking up Snowy River way and I'm reliably told he may have something further to say on the republic shortly.

This inappropriate constitutional arrangement is looking and sounding more obsolete by the day. The idea of a Royal Family member of any generation opening the Olympic Games is greeted with derision. The silliness of toasting the Head of State of another country when a foreign Head of State visits our country is embarrassing and smacks of a colonialism we no longer tolerate. When President Clinton visited recently, a letter writer to the Sydney Morning Herald wrote of seeing the formalities in Canberra with the Loyal Toast and knowing that the republic was an idea whose time had come by the discomfort displayed in the body language of the participants. Our diplomats tell us of time spent trying to explain our independent nation status in Asia and it can't be made to sound convincing. The Australian Republic should not be made to wait any longer. We want no concessions, permissions, conditions from Britain. We do not part in bad feeling. It just that we have a place of our own for which we are responsible. Are we ready? Yes we R!

Let the final word go to the instigator of the "idea whose time has come" phrase. Victor Hugo said it back in the Revolution of 1848 in France:

"There is one thing stronger than all the kings and queens and all the armies of the world combined, and that is the power of an idea whose time has come."

Thanks to our British traditions of parliamentary democracy, we can negotiate our way to the changes we need to make without the revolution!

Acknowledgement: Information from The Captive Republic by Mark McKenna, Cambridge University Press 1996 ISBN 0 521 57258 4 (Hardback) and ARM papers.