Address by Malcolm Turnbull to the National Press Club, 18 March 1992

Malcolm Turnbull is the Chairman of the Australian Republican Movement

I believe that our development as a more patriotic, more independent nation is being retarded by the fact that we have a foreigner as our Head of State. We may have a Queen of Australia, but we do not have an Australian Queen. National sovereignty involves many facets, but among the most important is that a nation's constitutional and political structure is entirely indigenous. The leaders of a nation are appointed by, and are responsible to, the people and the institutions of that nation and no other.

It is no good monarchists pretending that the Queen is an Australian institution or that somehow or other her presence at the top of our constitutional pyramid is consistent with Australia's sovereignty as an independent nation. The historical truth is that the Queen is our Head of State because in 1901, when our Constitution came into effect, Australia was no more than a self governing colony within the British Empire. Our Constitution decrees that our Queen shall be Queen Victoria and her successors "in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom." That succession can be, and has been, changed by the British Parliament, but not by ours. If Prince Charles embraces Roman Catholicism he will not be able to succeed to the throne of our supposedly secular Commonwealth. If Britain becomes a Republic, its first President will automatically become our Head of State.

While constitutional practice has changed the colonial status of Australia, it is naive to imagine our Head of State is anything other than the last British Imperial institution in Australia. The powers of the Queen, under our Constitution, are basically three:

1. She has the power to appoint, instruct and remove the Governor General (Section 2)

2. She has the power to approve or disapprove legislation reserved, by the Governor General for her pleasure (Sections 58 and 60) and

3. She has the power to over ride the approval of the Governor General and annul a law validly enacted up to one year previously (Section 59)

I should note that this third power (under section 59) is by no means of academic interest only. The Keating Government could, for example, propose legislation which is approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the Governor General. The new law could be proclaimed and enforced throughout the Commonwealth. A Hewson Government could be elected a year later, but without control of the Senate. Mr Hewson could advise his Queen to exercise her power under section 59 and annul a law by Royal decree which he lacked the parliamentary support to do by conventional means.

The Australian Constitution gave extraordinarily wide powers to the Queen, wider than she wielded in the United Kingdom. The British Government thereby reserved to itself the power to intervene in Australian affairs in much the same way a State Government in Australia can intervene and dismiss if necessary a local council.

When you see the word "Queen" in our Constitution it is easy to construe it as meaning (in today's usage) the Queen of Australia acting on the advice of her Australian ministers. But in 1901 it meant the British Crown acting on the advice of its Government in Whitehall. The Founding Fathers of Federation had no aspirations to independence. Edmund Barton observed[1] there was no need for the Constitution to give the Commonwealth Government a power to contract Treaties with other powers, as that was a function of the Imperial (ie British) Government. Sir George Reid agreed:

"This [reference to treaties] is an expression which would be more in place in the United States constitution where treaties are dealt with by the President and the Senate than in the constitution of a colony within the empire."

In the first three decades of this century the Governor General was first and foremost the representative of the British Government in Australia. He was appointed by Whitehall and he was responsible to it. Indeed it was not until 1938 that Britain felt the need to appoint a High Commissioner to Australia. Until the Second World War Australia did not have any diplomatic representatives. It was a member of the League of Nations, but then so was India and no one suggested it was independent. Australia did not even claim the right to declare war or peace. War was declared by the King for the Empire, and Australia followed the Empire in 1939 as much as it had in 1914.

In those days, and for many decades to come, Australians were British subjects. They saw themselves as Britons living in Australia. They were an autonomous political sub unit of the British Empire. If nation and nationhood require a belief in a separate and independent destiny, then Australia was not a nation.

This may be regarded today as another symptom of Australia's confused sense of identity. I would not agree with that characterisation and latter day Australian nationalists should be wary of vilifying their ancestors for lack of patriotism. Australia was, until relatively recent years, almost entirely composed of settlers from the British Isles. Even today, Australia has a higher percentage of white Caucasians than many parts of the United Kingdom itself. It was only natural that Australians, or people living in Australia, saw themselves as part of the same political unit from which they had spawned. Remember, Australia (unlike parts of the United States) was never colonised by dissenters who wanted to reject the wicked ways of the Old World. Rather the attitude of our forefathers was neatly summed up in the motto of Sydney University "Sidere mens eadem mutato" - "The same mind under different stars."

But, as the decades passed after Federation tensions increasingly developed in the relationship between Britain and its self governing Dominions: Australia, Canada, New Foundland, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State.

Canada, South Africa and Ireland pressed hard for more autonomy and independence. Leaving Ireland aside as a special case with a unique history, it can be seen that Canada and South Africa shared two distinct characteristics which Australia lacked. First their populations were not wholly British; large and influential sections of each had grave reservations about being associated with Britain at all. Second, because of their geography they did not perceive they faced any real threat of invasion. Australia on the other hand possessed an almost entirely British population. More importantly however it saw the Empire as the only possible source of defence in the event, some would have said the inevitable event, of an invasion from Japan.

So during the 1920s in the series of Imperial Conferences leading up to the 1931 Statute of Westminster we see Canada and South Africa forcing the pace of change while Australia (and New Zealand) dragged their heels. Australian politicians of that era, as different as William Morris Hughes and Stanley Melbourne Bruce, rather favoured increased integration of the Empire. They wanted the Empire to speak with one voice, but they wanted that voice to be determined by a consultative process between the United Kingdom and the Dominions.

Again, it is easy to pick out speeches of all of our leaders from those days, Hughes, Scullin, Bruce, Lyons and even Curtin and point to examples of what today appear to be cringing subservience to Britain. As late as 1944 Curtin addressed a meeting of MPs in the House of Commons and said:

"We carry on out there as a British community in the South Seas, and we regard ourselves as the trustees for the British way of life in a part of the world where it is of the utmost significance to the British commonwealth and to the British nation and to the British empire call it by any name that you will that this land should have in the Antipodes a people and a territory corresponding in purpose and in outlook and in race to the Motherland itself."

Apart from the appalling racism which was endemic throughout the Caucasian world, there is nothing shameful about these sentiments. Political integration with Britain and its Empire was never a dishonourable course of action. Australian leaders were seeking a say in the Empire. At the 1943 federal conference of the Labor Party Curtin described the full expression of our responsibilities in the post war era to be "a good Australian, a good British subject and a good world citizen." Or as the conservative politician and judge, Sir John Latham, observed in 1928 "few Australians have the illusion that Australia could maintain her existence as a completely independent State. Alone Australia is weak... As a member of the British Commonwealth, Australia is strong."

However noble ideas of Imperial Federation may have been, the truth was that the tide of history was running quite against it. Britain's idea of Empire was of one dominated by London, and that meant the British Government of the day. Britain was not prepared to share its foreign policy with the Dominions and it preferred to have independent Dominions than have them meddling in what it saw as the concerns of Great Britain itself.

To use a commercial metaphor, the Imperial relationship was rather like that of a family company with grown up children. Some of the children want to move off and start their own businesses. Others want to sit at the board table and jointly direct the enterprise. The patriarch however says: If you will not stay and do as you are told, then you had best leave.

So far from Australia seeking independence, quite the reverse is true. Australia increasingly undertook the responsibilities of nationhood because it had been turned out by its Mother Country. Our nationhood was forced on us. We did not fight for it. Myth makers, particularly on the Left, will tell a different tale and I do not mean to denigrate the Australian nationalism of our early radicals, many of them Republicans, but it is well to remember they did not speak for the majority of Australians.

Given that background it is not surprising that a sense of national identity has been slow in coming. Right through the long reign of Sir Robert Menzies Australians were encouraged to believe they were still both British and Australian. It was conventional within the memory of most of us to fly both the Union Jack and the Australian flag on public buildings. Our national anthem was "God Save the Queen" until relatively recently. There was little emphasis in Australia on that important aspect of separateness and distinction which is crucial to a sense of nationalism. It is only since 1986 that an ultimate Court of Appeal ceased to be a tribunal of English judges, the Privy Council, sitting in London.

In the nine months since the launch of the Australian Republican Movement the Republican debate has progressed considerably. It is now an important and lively subject of discussion. Major newspapers have editorialised in favour of the Republic, the Australian Labor Party has placed a Republican Australia firmly in its national platform. Opinion polls for the first time are showing a majority of Australians in favour of the Republic.

But despite this, some conservatives fail to come to terms with the debate. The most common defence of the Monarchy is a shoulder shrugging "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" cave man conservatism. Consider for a moment where human progress would be if that approach had been taken to art literature, technology or politics? The truth is that all human progress has been based on the desire to make something which is better. Societies which have turned their back on social or political progress have invariably atrophied and collapsed.

Another disappointing conservative response is that recently employed by the Leader of the Opposition who dismisses the Republican movement "as a distraction from the economic issues of the recession." Does he really believe that we are incapable of debating anything other than economic issues, or that Australians are so intellectually deficient they can only concentrate on one issue at a time? The Republican debate is too important to become the subject of conventional party political debate where a cause supported by the Government is automatically opposed by the Opposition.

But for the benefit of Mr Hewson, I would pose this question: Has the success of other nations been advanced, or retarded, by a strong sense of national identity and purpose? Has the economic miracle of Japan or Germany been assisted by their keen focus on national self interest? Was the rise to greatness of the United States assisted by that country's intense patriotism and sense of national mission? I am not saying the Republic will make you rich. But history suggests patriotism is good for business.

But of all the conservative reactions I have heard, the most depressing was that which fell from John Howard when I debated him recently for a television programme. Mr Howard said the Monarchy had given us "decades of stability." I was immediately reminded of Victor Daley's poem about Queen Victoria's sexagenary procession in London in 1897:

"Sixty years she's reigned a holding up the sky
And bringing round the seasons, hot and cold and wet and dry
And in all that time she's never done a deed deserving jail
So let joybells ring out madly and delirium prevail
Oh, the poor will blessings pour on the Queen whom they adore
When she blinks with puffy eyes at them, they'll hunger never more."

The political stability of Australia is a tribute to the political stability of Australians, not the grace and favour of their long-distance monarch. The same monarch reigned over Fiji and did not seem to faze Colonel Rambuka, and the Queen of Grenada was unable to prevent the United States marines imposing their idea of political stability on that country. John Howard's remark, which I am sure he now regrets, is a typical example of how too many of our leaders sub consciously underrate themselves and the people that elected them.

The Australian Republican Movement's platform will enhance and strengthen our parliamentary system of democracy. These are our goals:

1. Australia should have a Head of State who is an Australian citizen, who is appointed by Australians and who unequivocally represents the sovereign, independent nation of Australia. When Australians swear an oath of allegiance it should be sworn to their nation and constitution and not, as at present, to the Queen of another country.

2. The new Head of State to be called "the President of Australia" shall no more powers or functions than the Governor General. Australia will retain it's parliamentary form of Government. The President (like the Governor General) will act only on the advice of the duly elected Government. The President will not have any of the executive powers held, for example, by the Presidents of the United States or France.

3. The President will be elected for a five year term. He or she must be an Australian adult citizen. The President will be nominated by the government of the day in the House of Representatives and the appointment will require the ratification of both Houses of Parliament. The President will similarly be capable of being removed by a vote of both Houses of Parliament. During any vacancy in the office of President, or during the Presidents absence from Australia, the functions of the Presidency will be carried out by the Chief Justice of the High Court.

4. Australia will remain a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and will recognise the British monarch as the Head of the Commonwealth in the same way that most Commonwealth nations do. In this way the Queen will be able to fulfil the more appropriate role of representing the ties of kinship and history that link Australia, Great Britain and the other Commonwealth nations.

Because the Presidency is largely a ceremonial post it is not appropriate for the President to be popularly elected. A popularly elected President could easily be tempted into believing that he had a mandate as good as the Prime Minister. The requirement for a majority in both Houses will ensure that nominees have a degree of bipartisan support.

Conservatives who are concerned the Head of State should retain the present important reserve powers will note that a President of the kind proposed could not be summarily dismissed by a Prime Minister who managed to be first to telephone the palace.

The Republican debate is one of the most important confronting us today. Economic issues will come and go, and never be resolved (at least to everyone's satisfaction). But today we are building a nation and there is no worthier enterprise for any of us than that. I imagine there will always be some who will resist the Republic, but few of our critics suggest it is not inevitable.

The puzzling thing about the conservative response to this debate is that a keener sense of national purpose would assist almost every goal aspired to by the Liberal Party. Many Liberals support the Republic of course. Nick Greiner, who has been tactfully sphinx like on this issue, abandoned forever the grant of imperial honours in New South Wales and Mr Hewson does not propose to reinstate them when he becomes Prime Minister.

Everyone agrees we should make a bigger effort to become more involved in our own Asian region. But many Asians are skeptical about our commitment. Are we part of Asia, or are we (spiritually at least) moored in the mid Atlantic between New York and London? I do not believe we should tailor our affairs to gratify our neighbours, but a real nation is perceived as such by other nations. When Indonesians, or Malaysians or Japanese look at our coins, they see the woman they knows to be the Queen of England. And if they are confused, who could blame them.

The Prime Minister has not been slow to recognise the increasing popularity of this cause. Mr Hewson does himself, his party and the nation no good at all in not following suit. Conservatives who fear change to our constitutional system should stop hiding behind the royal petticoats, acknowledge the inevitably of a Republic and constructively participate in the debate about the constitutional changes that are needed to effect it.

It is not just conservatives we need to persuade, of course. Some Australians find it hard to see how such a change could be important. If you believe we should have a Head of State at all, if you believe that office is of importance, then it follows that the Head of State should reinforce the values and interests of our nation above all others. Whatever the Queen may represent to Australians, she does not represent Australia. She does not represent this nation to its own citizens and to the world at large she unequivocally represents Great Britain.

The monarchists of bygone decades genuinely believed that Australia was part of Greater Britain and their patriotism was sincerely a British one. They did not pretend that Australia was, or ought to be independent. Today's monarchists are more disingenuous. They claim to be Australian patriots, they claim Australia is independent but at the same time cling to the last symbol of colonialism. The Australian Republic will put Australia first, and in our hearts at least, Australia should have no other place.

Footnote

[1] Convention Debates, 9 Sept 1897 p.239.