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A
year from now we will have an opportunity to say what
we believe about our Australian community. We will have
a choice to vote to retain the British monarch as our
nation's head of state or to vote to have an Australian
citizen, chosen with the support of both sides of politics,
as our head of state. That decision will be the most
important political choice most of us have ever made.
The proposed constitutional amendment is one which has
been debated for nearly eight years and was finally,
approved by the Constitutional Convention in February
this year.
Calls for a plebiscite on what sort of republican model
should be considered by Australians overlook the reality
of the Constitutional Convention.
The Convention was held in February 1998 in order to
deliberate upon and recommend a republican model to
be put to the people in a referendum. By the end of
the Convention 133 out of 152 delegates voted in favour
of the bi-partisan appointment model being put to the
people in a referendum. Of the seventy six delegates
who were elected by the people, 58 (more than three
quarters) voted in favour of that resolution. Both the
Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition committed
their parties to put that model to the people.
So whether you consider the Convention's outcome by
reference to all the delegates or just those that were
elected, it is clear that were was overwhelming support
for the people being presented with a clear cut choice
between the monarchy, as it is, on the one hand, and
an Australian citizen as our head of state appointed
by a bi-partisan super-majority of Parliament, on the
other.
The changes proposed are very modest. In a nutshell
we would have, in place of the Queen and the Governor-General,
an Australian President whose powers would be identical
to those of the Governor-General. Instead, however,
of being appointed by the Prime Minister (as is the
case with the Governor-General), the President would
be chosen by a two thirds majority of a joint sitting
of both houses of the Federal Parliament with the support
of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
Prime Ministerial power would be reduced and an important
commitment to bi-partisanship made.
The model has been attacked by monarchists who say it
goes too far, and direct electionists who say it does
not go far enough. The monarchists' case is really an
emotional one. If you were to analyse the Convention
model as being, in fact, the status quo minus the Queen
and plus a bi-partisan mode of appointment, it is hard
to see how it could be anything other than an improvement.
Would anyone not applaude John Howard if, for example,
he were to undertake that the next vice-regal appointment
would be made with the support of the Opposition?
The advocates of a directly elected President are, in
most cases, equally emotional. With only a few exceptions,
none of the direct electionists favour a United States
system with an elected President, who is both Head of
State and Head of Government, and a completely separate
legislature, also elected by the people.
Our Australian direct electionists want to give the
people the right to directly elect a President who will
have the same largely ceremonial duties as the Governor-General.
It would be a fraud on the people and a temptation to
the incumbent. We would be saying to the people of Australia:
"You may directly elect just one public official: not
the Prime Minister who heads the Government, nor any
member of his Cabinet, not the Chief Justice who heads
our highest Court nor any of the other judges, but the
President who has almost no political power."
To the incumbent we would be saying this: "We want you
to run for national political office, we want you to
raise the campaign funds and the support of political
parties and other organisations, we want you to do battle
with your opponents and defeat them. We want you to
win the people's support knowing that in victory you
will drink the intoxicating brew of popular endorsement....and
then, we want you to spend five years doing what you
are told by the Prime Minister, receiving ambassadors,
welcoming guests, awarding medals and opening fetes.
But wait, there's something else we want you to do.
Every now and then (hopefully not during your term)
there may be a constitutional crisis, perhaps an impasse
between the Senate and the House of Representatives.
If that occurs we want you to hold the ring and act
as a constitutional umpire. We want you to forget your
political partisanship, forget that one of the major
political parties endorsed you and most of all we want
you to forget that more Australians have voted for you
than for any other public official. We want you to act
as though you were the figure of impartiality, immune
to the transitory shifts of public sentiment. We want
you to act like a judge."
I am sure there are a few saintly souls in Australian
public life who could be directly elected and then passively
play the part of ceremonial head of state and occasional
constitutional tie-breaker... but I have not met any
of them yet.
We spend a lot of time reflecting on how the Olympics
will put Australia in the global spotlight. But the
real spotlight will be on this referendum. All of us
cringed when the world reacted to the rise of Hansonism
in Australia. All of us were embarrassed that a substantial
minority, but a minority nonetheless, could embrace
the divisive and intolerant nonsense of the One Nation
Party.
But what will the world say if on the verge of the millennium,
the centenary of our life as a nation Australia signs
up for another hundred years of the British monarchy.
What will it say about our belief in a tolerant, multi-cultural
society if we reaffirm that our Head of State must be
a member of the British ruling family and must, by law,
be a member of the Anglican Church?
What will it say about our belief in ourselves, our
confidence in our own people if we reaffirm that no
Australian, not the best or most brilliant, is good
enough to be our Head of State. In 1930 it took a great
struggle by Prime Minister Scullin to persuade King
George V that an Australian, Isaac Isaacs, one of our
greatest jurists, was good enough to be Governor General,
the Head of State's viceroy or representative. Nearly
seventy years later, have we come no further? Do we
still believe that Australians are only good enough
to have the second ranking post?
And finally what will it say about our commitment to
a society of equal opportunity, if we reaffirm that
there will always be one office in our society to which
no Australian may aspire, an office the occupant of
which is defined by heredity, not ability, by sectarianism,
not tolerance, and by the laws of the United Kingdom,
not the laws of Australia.
The world will say that we have not developed, it will
say that Australia is afraid of the new world in which
it lives, uncomfortable with independence and determined
to hang on to the apron strings of a mother country
that cut us adrift long ago. Many will say that this
impression would be mistaken. Whether we have the Queen
as our head of state or not, we are a tolerant and independent
country. Whatever it may be the monarchy is not a racist
institution. All of that is true.
The monarchy in Australia is easier to explain today
than it will be after an unsuccessful referendum. Today,
we can say that the monarchy in Australia is just an
anachronistic part of our constitution we have not bothered
to change. But to reaffirm our commitment to it, to
say that we are not prepared to live without it; that
is a very different statement.
I believe Australia will be a better society when we
have an Australian head of state. But, I believe, with
even more conviction, that we will be a much worse society
if in 1999 we vote to keep the monarchy.
Those of us who are unconvinced of the merits of changing
the Constitution next year should contemplate the dangers
of not doing so.
Conservatives, unthrilled by republicanism, should bear
in mind that even John Howard is of the view, which
he expressed to the Financial Review on 15 October,
that if we do become a republic "the fabric of the Australian
community is not going to be, in any way, damaged or
hurt by the process"
The simple fact is that this nation, our nation, is
Australia. We are Australians and all of our national
symbols and institutions should be Australian. The Queen,
and the British monarchy, symbolises Britain. It made
sense when Australia was a British colony, it even made
sense when Australians regarded themselves as British,
but today it is at best a symbol without substance,
at worst positively misleading.
Next year we are faced with a vote of confidence. We
must not fail to carry this amendment. We cannot allow
ourselves to fail this test. We cannot carry a no-confidence
motion in ourselves.
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