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TRANSCRIPT OF
PROCEEDINGS
Tuesday, 3 February 1998
Page 15
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN-
Timing is very tight, but we think we can go until perhaps 4.15
p.m. on the discussion then start the voting procedure at 4.15
p.m. There are a couple of procedural resolutions to be dealt
with as well. Since we have seven speakers on the list, it means
we will have to ask you to either speak very rapidly or with
extraordinary restraint.
Mr CLEM JONES- I recognise that
as a requirement, and I will speak for two minutes. I will not
say all I intended to say. But one of the things I think is
important is that, whatever we decide in relation to the working
groups, we do not inhibit decision or debate on the question of
election. They are fairly intrinsically bound together. The
matter of election, of course, will be dealt with by working
parties tomorrow. We do not want to inhibit that debate by
refusing to pass particular working group recommendations which
would so inhibit. Therefore, I support resolutions 4, 6 and 7.
In relation to 7A, which I
will be moving in due course, the motion I will be submitting is
a simple one and I expect it will generally be acceptable. It is
also important for what it implies. It is important because it
implies areas of responsibility which it gives to the president
clearly and absolutely by codification.
The motion accepts that the
people want a president elected by the people, that the people
want a president who plays a significant role and it implies that
the people want a person they can respect in the role of
president and a person who does not have powers which will impact
on the supremacy of the parliament.
In relation to that, I would
like to respond to a remark made by Mr Bill Hayden relating to
the model which we have put forward and submitted to delegates.
There are some things in it which might not be acceptable. We
pointed out that they are flexible. There are one or two things
which might create conflict between the Prime Minister and the
president, and 14 can quite easily be removed by 14(c), for
example, by changing 14(d), which I will deal with later on.
Otherwise, it is acceptable to the convention.
Ms BUNNELL- I will be
supporting A. I see resolution B as a further extension to 7A. It
is unusual that I disagree with Gareth Evans, but today I do, and
his simplistic view that the head of state should be ceremonial
and symbolic. I work on a daily basis with a diverse group of
people within a community. Generally, those people want a
popularly elected head of state.
The polls reinforce that this
is a widespread wish of the majority of Australians. The reason
for this, I believe, is in a corresponding unhappiness with the
current political system. The public is seeking the concept of a
champion, if you like, of the constitution, someone who is above
and outside the mainstream parties. This is one of the reasons
the public uses the Senate as a house of review, when in fact its
origins were as the states' house.
This motion proposes that the
head of state have the power to refer legislation he or she deems
unconstitutional to the High Court for quick review and comment.
I have noted the comments that have been generally thrown through
the auditorium about the issue of the High Court. I am sure
members of the High Court have their own opinion about that. This
provision supports the concept that the head of state is the
champion of the constitution. This is not a new power; it is the
current power in the Irish Republic. My fellow delegates, I urge
you to support motion 7B.
Mr JOHNSTON-
Unfortunately, I cannot be quite as animated as Neville Wran, but
I will continue. I would like to foreshadow amendments to a
number of working group proposals- Working Group 4, clauses 1, 3,
6 and 8, and Working Group 6 regarding treaties to be ratified by
both houses of parliament explicitly. I will also seek to delete
subsection 1 and section 8 of B. Also, on part B, we need to
amend paragraph (f) to identify both houses of parliament and I
will seek to delete paragraph (h). Also on part 2 of the long
motion, I would seek to take out the word `not'.
My general comments are that
I oppose, in all forms, attempts to codify powers of the
Governor-General, head of state or whatever you want to call him.
I believe that it should be assumed that those people who assume
those offices would have the intelligence to deal with unforeseen
circumstances as they arise. I also do not think it is that
feasible to say that you can write down every possible
contingency. You would end up with a constitution like the tax
act.
The other amendments I have
foreshadowed basically revolve around the fact that I do not
think the acts of the Governor-General should generally be
judiciable by the High Court. That brings the court into the act
of politics. If we support the separation of powers, why would we
want to make the High Court a political umpire? I thought that
was the job of the Governor-General in extreme circumstances.
That is why I would not support that.
Finally, whatever system we
agree to, it would be very difficult to remove or change all our
conventions. I think we should assume that Westminster
conventions, as we understand them, continue to be binding.
Anything else would not take 10 days but 10 years. That is why I
move the amendments as circulated.
Mr WILCOX- Mr Deputy
Chairman, I raise a point of order. I want to know what is before
the chair and what the procedure will be. I came here this
afternoon expecting to vote on certain matters, maybe in some
preliminary way. I was not sure whether they were preliminary or
final. Mr Wran said he had a one-line amendment or new motion
which was going to make everything clear. Please tell me which
rule of debate we are operating on and how we go on from here? I
am not blaming you, Mr Deputy Chairman, or anyone else, but we
are trying to do, not in even in two weeks, but in two days what
the founding fathers took two decades to do. We might want a
little more time to catch our breath. Please direct us.
Mr WRAN- Point of
order, Mr Deputy Chairman: I have considered the appropriate way
to deal with the proposal that I put. In the light of what you
have said and the way in which you have put the motions, the
motions can be put in the ordinary way and we can vote on the
motions Nos 1 to 7.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- In
answer to the point of order, and I did explain this a few
minutes ago, we are really dealing with the seven reports- or
strictly eight reports because No. 7 is 7A and 7B- together. It
is not a final disposition; it is possible for you to vote for
two, three, four or however many you like. Those that receive a
majority of votes will go on to the next stage. The resolutions
committee will meet tomorrow. It has already prepared a matrix
which puts the seven reports together so that we are able to come
up with a single set of propositions that can come up towards the
end of the entire procedure. What we are really deciding today is
whether, of the seven points on powers, all seven go on to the
next stage or some of them die.
Mr WILCOX- By leave or
any way, Mr Deputy Chairman. Thank you for that explanation
because it has helped me and I hope it has helped a number of
other delegates. It has helped me because at least we now know
that, if some of these proposals from the working groups do not
pass, then it will save the resolutions committee quite a lot of
work. That is part of my objection.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Yes,
exactly.
Brigadier GARLAND-
Point of order, Mr Deputy Chairman: what you have explained so
far is as good as far as it goes. But I understand that there
have been a series of amendments made to some of those motions
which have been talked about and, with the noise that is in the
rest of the chamber, it is very difficult for those of us who are
a little bit hard of hearing to pick up what is being said. Are
we going to receive some piece of paper at some stage of the game
before we are asked to vote on those motions with all the
amendments on them?
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- With
the exception of Adam Johnston's amendments, most of the
amendments are fairly minor technical things. With the miracle of
technology, I understand that, when the Chairman comes back, you
will see the text up on the screens so that you can work on that
basis.
Mr RUXTON- Following
on that point of order: this is for the non-intellectuals in this
place-
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I did
not know there were any.
Mr RUXTON- I suppose I
have had some experience in the chair over the years. I would
have thought that it would have been the normal thing to do to go
through each motion one at a time, amend it and either carry it
or throw it out.
Mr SUTHERLAND- They
will eventually.
Mr RUXTON- I know they
will eventually but, for goodness sake, it is one big confusion.
It is like an Irish stew, and that is not a pun either. However,
I was supporting Mr Wran in that we are trying to do two weeks
work in a day and a half. If Clem Jones had his way yesterday, we
would all have gone home and I was not going to give my expense
cheque back. We just seem to be bolting on the most important
issues in a very confusing way of debate. If you do not remedy
it, Barry, I will blame you.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I am
prepared for that too. Essentially what we are deciding now is-
and of course you will have the text before you in one form or
another- whether more than 50 per cent of you are agreed that the
report should go through to the next stage. It is not a final
adoption but it may well be a final rejection. If some of the
reports do not receive 50 per cent, then they will not go forward
to the next stage.
Mr GIFFORD- Mr Deputy
Chairman, you said there are only some minor corrections. I would
like to disillusion you on that. The ones that I am proposing to
put before you are major ones.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I am
sorry, do you have them in writing?
Mr GIFFORD- Not yet.
Let us be fair about it, please; I have made my own notes which I
sat up last night and did until about 2 a.m. and I have done it
again this morning, because the drafting of these sorts of
alterations is a very detailed and very difficult thing to do.
Here you are trying to rush through. You went until 6.3O p.m.
yesterday but now we have to get through by a quarter past four,
which it is now. You have not even looked at the numbers that we
are dealing with. I protest that it is most unfair to the people.
There are critical alterations to be made and I am not using the
terminology lightly. This is a field in which I have had a lot to
do.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I
would have thought it would have been practical to have provided
us with the draft so that they could have been typed up,
incorporated and circulated, because this process has been going
on for a while. What we are doing now is really determining in
the broad which of those seven or eight propositions- eight
including 7A and 7B- go on to the next stage. Even at the
resolutions committee some preliminary work has been done. The
resolutions committee will be working again tomorrow because what
we will expect them to be doing is come back with some kind of
package of proposals that relate to this area which will then be
put and, of course, debated. It may be that your proposed
amendments are more appropriate at that stage.
Mr GIFFORD- I would
have thought they were fundamental.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Yes,
but it may be that we are not ad idem in this. What we are
looking at is to say, `Here are the broad areas about heads of
power, whether you set them out or do not set them out' and so
on. We need to get some indication from the meeting at this stage
on which of those reports you want to go ahead at the next stage.
Mr GIFFORD- Yes, but
the trouble is how do you do that when you have not dealt with
basic problems in each of these motions?
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I can
only repeat that, this morning when the reports were brought in,
quite a long discussion followed where you might have had the
opportunity to get up and state your point of view and foreshadow
that you were going to circulate amendments. We have had the
secretariat there all day. It would have been possible to have
had your amendments circulated and so on.
Mr GIFFORD- This
morning I was not here because I was working on this very
difficult problem.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I
have great sympathy for your point of view but I do not quite
understand what we can do at this point. I think that if we go
ahead with the proposition that we give broad approval to some of
these reports going on to the next stage and some not, then there
will be an opportunity tomorrow, I am sure, for you to do some
further work and submit to it to the resolutions committee.
Dame LEONIE KRAMER- On
a point of order: my understanding was that Mr Wran suggested
that all these resolutions should go through unvoted on today to
the next stage; is that correct?
Mr WRAN- You are
misunderstanding-
Dame LEONIE KRAMER-
Would you mind correcting me, Mr Wran?
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I
think the intention is that, when the Chairman comes into the
chair, there are one or two procedural motions about the order in
which we put some of the propositions, and the Wran procedural
motion- which, as I understand it, is in effect an endorsement of
the process that we are doing- will be put then.
Dame LEONIE KRAMER-
May I say, Mr Deputy Chairman, that I do not think many people
are clear about what we are doing and I would like clarification
of that also.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- May I
say it again: we had seven reports from the working groups. What
we are really determining at this stage is which of the seven
reports secure majority support to go on to the next stage. It is
conceivable- perhaps unlikely- that all seven will be agreed to
by more than half the people here. That will be an indication
that the resolutions committee has to deal with all of them. But
if only four of them receive the support of more than 50 per
cent, then only four of them will go on to the next stage.
Dame LEONIE KRAMER- I
think that is a pretty undemocratic way to proceed. I am trying
to reflect the problem of the previous speaker.
CHAIRMAN- I point out
that the proceedings and the order of proceedings we are
following were adopted yesterday, that the working groups and the
pattern in which we are proceeding have been identified on
successive occasions today and the purpose has been to try to
ensure that we consider the matters that were identified as a
result of the working group submissions. Unfortunately for those
whose names were listed to speak between 4 and 4.15, that time
has now expired. I believe that we have three minutes in the
ringing of the bells, so we are able to have one of those
speakers only. We did agree on our rules of debate that the bells
would ring for three minutes before the division takes place.
Mr PATRICK O'BRIEN- I will be
very brief. I just think that it is not acceptable that if we
move to a republic we have a head of state whose powers are
undefined for all practical purposes, so we need some form of
codification. The question is what should or should not be
codified and also what powers should be used at discretion. I
have eight points I want to go through very quickly. But just to
repeat: if the head of state loses all capacity to act with
discretion, then the position would be even less powerful than
that of the Governor-General bound by the conventions that apply
to the Crown. What I propose following describes the very limited
ways in which the discretion of the president or head of state
should be preserved or eliminated in order to allow the head of
state to fulfil the very limited but important role of ensuring
that political power is exercised only according to the
Constitution as agreed by the people.
Firstly, commissioning
ministers and Prime Ministers: the president should preserve the
capacity to commission ministers and the Prime Minister after a
vote of the House of Representatives. This enshrines in
fundamental law the prevailing Westminster convention and in fact
diminishes the discretionary powers that the Governor-General
presently enjoys. A further Westminster principle could be
preserved by ordering the president to remove the commission of
any minister who loses a vote of no confidence in the House of
Representatives or who the House finds has wilfully misled it or
otherwise commits a serious criminal offence or breach of the
Constitution.
Secondly, deadlock between
houses: in the event of a deadlock between houses over supply, it
may be desirable that the president or head of state retain the
right to cause an election to come on, so long as the people also
confirm or remove the president's commission at the same
election, if it so wishes. In doing this, the flexibility of the
Constitution is to be retained to deal with circumstances which
may not be possible to foresee beforehand.
Thirdly, removal of the
discretion to prorogue parliament: I know the ARM agrees that the
power of prorogation is pretty redundant and should be removed.
The discretion of the Governor-General or head of state to
prorogue parliament should be removed and each house of
parliament should be allowed to set its own sitting times,
subject, of course, only to the provisions of dissolution for
general election purposes. This strengthens the power of the
parliament over the political executive.
Fourthly, removal of the
power to veto bills: the Governor-General's powers to veto bills
should be removed, but a discretion to submit bills to the High
Court if he or she believes them to be unconstitutional should be
granted to him or her. This right could be extended to other
directions of the Prime Minister to the president. Finally, I
favour Nos 6, 4, and 7, in that order.
CHAIRMAN- I understand
Mr Gifford and Mr Johnston have amendments which they wish to
submit. I point out to all delegates that on day 9 the conduct of
affairs on that day will allow final debate on the question of
which model for an Australian republic might be put to the
Australian people in a vote. If you look at your orders of
proceedings, you will see that it comments that the report from
the resolutions group will bring forward for reconsideration a
draft package of final resolutions. Instead of considering each
of the resolutions and debating on them, during the last hour we
have been looking at the seven, plus the change to Working Group
7 resolution, which means that is there are eight resolutions
before us.
We are looking at all those
eight resolutions, and amendments have been submitted as they
have been received. If Mr Gifford and Mr Johnston have amendments
and they are here, they will be submitted in accordance with the
same procedures pertaining to everybody else. If there are
further amendments to the resolutions which go forward, they can
be submitted, provided they are moved and seconded, and we will
find an appropriate time for that to occur. They can then be
forwarded to the resolutions committee, and they will be
submitted together with the resolutions report on day 9.
We are today considering
eight resolutions. Of those eight resolutions, the intention is
that all resolutions with amendments that receive more than 50
per cent of the vote of this Convention will go forward to the
resolutions committee. The resolutions committee will look at
those. Where there are similarities, they will be resubmitted in
whatever form for day 9 reconsideration. Are there any questions
about that procedure?
Mr GUNTER- On a point
of order, when I moved resolutions from Working Group 6, I moved
A and B separately, sequentially. Will they be presented for a
vote in that way or in globo?
CHAIRMAN- They will be
submitted as 6A and 6B. Mr Gifford, you had amendments. Are they
available? Have they been handed in to the secretariat?
Mr GIFFORD- They will
be, Sir. But I will have to write them out and then get them to
the secretariat.
CHAIRMAN- We have been
dealing with that matter since this morning, and our trouble is
that we have run out of time. We are going to the voting of them.
It means that your amendments will have to be considered
subsequently. Can you write them out and they will be forwarded
to the resolutions committee for consideration. The same applies
to Mr Johnston's amendments. If the resolutions go forward to the
resolutions committee, they will be considered by them. If the
resolutions to which your amendments are proposed to be made are
not supported by 50 per cent of the delegates then they will no
longer be considered by the Convention.
Mr GIFFORD- So that
the matter is clear, I was working till quarter past one at
lunchtime to try to get everything finished.
CHAIRMAN- I am sorry
if there has been a misunderstanding. Your name was not on the
list for this afternoon; perhaps it should have been. For that I
apologise. In any event, we are now at the stage of the
resolutions that we have received. If you would like to give us
the amendments that you wish to move, they will be forwarded to
the resolutions committee, if the resolutions to which they apply
receive more than 50 per cent support from this Convention. We
now have another amendment that I wanted to put to you.
Mr MOLLER- As I
understand it, you are proposing that the amendments will go to
the resolutions committee, that they will be referred to them by
the Convention without consideration by the Convention.
CHAIRMAN- No, what I
am proposing is that, if there are amendments for resolutions
that go to the resolutions committee, they will be considered by
the resolutions committee and they will report back here. No
resolutions are being put as final resolutions until the
resolutions committee has submitted them. When the resolutions
committee come forward, they will have a number of proposed
amendments of their own. If they wish to raise those that are
canvassed by any member, they can do so. It will be for the
resolutions committee to consider in the final form of
resolutions what amendments they wish. When we pass provisional
resolutions, they will come back to us. The resolutions committee
will propose whatever amendments they will suggest and we will
consider those amendments to the resolutions we pass. If they are
adopted, they will then become the final form.
The amendment that was
suggested by Nick Bolkus was that, in the order of considering
these working group submissions, instead of dealing with them
from 1 to 7B, we should deal with them in order of the extent to
which the powers of the Governor-General are augmented. There
would be some confusion in that, but I put it to the Convention
that Mr Bolkus has suggested that the order should be 6A, 6B, 7A,
7B, 4, 1, 2, 3, 5. That is listed in order of the powers given to
the Governor-General. It is virtually from the greatest power
given to the new head of state down to the least power. The
alternative way of considering it is in the order that the
working groups submitted their reports to us. We are taking a
vote on Senator Bolkus's amendment, seconded by Senator West,
that the order of consideration of the Convention will be in that
order.
Mr McGARVIE- On a
point of order, is it practical to oppose that, or does time
preclude it? I content myself by saying that that would induce
procedural chaos. I totally oppose it.
CHAIRMAN- The motion
is:
That the order of
consideration of the Convention should be 6A, 6B, 7A, 7B, 4, 1,
2, 3, 5.
The alternative is that we
will deal with them, as we have throughout the day, from 1 to 7B.
Senator Bolkus's amendment is before us.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- We will now
deal with Working Group 1's resolution. Working Group 1's
resolution was moved by Professor Greg Craven and seconded by Mr
Richard McGarvie. The first proposition will be the amendment- in
the square brackets at the end of the paragraph- which was moved
by Mr Turnbull and seconded by Professor Craven.
The original resolution of
the Working Group 1 is that part of the resolution that appears
without the bit that is now highlighted in black. The amendment
moved by Mr Turnbull, and seconded by Professor Craven, is that
which is now highlighted in black. Our first vote will be on the
words which would be incorporated by reference, along the lines
of the words at page 94 of the Republic Advisory Committee
report.
Before I put that amendment
to that motion, I remind you that we are not voting finally. You
will have a vote on each one of the resolutions before us. In
other words, you will be able to vote on nine resolutions, plus
amendments. All those that receive more than 50 per cent of the
vote of the Convention will be forwarded to the resolutions
committee. If you have further amendments that you wish the
resolutions committee to consider, you can send them, with the
name of the seconder, to the resolutions committee. It will
consider them and they will come back to the Convention for
consideration as amendments on day 9.
Senator HILL- As it
seems to me that there are four separate issues within this
resolution covered by four separate paragraphs, shouldn't we vote
on each paragraph separately?
CHAIRMAN- The proposal
is that we should vote on each paragraph separately. I point out
that we are not trying to deal with it with that precision today.
What we are trying to do is to refer to the resolutions committee
a series of packages. Senator Hill wishes to move the motion
seriatim. Mr Johnston has seconded it.
Mr RAMSAY- I am not
clear what it means. I see resolutions on the board which have
two paragraphs, and the paper I have in my hand has four
paragraphs. Are there words missing from the resolution? Are
there further amendments to paragraphs 3 and 4?
CHAIRMAN- As I
understand it, the first question I put will be that the
amendment, which is that the four paragraphs be reduced to two
paragraphs, with the words in black incorporated. That will be
the first proposition you will consider. If that is lost, we go
back to the four paragraphs, and it will then be relevant to
consider Senator Hill's motion.
Mr RAMSAY- Is part of
this first amendment the deletion of paragraph's 3 and 4?
CHAIRMAN- I am sorry,
the other paragraphs are all as they are. The amendment is to the
first paragraph of the resolution. In other words, there are
still four paragraphs. The amendment was to the first paragraph,
and those are the words that are in black. In other words, the
only amendment is to the first paragraph, and the other three
paragraphs stay as they stand.
Senator Hill has suggested
that we consider each of those paragraphs seriatim. Before we
move to that, I will take the vote on the amendment, because the
amendment is to the first paragraph. The motion is:
That the words that
are proposed to be inserted be so inserted.
Motion carried.
CHAIRMAN- We are
therefore in a position where we now take Senator Hill's motion
which is:
That we deal with
the resolutions from Working Group 1 as four separate
resolutions.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- The
resolution from Working Group 1 is in four paragraphs, as on your
working group report, as amended by the words that are now added
on the screen. I put Working Group 1's report, as amended.
Motion, as amended, carried.
CHAIRMAN- As my
colleague suggests, that means that it now goes to the
resolutions committee as a provisional resolution. It is passed
by this Convention at this stage as a preliminary resolution. It
is referred rather than carried.
We move to Working Group 2's
report and amendment. The motion for amendment is:
That the words
reported in Working Group 2's resolution be changed by the
addition of the words `and dismissal is by the Prime Minister or
a simple majority of the House of Representatives' after
`McGarvie model' in paragraph (i) and the deletion of the whole
of paragraph (ii).
Amendment carried.
Motion, as amended, carried.
CHAIRMAN- That
resolution will also be referred to the resolutions committee.
Working Group 3's resolution
has not been amended. The motion is:
That Working Group
3's resolution be referred to the resolutions group for
consideration for re-examination by the Convention at a later
date.
Are there any questions?
Motion lost.
Father JOHN FLEMING- I
am unclear as to the majority on resolution 2. Did you say there
were 152 people in the House?
CHAIRMAN- No, a number
of delegates are absent.
Father JOHN FLEMING- I
am not sure what constitutes a majority of the House.
CHAIRMAN- A simple
majority of those present.
Father JOHN FLEMING-
How many were in the House? Did we count abstentions?
CHAIRMAN- No, I
counted a simple majority. In the final resolution, as we
determined in the rules of debate, everybody's name will be
recorded and whether they voted for, against or abstained. On
this occasion, as you will note from the rules of debate, the
requirement is that we determine it by a show of hands and a
simple majority. At this stage it is a simple majority of those
present. At the final stage there will be a different method of
taking the vote.
I understand there were
amendments to Working Group 4 and Working Group 6 received from
Adam Johnston. These were not put. They were moved and seconded.
I will put those to you. They are deletions. Working Group 4's
amendment will be to their report. It is quite a long report, so
we will deal with them as they come on the board. Mr Johnston
moved with respect to Working Group 4's report that it be amended
by the deletion of paragraph 1, so we will deal with Adam
Johnston's first amendment because we cannot get them all up on
the board. I think it is better that we deal with them one by one
because there are a number of them and we will not be able to
understand them otherwise. It is proposed that Working Group 4's
report, which has eight propositions, be amended by, first,
eliminating proposition 1. It was moved and seconded. We will
deal with this one first. The motion is:
That proposition 1
be deleted.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- The
amendment is lost, so the words remain. Mr Johnston's motion, in
the report of Working Group 4, is:
That paragraph 3 be
deleted.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- The motion
is lost, so the words remain. Mr Johnston's further motion is:
That paragraph 6 be
deleted.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- Similarly
with respect to paragraph 8, Mr Johnston's motion is:
That paragraph 8 be
deleted.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- We now put
Working Group 4's resolutions, which at this stage consist of
eight resolutions unamended. The resolutions were those that were
distributed to you this morning. In summary, they are the same
powers with codification of the conventions covering the use of
reserve powers as binding rules. The motion is:
That Working Group
4's report with its resolutions be referred to the Resolutions
Committee for consideration at a later stage of this Convention.
In fairness, we will take a
count of the vote.
Motion carried.
CHAIRMAN- The motion
is carried by a vote of 83 to 58, so that Working Group 4's
report will be referred for consideration by the Resolutions
Committee and for reconsideration on day 9. There is an amendment
by Mr Hepworth to Working Group 5's report. Mr Hepworth proposed
that there be a new clause 1- this is the sort of thing that the
resolutions group can put in formal words. The motion is:
Delete clause 1;
insert the following clause 1: Note that the states would be
maintained and the present powers and their balance continue.
Are there any questions about
the amendment?
Mr TURNBULL- What does
it mean?
CHAIRMAN- The
amendment is as highlighted in black- that that be added to
Working Group's 5 report.
Motion carried.
CHAIRMAN- Working
Group 5's report is the report of Working Group 5 with the
addition of that paragraph that has just been included by the
Convention, so it will be Working Group 5's report plus those
words as inserted. The motion is:
That the report from
Working Group 5 be referred to the Resolutions Committee for
consideration by this Convention at a later stage.
The motion is lost 78 to 41.
That cannot be right.
Ms PANOPOULOS- Mr
Chairman, on a point of order: why can that not be right?
CHAIRMAN- Because
there were more people than 41.
Ms PANOPOULOS- Maybe
they abstained.
CHAIRMAN- There were
more people than that voted the first time.
Ms PANOPOULOS- Maybe
you should sack your tellers then.
CHAIRMAN- We are now
up to eight tellers and we are trying hard to get it.
Ms PANOPOULOS- This is
supposed to be a professional organisation.
CHAIRMAN- I hear your
point of order. We will take another count. Those in favour of
the reference of Working Group 5-
Brigadier GARLAND- Mr
Chairman, I have a point of order.
CHAIRMAN- We are in
the middle of a count. I do not take a point of order in the
middle of a count. There is no point of order in the middle of a
count. May I have a count, please. Those in favour of the
reference of Working Group 5, as amended. There are 56 ayes and
78 noes, I declare the motion lost.
Motion, as amended, lost.
Brigadier GARLAND-
When the motion was put the first time on the hands you said,
`Carried.' Then there was a bit of a murmur. Then you went back
and had a vote and it was carried the second time around,
according to the numbers.
CHAIRMAN- No, I was
trying to make sure we had the votes right.
Brigadier GARLAND-
Then you went back a third time. I find that very difficult to
accept.
CHAIRMAN- I make no
apology for trying to get the accurate count. I am trying to make
sure we read the votes right, which I can tell you is not that
easy.
WORKING GROUP 6
Broader powers for a new
head of state
CHAIRMAN- We now have
Working Group 6A to which there is an amendment to be moved by Mr
Johnston.
Amendment (by Mr Johnston):
That subsection (g)
now read:
- negotiates and
enters into treaties subject to ratification by both
House of Parliament.
Mr GUNTER- Mr
Chairman, on a point of order: after consultation with my
seconder, we are prepared to accept the amendment as part of the
motion, to save a vote.
CHAIRMAN- That
amendment has been accepted as part of the motion. Mr Johnston,
you also seek to delete subsection (j); is that correct?
Mr JOHNSTON- That is
correct.
CHAIRMAN- The first
amendment moved by Mr Johnston is:
Delete the words
`can refer any Bill to the High Court to determine its
constitutionality;'
Motion carried.
CHAIRMAN- We now move
to subsection (viii) and who can take emergency measures.
Mr JOHNSTON- I am
seeking to delete that provision. I am most concerned that we
would expressly give the head of state emergency powers. I am
happy to accept it may be given as a convention, but I do not
think it should be given expressly.
CHAIRMAN- Mr Johnston
has moved:
That subsection
(viii) be deleted.
Motion carried.
CHAIRMAN- I,
therefore, now put the recommendations, as amended, of Working
Group 6. The motion is:
That Working Group
6's resolutions be referred to the Resolutions Committee for
consideration by this Convention at a later date.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- We are now
considering Working Group 6B. The motion is:
That Working Group
6B's resolutions be referred to the Resolutions Committee for
consideration by this Convention at a later date.
Motion lost.
WORKING GROUP 7
Lesser powers of the head
of state with codification
CHAIRMAN- I have an
amendment from Professor Craven with respect to Working Group 7
that paragraph (4). The amendment is:
That paragraph (4)
be deleted
Brigadier GARLAND- Is
this Gareth Evans's motion?
CHAIRMAN- Yes.
Brigadier GARLAND-
Then I'm going to vote against it.
CHAIRMAN- This is an
amendment by Professor Craven that paragraph (4) be deleted.
Professor CRAVEN- Mr
Chairman, may I say something?
CHAIRMAN- Yes.
Professor CRAVEN- I do
not propose to speak to the motion, but it has just been pointed
out to me that the third dash point in the preamble to these
motions reflects paragraph (4) and therefore also should be
omitted.
CHAIRMAN- We will take
that as being an extension. As it is not a final motion, I think
we will allow Professor Craven to amend his amendment. Does Mr
Kilgariff, the seconder of the motion, accept that amendment?
Mr KILGARIFF- I do.
CHAIRMAN- We will deal
with those separately. The proposal is that we delete paragraph
(4), in accordance with the recommendation of resolution (a) of
Working Group 7. Those in favour of deletion, please raise your
hands. Those against deletion, please raise your hands. I declare
that motion carried.
DELEGATES- No!
CHAIRMAN- Do you want
a count? We will have a count.
Motion carried.
Mr GARETH EVANS- Mr
Chairman, I raise a point of order. Can I just say for the record
that, with the resolution thus denuded and emasculated, I no
longer seek support for the remaining part of the resolution. I
do not seek to withdraw it because it is not my resolution; it is
the property of the committee. But I am not asking anyone to vote
for it.
CHAIRMAN- That was an
unusual point of order, but I think we have all noted what was
said with interest. In the second part of the amendment, the
motion is:
That the words from
`limitation' down to `two Houses' be deleted.
Motion carried.
CHAIRMAN- I,
therefore, move:
That resolution A of
Working Group 7, as amended, be referred to the resolutions
committee.
Motion, as amended, lost.
CHAIRMAN- There being
no amendments, the motion is:
That resolution B of
Working Group 7 be referred to the resolutions committee.
Motion lost.
CHAIRMAN- Just so that
everybody is aware, I will read out which resolutions have been
referred to the working group. We will then return to general
debate on the question of whether Australia should become a
republic. No. 1, as amended, was carried and will go to the
resolutions committee; No. 2, as amended, was carried and will be
referred to the resolutions committee; No. 3 was lost and will
not be referred to the resolutions committee. Resolutions from
Working Group 1 and Working Group 2 are going; the resolution
from working group 3 is not. No. 4 has been referred; No. 5 was
lost; Nos 6A and 6B were lost, as were Nos 7A and 7B.
We now have a list of
speakers on the general question of whether Australia should be a
republic. On the speakers list that I have in front of me, the
first three speakers are Mrs Kate Carnell, the Rt Hon. Reg
Withers and Mr Graham Edwards. At this time a number of working
groups will also start to sit. Would those who are involved in
the working groups please leave as quietly and as quickly as they
can. I call Mrs Carnell to speak on the general question.
Mrs CARNELL- As a long-time and
passionate advocate for a republic, the events of Thredbo last
year brought home to me yet again that our current system has
passed its use-by date. I remember watching on television as Sir
William Deane visited Thredbo soon after the disastrous
landslide, and joined with the families as they grieved for the
loss of their loved ones. There was our Governor-General
expressing our sadness and our shock, representing our feelings
and compassion to the families, just as he had done with such
dignity to the families whose loved ones had been senselessly
gunned down at Port Arthur just a year earlier. In a very
practical and compassionate way he was filling the role as our
head of state, as he and his predecessors have done so well; yet
he is not our head of state.
I believe that the question
of whether an Australian should be our head of state- the
question of whether Australia should become a republic- has
already been decided in the affirmative in the minds of most
Australians. The most important questions now are: what sort of
republic should we have; and when? I personally have nothing
against the Queen and nothing against the system of
constitutional monarchy that has served Australia so well.
This is not a debate about
expressing our regret about our heritage. But Australia has moved
on since the states knocked together a compromise constitution in
1897. It is time now that we grappled seriously with
acknowledging that fact. To that end, in moving to an Australian
republic, the objective must be not just the minimalist change
replacing our Queen with a president, but to give the people of
Australia more say in their government. If you like, this is
about refreshing our vision of what it means to live in a
democratic state- a state where the leaders draw their power from
the people; a state where the citizens are sovereign. This is the
sort of republic that we must endeavour to establish.
This is an opportunity to
allow all Australians to feel more connected with the decisions
that affect them. Put simply, I believe that a free and
independent country like ours should have as its head of state a
citizen from that country with the legitimacy and authority which
can only flow from being directly elected by the people. We need
a head of state that we know, we trust, we have faith in- that we
own. We need a president we have chosen because they transcend
party politics and a president that we are committed to because
we, the people, have chosen and elected them.
As the millennium approaches,
quite simply, we need a president for our times. My belief in our
need for a president is long and on the public record, but it
seems to me that the crux of the question is how they should be
elected- and certainly the debate over the last few days has
centred around that. I do not accept that the Australian people
will take to the idea of party politicians choosing the president
even if it were by a unanimous vote, let alone by a two-thirds
majority. Frankly, they do not trust political parties- whether
they be my own, the Labor Party, the Greens, the Democrats or
whatever. The community quite seriously no longer has absolute
faith in political parties.
We are looking for a
different style of national leadership from that which political
parties could provide. Inevitably, from my perspective, the
choice of a president through this kind of negotiation between
political parties to achieve a two-thirds majority would be a
tainted choice or, worse still, a safe choice.
The politicians' argument for
the so-called minimalist republic seems based largely on concerns
that direct election of a head of state might upset our
parliamentary system, which is code for `let's leave the current
system undisturbed'. That response merely serves to emphasise the
point that today too much power is held by the executive at the
expense of the legislature and the people.
The move to a republic
provides the opportunity to see the parliament and the people
exercising greater check on the authority of the executive. I
appreciate, of course, that the direct election of the head of
state would require changes to the Constitution to spell out
clearly the powers of, and limitations on, the head of state. But
our Constitution should be more relevant. It should not only
spell out the powers of the head of state but also the powers of
the Prime Minister, the executive and the legislature.
When Australia's Constitution
was discussed in the 1890s, I have no doubt that the decision of
six separate states to form into a nation was an exciting
prospect. When Federation happened, it was a huge leap into the
20th century. But I have to say you have only to go to a COAG
meeting as the Chief Minister of the ACT or as this nation's
longest serving health minister- and that is only three years-
and to go to a Medicare agreement negotiation for you to know how
those constitutional arrangements that were devised in 1901
simply do not suit our current needs.
A nation born of a compromise
of states last century is a nation unable to meet the challenges
of the next millennium. Time and time again, I have seen issues
that deeply affect the lives of Australians- of heroin addiction,
of the plight of people with a mental illness, or those with
disabilities or indigenous Australians- get derailed in the
bickering between states and territories, and the Commonwealth.
But I am a realist and I believe that the party political system
is the best way to achieve workable government and change. I
suppose I would not be here today if I did not believe that.
But I have never stopped, as
I know many of you here have not stopped, fighting for a better
system of national leadership. This Convention gives us a very
real chance to do exactly that. I believe that the Irish system
does give us a useful guide as to what might be possible here: a
president with strictly defined powers, supported by a council of
eminent Australians, possibly comprising former
governors-general, former Prime Ministers and chief justices. But
I think it is absolutely essential that there are representatives
from the indigenous people of this nation on that eminent group.
The council of eminent Australians could also act as a form of
preselection committee to determine the name of the people that
actually end up on the ballot paper for our directly elected
president.
Like the Irish system, I
think we should have direct election by secret ballot based on
the same sort of transferable voting system- as is the case in
our federal elections. I think we should have an election every
six years and a president that may be limited to two terms. With
specified exceptions, the functions of a president would be
performed on the advice of the government of the day. Like the
Irish system, or even the practice that developed around this
Convention, let the political parties realise that the president,
while being entitled to be drawn from a political party,
transcends party politics.
In fact, it is no small irony
that party politicians who argue that we cannot possibly have a
direct elected president because a party political figure would
be divisive still at the same time believe that they are the only
ones who can possibly choose that president in the future. This
argument is obviously illogical. It defies the experience of
other countries- most notably Ireland.
I think the last two
presidents of Ireland are eloquent proof of the basic principle
that people are the best guardians of democracy, that we can
actually trust the people of Australia to elect the right person.
Listening to the debate over the last few days, it seems to me
that many people, even people who are elected themselves, do not
believe that we can trust the community- a very strange argument.
Ireland- a country where some of the basic rights of women are
not recognised, where such things as divorce and contraception
are forbidden- voted for Mary Robinson. She did not wear any sign
of sectarian allegiance, but she chose to wear an AIDS ribbon as
a sign of her concern for Ireland's disadvantaged people. Her
successor from Ireland's troubled north continues to build those
bridges in a strife torn area.
Australia needs a president
desperately who can walk on the streets of Ipswich or Redfern or
Wilcannia or Cabramatta. In a country where thousands of young
people are homeless, in a country where our official unemployment
rate is still over eight per cent, we need a president to keep
our nation's attention on the plight of our disadvantaged people.
We need a president whom we can be proud of; a president who will
take this proud vibrant nation to the world; a president who can
lead trade missions to Beijing, to Bonn, to Johannesburg to open
up trade opportunities in the world, to create jobs for
Australians. We need an Australian president whom the US
President can toast as an equal; a president who can open our own
Olympic Games as the head of state of Australia. We need an
Australian head of state who can argue our case in the UN.
In a country where one in
four children who came here as refugees have been tortured, where
the 1998 Young Australian of the Year fled her own homeland of
Vietnam as a refugee, why not have somebody like Gus Nossal- one
of the world's greatest medical researchers who fled his own
native Austria at the age of seven in 1937- as a presidential
nominee for the Australian presidential election in 2001? Or
imagine Lois O'Donohue, Sir William Deane, Archbishop Peter
Hollingworth- imagine if we had an election with the calibre of
those people. Boy would that be an election worth voting in!
But, most importantly of all,
it would be the people's choice of president that would seal the
bond of trust between them and the national leader and so build
up our faith in leadership in this country generally. When you
think about it, none of the leaders in this country- or at least
at the national or state level- are directly elected.
No doubt a president elected
by the people might cause the Prime Minister and the government
of the day some trouble. Maybe that would not be a bad thing.
Australians would support a national leader who would challenge
the complacent attitude of some people who think that our system
cannot be improved and prove to those who cannot see the argument
for change that we can have a stronger, better leadership than
what we are getting currently.
This Convention gives us a
once in a lifetime opportunity, a once in a millennium chance to
begin drafting those changes in our Constitution; a Constitution
that was put together last century in a time that was totally
different to what we see in Australia today. There is a clear
need for reform, but that reform runs right across the board into
social areas. If anybody at this Convention believes that
Australians are willing to accept a head of state, a president, a
Governor-General, whatever the name might be, that politicians
are going to elect, that they do not have any input into, I think
they are wrong. I believe Australia has moved significantly past
that.
As a head of surely one of
the littler governments in Australia, I know that Australians are
no longer willing to sit back and allow politicians to make
decisions on their behalf. They want to make decisions for
themselves. On that basis, I believe very strongly that we do
need a directly elected president in this country. That certainly
runs to such things as codification of powers, but all of that
can be achieved if we accept one basic parameter: that is, a
republic is an entity built on the people. The people have to
have faith in the new president. The people will only have faith
and will only own a president if they have direct input.
CHAIRMAN- We now have
the pleasure of hearing one of the great parliamentarians of the
last 30 years. He and I have known each other for a little while,
the Rt Hon. Reginald Withers.
Mr WITHERS- Thank you, Mr
Chairman. I suppose it is somewhat nostalgic to be back in this
building. I have not spoken here since the only joint sitting of
the parliament of federation which we had in 1974. If I was
advising the Prime Minister about anything, I would be suggesting
to him that he dust off the dust from those standing orders that
you, Fred Daly and I and a number of others put together to run
the joint session some 24 years ago- a joint session, mind you,
which was caused by a double dissolution.
We have heard a lot today
about the 1975 double dissolution. People are forgetting that
that was the second time around; 1974 was the first. I do not
want to dwell on that because it is one of the fascinating things
that has happened over the last two days. Whilst we have been
suffering almost as many cliches upon cliches as one gets used to
in parliament and everybody talks about how we have to look
forward to the next millennium, you all seem stuck in 1975 and
you are not really yet into 1998.
I have been interested that
all delegates seem to be fascinated that we are having a re-run
of the 1890s. Could I correct you? We really are not. What we are
having here is a re-run of the English parliament of the 1640s,
the French estates of the 1780s and the Russian Duma of 1917. I
suppose my colleagues over there and I are the first and second
estate, the fourth estate is still up there, Mr Chairman, and I
do not know where the third estate fits.
All of those three groups met
to carry out some minimalist changes to their constitution. We
seem to forget that that was the first attempt to have a
minimalist change. What happened was that the forces of change
took over. Those who wanted the minimalist change were swept
aside by forces over which they had no control, and those three
countries, a century apart, all eventually fell under a dictator-
England under Cromwell, France under Napoleon, and Russia under
Lenin.
To take the comparison
further for today, I would suggest that the modern Mensheviks of
our time are the ARM. They, like the Mensheviks of 1917, set out
to have a few minimal changes in Russia. But eventually they were
overrun by the Bolsheviks, who I think sit in the corner here. I
think the modern day Bolsheviks are the elect the president
people.
History tells me that the
Bolsheviks beat the Mensheviks. I am quite certain, after
listening to the debate for two days, that the Bolsheviks will
again beat the Mensheviks- mainly because the Bolsheviks at this
delegation have more brains, more energy, more passion and more
commitment than the Mensheviks. So bye, bye ARM. You are going to
get run over by the Bolsheviks. The reason the Bolsheviks will
eventually win is that their argument for an elected president is
the argument that the people want.
The ARM set out to convince
us that there was only going to be minimal change. They started
to present to the Australian electorate a model which looked like
a small, furry, cuddly kitten that you could pick up and stroke
and that would not scratch you back. It was something that you
could hug to your bosom and it would do you no harm. But with the
arrival of the Bolsheviks on the scene, with their `elect the
president', we now have a raging tiger out there. That is the
tiger that the Australian electorate wants. It is no use
everybody- the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and
everybody else- saying, `Take that model and we are off the road
to disaster.' That is the road where you are going to end up. If
we do end up on that road, the ARM will be cursed in history for
letting this tiger out of the cage, because you can no more put
the tiger back in the cage than you can put the genie back in the
bottle. You have a heavy burden to carry, Mr Turnbull and your
ilk, because you are going to do Australia enormous damage, no
matter which model gets up.
But the interesting thing is
that the ARM model will never get up. Why won't it ever get up?
Very simply, the electorate will not have any republican model
that does not have an elected head of state with the powers owned
by the present Governor-General. Agreement by the major political
parties that that would be the wrong way to go and that the best
model would be by the election of parliament is certainly no
guarantee of success with the electorate. In fact, when the major
parties get together is when you have to be highly suspicious of
the model.
We have just had an
interesting example in the parliament of New South Wales, where
all the parties in both houses got together and passed
legislation in the early hours of the morning to enrich
themselves by another $50,000 a year.
Mr RUXTON- Shame!
Mr WITHERS- Oh, yes,
but that is what always happens when mainstream parties are all
agreed. It is a sign that there is something funny going on. It
is great for the mainstream parties but there is not much in it
for Joe Blow outside.
The electorate will not vote
for any change which will enhance the power of the politician.
The few successful referendums we have had in this country have
never empowered the politician. Of the few successful referendums
post-war, the most sensible on in many ways that was put up was
the one to break the nexus in 1967. Those lunatic senators- eight
of them, most of them from my side of politics- who went out and
campaigned against that and against all the mainstream parties
were successful. They were quite mad because it has led to the
funny-looking Senate we have got; you cannot increase the
Representatives without increasing the Senate. The defeat of the
nexus was one of the worst things that happened to the Australian
parliamentary system, but it was an illustration that the
electorate will not vote for more politicians or to help
politicians.
We have had a couple of
referendums on simultaneous elections. The first was by the
Whitlam government, which we in the Liberal Party opposed, and
the second was by the Liberal Party, which the Labor Party
supported. But, again, it was turned down because it was going to
be to the benefit of politicians.
The amendment on the
replacement of senators was carried overwhelmingly in this
country because it was taking power away from politicians. We
have had an interesting example here this afternoon, where there
have been three amendments put up to the working party papers by
members of the current parliament: three current senators and one
ex-senator. They all got thrashed. Was it because their
amendments were stupid? Or was it because none of us trust
politicians? If the politicians are putting up those amendments,
vote them down. I think that is what the electorate is going to
do.
There is the argument that
has been put that the electorate could not be so stupid as to
elect a president at large. There is some belief amongst
politicians that the electorate out there does not like
instability in politics. If they do not like instability in
politics, why do they keep voting for the Democrats in the
Senate? Why do they continually vote one way in one house of
state parliaments and another way in another? Why do they do
that?
Why did the American public
only last year vote for a Democrat president and a Republican
congress? Because they were not prepared to give to either party
total power. They did not trust politicians. If you imagine that
somehow or other you are going to have a republic in which the
politicians become more powerful at the expense of the head of
state, think again, because nobody in Australia will vote for it.
This whole exercise is not only going to be a waste of time; it
is also going to be an enormous waste of money. If I had a lot
more respect for people here, I would also say it was an absolute
waste of talent, but that would be going too far, as my friend
Jim Killen would say.
If parliament cannot give us
a workable and understandable income tax act, why should anybody
believe that they can codify the reserve powers of the Crown? The
parliament has been struggling since income tax was introduced in
1914, yearly, sometimes twice and three times yearly, to give the
Australian electorate a simple, clear, understandable income tax
law. The last I heard about it, it weighed about three or four
kilos and was about a foot high, and nobody any longer, not even
the combined seven High Court judges, knows what is contained in
the income tax act of Australia. Yet we are going to set about
and codify the powers of the new republic. Really, we do kid
ourselves. One thing that politics should teach you is to lose
that sort of intellectual arrogance that somehow or other the
gods sent you. If you read enough about the Greek gods, you know
that hubris leads to nemesis, and the Greek gods had some lovely
and very interesting punishments for those who committed the
crime of hubris.
Where do we go? I may as well
make a prediction, like everyone else. Let me look in my crystal
ball. The most likely event coming out of here is that the ARM
model will get up. It will most likely be the ARM model which
will be put to a referendum, and I predict here and now it will
most likely lose in every state. No matter how the ARM dress up
their little furry kitten, the public out there will recognise it
for the sabre-toothed tiger that it is. People do not run
revolutions except to transfer power. That is the only reason you
want change. There is no suggestion of any change to this new
republic by any model that has been put up that it is all about
the devolution of power. It is all about the concentration of
power. It is the concentration of power from the Crown and the
head of state to the head of government. The electorate will not
tolerate that.
The electorate will not
tolerate the central government attempt to dictate to the states.
The states will not tolerate the castration of the Senate. No
matter what you may think of the Senate, no matter what you may
think of 1975, what the Senate did in 1974 and in 1975 was
overwhelmingly endorsed by the electors; yet 1975 is criticised
by people as being undemocratic. It totally escapes my
understanding how anybody can believe that the action of John
Kerr in saying to the electorate, `You must resolve this dispute
between the two houses by a secret vote in the ballot box,'
somehow or other was undemocratic. Those who claim that that was
undemocratic one must be very careful about.
What all these ARM models
amount to in the end is that the power is so concentrated on the
Prime Minister that as long as he can hold his majority in the
House of Representatives he is impregnable and undismissible. He
is almost a dictator. Then they say, `If the Prime Minister
commits a crime, he can be dismissed.' If the head of state must
do whatever he is directed to do by the head of government, and
if I was the head of government and I was about to be prosecuted
for a crime, I would direct the head of state to issue me with a
pardon. There is nothing wrong with that; it is quite
constitutional, quite legal. And a Prime Minister can entrench
himself behind that power. That is why the head of state must not
have his powers interfered with, because at the end he is the
guardian of the people's rights. Any republican model you like to
think of waters that down.
You may think it is all very
interesting that everybody has all these numbers here, but I
think the 60 per cent of people who did not vote for delegates to
this election really knew what it was all about. They do not want
to change; they have no intention of having a change. I say to my
right honourable friend, who looks so distinguished in that
chair, with or without a wig, that I predict that the ARM model
will be put to the people and it will be overwhelmingly defeated
in the six states of the Commonwealth because we don't trust
politicians and we will not countenance a transfer of power from
the head of state to any head of government.
Mr EDWARDS- I was, I must
admit, moved yesterday at the start of our Convention when our
national anthem was played and delegates spontaneously sang Advance
Australia Fair. I felt that there was at least some common
ground. I was rather saddened, however, to later listen to a
number of speakers from the monarchist ranks who were, in my
view, unnecessarily mean-spirited in their attacks on members of
the Australian Republican Movement. We have been, for instance,
accused of being dishonest, divisive, unpatriotic, ignorant of
the Constitution, anti-British and anti the Queen, among other
things. I am not going to respond to that mean-spiritedness
because I think in the end the Australian people will make their
own judgment. But I want to say to the monarchists that if
yesterday's and today's example is the best you can do then I
would despair for the future of Australia if you were running our
country. I say this because you appear to reflect our past
without in any way reflecting our great Australian heritage or
character.
I am extremely pleased to be
part of the Australian Republican Movement. We are a diverse
group of people, from the cities, the bush, young, old, from all
walks of life and with representation from most political
parties. We are a unified group, from the robustness and energy
of Malcolm Turnbull to the effervescent passion of Janet Holmes a
Court to the quiet dignity of Hazel Hawke or the wisdom of Peter
Tannock- all united in the view that we should have an Australian
as our head of state. Indeed, I take this opportunity to thank
the people of Western Australia and the Australian Republican
Movement for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this
Convention.
People have recently been
asking me why, with my background as an ex-serviceman, I support
a republic. I guess the reasons go back a long way, and they are
in part related to our history. I well recall my days at school
where I grew up with a sense of frustration because we were
taught so little Australian history and so little about the real
individuals and occurrences that give and gave Australia its
unique character.
I remember too as a young boy
listening to the stories of veterans from Gallipoli, the Middle
East and France and being told then by some of those veterans
that one day Australia would break from the monarchy. I had the
opportunity some years ago to visit Gallipoli. I must admit, it
was an emotional experience. As I stood in awe at Anzac Cove, I
came to understand the depth of feeling with which those men of
my childhood spoke. Indeed, the first republicans I met, although
I did not recognise it at that time, were some of those diggers
who survived the horrors of the First World War.
I just ask you to reflect on
these facts. In 1914-18 Australia had a population of some four
million people. Of that sparse population, approximately 417,000
enlisted in Australian forces. Over 300,000 were sent overseas to
serve on some three different continents. Sadly, 60,000 were
killed and over 220,000 were wounded. That war on foreign soil
ripped the heart out of our young nation. Indeed, I often wonder
where Australia would be today if those young men had not been
sacrificed for King and Empire.
Then there was the Second
World War. At that time, with our own nation under immediate
threat, our wartime Prime Minister, Curtin, had to fight bitterly
with Churchill and Roosevelt over the deployment of Australian
troops. In the face of their opposition, Curtin wanted our troops
home. After months of argument, he had to override Churchill and
order the return of our forces to prepare to defend Australia-
and didn't they defend it magnificently. Then there was the war
of my own era, Vietnam. Who could forget the slogan `All the way
with LBJ'?
It is my strong view that
Australia has great cause to become a more independent nation
with our own strong sense of self-determination and confidence in
our own ability to decide our own future in our own regime in
pursuit of our own destiny and security. Australia has played a
great role in international war and conflict; yet, we have paid a
terrible price for our own freedom- a freedom which should be
fully and totally reflected in our own Constitution with an
Australian as our head of state.
In the past, as a soldier and
as a state member of parliament, I have sworn allegiance to the
Queen, her heirs and successors. At all of those times I thought
I should have been swearing allegiance to Australia and her
people.
I am not anti the Queen.
Indeed, I am proud of my British heritage just as you should be
proud of whatever particular heritage you and your family
personally bring to Australia. Know that I am not anti-British; I
am just proud to be Australian and I want this reflected in our
Constitution.
The move to have an
Australian as our head of state is largely a symbolic change, but
nonetheless an important change. It will not change our system of
parliamentary democracy, which has served us well, nor should it,
nor will it take us out of the Commonwealth. It is a change,
however, that in my view will alter the way we feel as ordinary
Australians, in our own hearts and minds, about our own country.
This Convention cannot make a
decision on whether or not there will be a republic, nor can it
change the Constitution. That decision ultimately and rightly can
be made only by the Australian people.
The monarchists say to us-
indeed, we heard it reiterated by Lord Waddy- that 49 per cent of
Australians do not want to change our Constitution. I say
rubbish, Sir. I say to you: if you and your fellow monarchists
have the courage of your convictions and if your words are not
just empty rhetoric then support the model we want and let that
model be put to the Australian people and let them decide.
In conclusion, I took the
opportunity the other day when I arrived in Canberra to quietly
sit under the halo at the Vietnam veterans memorial and reflected
on many issues that are personal to me but which strongly related
to my attitude to a republic. It was a humbling yet balancing
experience, particularly when you know that but for the grace of
God and a bit of luck your name could well be up there with the
others who lost their lives in that unfortunate conflict.
I hope I reflect that balance
here when I say to the monarchists: you obviously think it is
acceptable for Australian men and women to fight for this country
and you think it is acceptable for Australian men and women to
die for this country, yet you do not think it is acceptable or
good enough for an Australian man or woman to be head of this
country. As an ex-serviceman and as an Australian I find that
objectionable. That is why I strongly and passionately believe
that Australia should become a republic.
Ms O'SHANE- Firstly, I want to
acknowledge that I stand on Ngunnawal land. I want to take this
opportunity to acknowledge the privilege extended to me by my
fellow Australians who elected me, an Aboriginal woman, to this
historic Convention. There is an obvious sweetness to my being
here, given that neither women nor Aborigines were allowed to
participate in the Constitutional Convention of a century ago.
Furthermore, my election as a
delegate to this Convention is an expression by the people of not
only reconciliation but also a recognition that we indigenous and
female Australians have an important role to play in shaping the
future of our country. I am so proud to be here, and I humbly
accept the enormous responsibility I carry in this
nation-building process in which we at this Convention are
engaged.
Whether Australia becomes a
republic is no longer the question. It has been decided. Whether
our fellow Australians express their opinions through media polls
that they favour an Australian republic, they have already
decided the question. When our fellow Australians voted in a
voluntary postal ballot to send a majority of republican
delegates to this Convention they had already decided the
question. The Prime Minister's speech yesterday implicitly
acknowledged that the question has been decided- notwithstanding
that he reiterated his oft-stated position in favouring the
perpetuation of a constitutional monarchy.
That modern Australia, the
Australia that has developed since 26 January 1788 as distinct
from the Australia of my ancestors, has a constitutional monarchy
is a direct unambiguous consequence of our origins as a colony of
Britain- a penal colony at that. As such, it was underwritten
with the values of power, privilege, elitism, oppression and
dispossession. It was blatantly exclusionary. It is no wonder
then that the Australian Constitution, designed to institute a
constitutional monarchy as the system of government in this
country, is such an inadequate and uncertain instrument as it is.
But, having said that, it was
an instrument of its time, written by men of their time. It
served the people only to the extent that one closed his eyes to
the women in the world, categorised Aborigines as akin to animals
and thought of non-Anglo Celtics and especially Asians as
sub-human. The so-called founding fathers were absolutely no
wiser than we who are gathered here. So let us not deify them, as
the Leader of the Opposition and others were so earnestly urging
us to do yesterday.
In this century we have seen
many social, political and cultural changes impacted by very
fast, sophisticated travel and communications technologies. The
world- Australia- has changed. Our peoples trace their social,
cultural, racial and other ethnic origins back to every part of
the globe. We know about human rights. We know about
participatory democracy. We condemn and reject tyranny. We reject
oppression and exclusion. We insist, rightfully, on being
included in the decision making which affects our lives, how we
relate with each other and our environment, and we demand a
system of government which is answerable to the people. The
question then is not whether Australia becomes a republic but
when and how. Nor is the question, strictly speaking, that of
what sort- as the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition
and Malcolm Turnbull would have it.
Yesterday, and again just in
the last few moments, it was put to this Convention that there
are two models for an Australian republic: the McGarvie model,
about which the less said the better; and the minimalist model,
by which is meant the replacement of the Queen as the head of
state with an Australian head of state selected by a two-thirds
majority of both houses of federal parliament. They appear to be
distinctly separate models but, in fact, both positions are
simply variations on the one theme: that we return to the past,
that we keep the Constitution as it is- one designed for a
constitutional monarchy, with only the minor change of
nomenclature. In other words, we are being invited simply to chop
off the frills and replace them with buttons and bows. That has
been reinforced in this chamber this very afternoon, when a
resolution to codify and limit the powers of the head of state
was rejected by the body of this Convention.
For all the lip service that
we heard yesterday and today from Labor and coalition politicians
and from ARM members about democracy, about the people and about
acknowledging the Aboriginal history of this country, we
witnessed the curious spectacle of all of these people voting
against our discussing these issues in the context of building a
vibrant, inclusive and democratic future for Australians. Not one
of them was conscious of the contradictions in what they said and
how they voted. We did not hear one word from them about a
Constitution which would serve a democratic republic of Australia
rather than a constitutional monarchy. If they were conscious of
it then we have seen a massive exercise of the deepest, most
profound hypocrisy.
I ask my fellow Australians:
how can we use an out-of-date, ambiguous and uncertain
Constitution, designed for a constitutional monarchy system of
government, to serve the needs and aspirations of an Australian
republic? The very notion is preposterous. As Ms Schubert said
yesterday, `These are the proposals of dull minds.'
What does the ARM model give
us? It gives us a head of state who owes her job to the Prime
Minister, thereby enhancing the power of the Prime Minister- a
power already overwhelming the parliament. It leaves us with a
Prime Minister and cabinet whose powers will not be described in
the Constitution at all. In adopting the model put forward by the
ARM, we are adopting merely cosmetic changes to the Constitution.
Is it the position of the
Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the ARM that we
retain section 25 of the Constitution- a discriminatory,
exclusionary provision? Is it their position that we retain
section 117 which clearly, by its reference to `a subject of the
Queen', is oppressive in nature? None of these speakers yesterday
addressed the values, the principles and the attitudes implicit
in these provisions. Mr Howard and Mr Beazley might well rush out
of here on 15 February and move to put before the Australian
people that these sections be deleted from the Constitution but,
in any event, the Constitution is infused with those values and
they cannot be so simply removed.
Without doubt, as so many
other speakers here have observed, we have enjoyed political
stability and no small measure of democracy. I suggest that that
has been due more to good luck than to good management; it has
not been because we have a useful Constitution which serves as a
handbook for good government, as a Constitution should.
I want to spend a moment here
reflecting on the practical meaning of democracy in Australia. It
is a word whose currency has been seriously debased by
politicians who are wont to bandy it about in the context of
parliamentary democracy. In fact, we have seen the spread of
government by the executive or, even worse, by the Prime
Minister, with no accountability to parliament. Such practices
have all the hallmarks of arrogant, contemptuous
authoritarianism. Unfortunately, we have seen and heard it being
expressed right here in the course of this `people's Convention',
as the Prime Minister himself described it.
I believe that our fellow
Australians want a just republic, not just a republic. I believe
that our fellow Australians want a constitutional framework for a
democratic, participatory society giving high priority to social
justice and to an ecologically sustainable economy- one in which
the sovereignty of the people is paramount. How do we achieve
such a society and such a system of government to serve us? I
propose that we simply declare ourselves a republic and then set
out to build a Constitution which is based on democratic
principles designed to ensure a better, fairer society for all
Australians: one which spells out entitlements to vote- one vote,
one value- proportional representation; and one which sets out in
clear terms the respective roles, functions and powers of the
Prime Minister and cabinet, parliament and head of state,
including such matters as qualification for office- for example,
that candidates for the office be Australian citizens and not
hold dual citizenship- the manner of election and manner of
removal, which is a different process to the former, and which
emphasises the responsibility of government to parliament.
What is missing from the ARM
model is that there is no attempt to state the powers and
functions of the Prime Minister and cabinet. That omission allows
them to argue misleadingly, as the Prime Minister and other
politicians do, that the head of state would have greater power
than the Prime Minister would have.
The Constitution for a
democratic republic of Australia must spell out our social,
economic and cultural rights: apart from freedom of speech and
assembling, freedom from discrimination and oppression on the
grounds of race, national origin, age, sex, sexual preference,
disability, marital status, religion and political beliefs; and
the freedom to organise trade unions and business associations
and to collectively bargain.
Presently, indigenous
Australians are desperately defending our small right to
negotiate over traditional lands, established under the High
Court's Mabo decision and the Native Title Act. The ARM model is
essentially asking indigenous Australians to endorse a
Constitution that gives us no more than a gesture- and a
limp-wristed one at that.
Presently, 8.2 per cent of
Australians are officially without work and are, right now,
facing the prospect of being forced to move away from their
families to work for the dole. You have to be cynical- more,
contemptuous- to ask these Australians to empower a republic that
makes no commitment to them.
Presently, half a million
Australians are trying to obtain tertiary education against the
user-pays commercial principle and are now having to choose not
to enrich their skills and lives with further education. Then
there are the thousands of working mothers now being forced to
abandon paid work because they cannot afford child care any more.
Again, you have to be cynical, arrogant and dismissive to endorse
a Constitution that will not protect their basic rights but will
protect the Prime Minister.
These same attitudes are
obvious in the scaremongering that we were subjected to yesterday
and, indeed, today by the proponents of the ARM model, including
the Prime Minister, when we were told that the direct election of
the head of state is a dangerous path to go down in that it would
lead to instability. It is clear that these people fear
democracy. Indeed, what is becoming more and more evident is that
these people are absolutely terrified of democracy. But what is
of greatest concern to me is that they are playing the politics
of misinformation, uncertainty, deceit and division.
Mr Turnbull and his followers
can well afford to engage in such politics. He does not have to
face again those 1.5 million Australians who voted for him. But
to those Australians who did vote for him, I ask you: were you
aware that Mr Turnbull would do a deal with the Prime Minister to
deliver unto the government the republican model it is prepared
to run with? In voting for him and his team, is that what you
were asking them to do? Is there anyone here with so little
respect for our fellow Australians that they truly believe that
democratic elections of both the head of state and the
politicians, from whom the Prime Minister is chosen by members of
his or her own political party, would lead to instability of
government? Just how far out of reach can you get?
We Australians have a culture
of tolerance and civility. In particular, we have a strong sense
of democratic action. (Extension of time granted) We have
heard a great deal on the floor of this Convention that limiting
and codifying the role and powers of the head of state is too
difficult. Well, my fellow Australians, since when did Aussies
shrink from doing the hard yards? What is it we celebrate when we
celebrate the Anzac spirit and the spirit of the overlanders, not
to mention those women who kept their home fires burning and
worked the land and the factories in their absence, not to
mention the indigenous peoples who have survived the vicissitudes
of this ancient land for tens of thousands of years and the
brutal dispossession of our lands, our children, our cultures,
which were visited upon us?
The people together can do
it. The people together will do it. Of course, we will not do it
here in these 10 days, but we can point the way to a vibrant,
inclusive future for all Australians- one in which we all can
participate in the responsible exercise of our sovereign power.
As a first step towards that future, we call on the ARM to turn
around the vote that it took here this afternoon in this chamber,
Constitutional Monarchists as well and those still uncommitted to
work with us in developing a people's republic that we will be
proud to take to our fellow Australians.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I
call on the Leader of the Opposition from Queensland, Peter
`Admiral' Beattie.
Mr BEATTIE- Federation in 1901
was not the end of the story of our nationhood; it was only the
beginning. Then the young Australian nation was still wrapped in
the Union Jack. Until the 1930s, we did not even have our own
foreign affairs department. Mother England handled our foreign
affairs from the British Home Office in Whitehall.
When was it that, according
to the Queensland Constitution, we requested and consented to the
enactment by the parliament of the United Kingdom of an act
designed to terminate the power of the parliament of the United
Kingdom to legislate for Australia? When was that? 1935? No, it
was 1985- just 13 years ago. It was only then that it was
declared that each state had the full power to make its own laws
for the peace, good order and good government, including all the
powers the United Kingdom might have had before the start of the
act. Only in 1986 was it decided that decisions of our state
courts were final, that there should be no appeal to the Privy
Council halfway round the world.
It seems obvious to us now
that these provisions should have been dispensed with many years
before. In years to come, historians will wonder why it took us
another 100 years after Federation to commit ourselves to the
final act of independence: an Australian republic. It has taken
too long for this young nation to decide it is time to leave home
and become a fully-fledged independent nation with our own
address instead of `care of Buckingham Palace'. Even now, like
Linus in the Peanuts comic strip, we still carry the
remnants of those apron strings like a safety blanket. There are
still some amongst us, those opposed to the Australian republic,
who still cling to this comfort blanket. They do not want to cut
those apron strings. They believe we can set up home as an
independent nation under our own roof but still have Mum with us
to represent us. That is not good enough.
They conveniently forget that
in the latter half of this century Britain has had no compunction
about shedding some major ties with the Commonwealth and
Australia and turning her back on us. Britain decided that
Australia and the Commonwealth came a very poor second when it
came to trade and that Britain's future lay with the European
trading bloc. They forget that when they arrive at Heathrow
Airport there is easy access for anyone with a European passport
but that we Australians are treated as aliens. Those who oppose
and fear a republic today share a kinship with those who feared
Australian Federation in the 1890s.
As this nation approaches its
100th birthday we should aim for more than a telegram from the
Queen. It is time we took that final step in becoming a truly
independent nation where we no longer have a foreigner as our
head of state as a hangover from our colonial days, where we
actually have an Australian standing on the world stage to
represent Australia, where we do not have members of a royal
family having to wear two hats- tiaras or crowns. The vast
majority of each year they wear the British head gear
representing British interests and urging people to buy British.
Only on very rare occasions do they reach into the royal wardrobe
for the equivalent of the royal akubra. Only on very rare
occasions does the monarch don the mantel of Queen of Australia.
We need a full-time head of state who spends the whole year
working for us.
The symbolism of an
independent Australia in the world is important for our national
identity. It is fundamentally important for our future. In the
eyes of many Australians, my state, Queensland, has a reputation
of being a conservative state. But on Saturday an A.C. Neilsen
poll showed that a majority of Queenslanders want a republic. In
fact, 11 per cent more Queenslanders want a republic than want a
Monarchy. The desire for change is unstoppable.
I believe it is clear that
this Convention will opt for Australia to become a republic in
accordance with the wishes of the majority of Australians. What
becomes important, therefore, is for us to provide a way of
becoming a republic which is acceptable to the highest possible
number of Australians. I think it is time for some straight
talking on the type of republic to be proposed by this
Convention.
I say again to my fellow
republicans: remember that any constitutional change has to be
approved by a majority of people in a majority of states. There
will be a campaign run by the monarchists in states such as
Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia to defeat the
move to a republic by defeating any proposition in those states,
thus preventing there being a majority of states- in other words,
the referendum loses. I never thought I would agree with Reg
Withers, but earlier in his presentation he said exactly the same
thing. I am afraid to say it, delegates, but he is right.
We cannot win the republican
argument by winning just in Sydney and Melbourne. I stress: we
must win a majority of people in a majority of states. It is
therefore important that we produce recommendations that result
in a convincing referendum question. In my view, that must
include the popular election of a president, and if we do not we
put at risk the whole proposition of a republic. The rigid
opposition from some leading republicans to the position of an
elected president has been, in my view, unhelpful. The refusal to
have an elected president may cost us the referendum. I say it
again: the voting outcome today in particular, the voting down of
the amended resolution 7, in my view, threatens the success of
the referendum when put to the Australian people.
The A.C. Neilsen poll shows
82 per cent of Queenslanders want to be able to choose their own
president rather than have a president elected or selected by
politicians. Supporting the popular election of a president will
give the republican argument the greatest chance of success in a
referendum. The bottom line is that politicians and political
parties are at their lowest ebb in terms of public support in the
history of this nation. Any proposition allowing for politicians
to appoint the president through the parliament will be treated
with suspicion by the Australian people and will put at risk the
very moves towards a republic.
Australians will not be
impressed by some behind-the-scenes-deal between politicians on
who should be nominated in parliament for the position of
president. To suggest that the appointment of a president by a
two-thirds majority of the parliament in some way makes them
non-political is a nonsense. They would only get that endorsement
by virtue of a political deal. A president elected in this way is
a president selected by politicians after a deal between the
major political parties. It is this sort of arrogance which is
making so many people in Australia determined to have their own
say on who the president should be.
I am not afraid of the
Australian people having the power to elect their president.
Perhaps there are too many politicians, ex-politicians and
aspiring politicians who believe that they have more wisdom than
the people they represent. I do not. A number of speakers have
suggested that the Australian people really do not fully
understand all the ramifications of the direct election of a
president. What arrogance. What an insult to the Australian
people. It is similar to the way politicians argued that women
should not have the vote in the early years of our history, and
why there were some at the 1898 Convention who, out of fear,
opposed federation. It is just as nonsensical. We should be
aiming for a true democracy where the people can choose who they
want for their president. Do not be under any illusions: if we do
not get it right, the monarchists and royalists will ambush this
referendum in the outlying states- and I do not believe any of
them have made any pretence to the contrary here or in any other
place.
It has been argued by one
Queensland monarchist that no Queenslander would ever become
president if people were allowed to elect a president. I want to
put this to rest. Not only is that an insult to Queenslanders and
all Australians, it is also disloyal to Queenslanders.
Australians will always support someone who has ability no matter
which state he or she comes from. Just look at the way South
Australians stood to applaud Queensland wicket keeper Ian Healy
on Sunday. That is part of the Australian character that makes
this a great country.
Apart from that, this
argument that Sydney or Melbourne will always hold sway in a
direct election is just as applicable to any method of selecting
a president or to the appointment of a governor-general for that
matter. The only way to defeat it is by the calibre of the
nominee- which is my argument. I say that because, of the 147
federal House of Representatives members, 87 come from either New
South Wales or Victoria. If this nonsensical argument about
Sydney and Melbourne was true it would not be possible to have a
Queensland Governor-General because New South Wales and Victoria
have the parliamentary numbers to have their own way, in terms of
the Prime Minister. If the argument was true then Bill Hayden
would never have become the excellent Governor-General that he
was.
As part of the direct
election of a president I fully support the codification of the
powers of a president to eliminate any uncertainty or ambiguity
about their meaning, and certain limitations on the powers of a
president in order to eliminate any conflict with the principles
of responsible government. The full details should have been a
matter for this conference, and I hope they still will be.
I support an elected
five-year term for the president, clear codification of the
president's powers, nominations for president from Australian
citizens and a possible role for the president as defender and
protector of the Constitution similar to the Irish model where
the president can refer repugnant or unconstitutional laws to the
High Court. In my view the president must not be a member of any
political party.
On issues such as the
procedures for the nomination and dismissal of the president I
have an open mind. Delegates need to be aware that in some of the
states, and I will have more to say about this next week, it may
be necessary to have state referenda in conjunction with the
federal referendum to overcome constitutional difficulties in the
states. In Queensland, the legacy of past governments continues
to provide us with constitutional problems to overcome.
The Queen of Queensland
legislation enacted in 1977 was intended to keep Queensland as an
outpost of the British monarchy even if Australia became a
republic. As it is, the Queensland Constitution dwells on the
Constitution of the colony of Queensland. But the 1977
legislation was designed to entrench parts of the Constitution so
that it could not be changed without a referendum. Premier
Bjelke-Petersen did this following the dismissal of Prime
Minister Whitlam in 1975. The 1977 Queen of Queensland
legislation is just one of a number of examples of the need to
review Queensland's constitution. Premier Bjelke-Petersen told
parliament on 7 December 1976:
To entrench the
present system the bill provides that none of its clauses can be
altered by parliament unless the bill is first presented to the
people by way of referendum as prescribed in the bill. The
requirement of entrenchment is also itself entrenched so that the
guarantee cannot be undone such as has been done in other parts
of the Commonwealth of Nations where a republican form of
government has been brought about contrary to the Constitution.
In other words, it was a belt
and braces job. It was a double knot which was not meant to be
untied.
At this historic Convention
we should acknowledge and respect our wonderful history. We must
learn from our history, but our eyes should not be eternally
focused on it. If we do that then we shall trip and stumble as we
move forward. We need to look forward to the 21st century and to
a Constitution which talks about an independent and democratic
nation of Australia and what rights and benefits this country
offers its citizens- a Constitution that takes us into the next
century. There are a number of delegates here who support the
direct election of the president. Perhaps the majority of
delegates do not. That causes me great concern. Those of you who
have argued the monarchist's position would certainly oppose the
direct election of the president and I therefore understand your
position. I do not agree with it but I can understand your
position.
Those who are from the
Australian Republican Movement who have opposed the direct
election of the president have, in my view, been very
short-sighted. I hope that during the remainder of this
Convention you will give serious consideration to the position
you have taken. I appeal to you to do so. I appeal to you to
consider the argument that I have already advanced- that is, we
need the approval of the Australian people to pass this
referendum. There is a huge degree of cynicism out there about
politicians, political parties and the process itself. I can
understand why that cynicism exists. We need to be careful that
what we put to the people is a referendum proposal that has an
opportunity to be supported.
I believe that a lot of
people elected to this Convention from the ARM were elected on
the basis that people believed they were voting for delegates who
would support an opportunity for them to vote for the direct
election of the president. I therefore sound a very clear
warning: unless we come up with a proposition that effectively
gives the people of Australia the power to choose their president
then I fear we may not end up with an Australian republic at all.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- I
call Kerry Jones, the Executive Director of the ACM.
Mrs KERRY JONES- `Women in time
will do great things.' This is the motto of the nuns at my old
school, Loretto Convent. The nuns gave me a great education.
Quite frankly, I never gave a thought to the Constitution. But
when I was a young student at Sydney university I became aware of
the need for sound constitutional government. The Senate had
delayed supply to Mr Whitlam's government. Eventually the
Governor-General acted. The university and the country were in
uproar. There were demonstrations and some of them were ugly.
It seemed that Australia
could experience the sort of civil disturbance we have seen so
often in other countries. We were on the brink of chaos. But soon
the country was caught up in that most democratic, almost
soothing, activity- a federal election campaign. It seemed that
the election was just a few short weeks after the dismissal but,
rather than seizing emergency powers as happens in so many
countries, the head of state had referred the question to the
ultimate tribunal- the tribunal of the people. And the people
made their decision.
What had brought on these
events was beyond my concern. I was far more interested in music
as a young music student. But my life in those years was in
achieving what the nuns had been encouraging me to do. My career
in teaching, my love of music and, as with so many women, being a
mother working full time- they soon took up most of my time. But
of course most of my concerns were with my family and my work.
After 1975 any interest I had
in the Constitution receded for the same reason that so many
Australians know so little about it: it works so well. Then one
evening I was invited to a function about something called the
republic. It was addressed by Michael Kirby. Michael Kirby was a
hero to me and my friends and to my generation as I believe he is
to today's young thinkers. A great judge, liberal and
compassionate, he was a model to all of us. In a crowded hall he
explained to us that the republic was not about Woman's Day
stories on the royal family; it was about our system of
government. It was about all the best in our system of
government, one which would ensure that Australians did not have
the instability, the long periods of strife, all too common in
other countries, but lived in a federal democracy that works
well.
Michael Kirby is an unashamed
monarchist. I thought back to 1975, to the way in which a
political struggle could have so easily turned but which was so
quickly decided by us, the people. I had become a constitutional
monarchist- not out of my love of English blood, for my blood is
actually Irish; not out of birth in the Protestant establishment,
for I am actually a Catholic; not out of enthusiasm for all
things royal, for I have little interest in such trivia. I had
become a constitutional monarchist because I was persuaded, as
was Michael Kirby, that the system of government bequeathed to us
by our founders is superior to any republican models proposed.
The present system had the
near unanimous support of Australians until recent years. Those
great Australian leaders Menzies, Evatt, Chifley and that great
wartime leader John Curtin were committed equally to an
Australian independence and to the monarchy. If any attempted to
rewrite history, may I remind them it was not Menzies but John
Curtin who chose a member of the royal family to be our own
Australian Governor-General. There is no doubt in my mind,
Placido Domingo notwithstanding, that John Curtin was the
greatest Labor leader the country has ever known and is among our
greatest prime ministers.
There is no doubt that we
anti-republicans come to this Convention as the underdogs. We did
not have the wealth to fight a TV campaign for the Convention
election. We did not have the resources of the largest political
party to help us. We did not have and do not have the support of
that army of advocate journalists who do not see their role as
reporting the objective truth but see their true vocation as
campaigners for whatever fad may be in fashion in the salon of
the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
The organisation which I
represent, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, was formed in
July 1992. Our charter, which now has close to 20,000 signatures,
was written by Justice Michael Kirby. In brief, it is to defend
the Australian system of government, the Australian Constitution,
the role of the Crown in it, a role which guarantees us
leadership above politics- something none of that plethora of
republican models that are being debated can ever do.
You may have noted through
the more stormy periods of this long debate, a debate that has
been particularly encouraged, as I said, by the Australian media,
republicans continually try to move us anti-republicans into a
preferred republican model debate. On behalf of our membership,
as well in reference to our charter and mandate- the mandate we
were elected on, achieving over 2 million votes from across
Australia- I take this opportunity to assure all Australians of
my absolute, unequivocal belief that our current system of
government in Australia is already one of the best in the world
and my commitment to retaining absolutely in its full integrity
that system of government.
I believe no republic model
will ever offer the protection and safeguards that work so well
in our current Constitution. The fact is that there are only two
tried and tested models for democratic government, especially
government in a federation like ours. One is the American. It has
its great weaknesses, weaknesses which we are seeing today. A
supply crisis or an impeachment, or threatened impeachment, can
lead to months of instability. The other safe, secure tested
system, tested over more than a century, is Westminster. An
integral part of Westminster is those two politician-free zones-
the judiciary and the head of state. The Crown is integral to
Westminster.
Any attempt to graft a
republic on to Westminster produces an inferior model. It
produces a competition for power between the President and the
Prime Minister, as in France; or it produces a competition for
power between the President, the Prime Minister and the Supreme
Court, as in Pakistan; or it strips the President of any powers,
as in Ireland. All of these models have the potential to produce
constitutional crisis. If we have a unique president, a president
with no powers, we would also have to neuter our Senate and our
states and make the Prime Minister all powerful. What would that
do in solving the real problems that concern those who did not
frequent the republican salons of elite Sydney- the real issues
of unemployment, health, schools, taxation, mortgages?
My task is simple: it is to
assess each republican model against the Constitution that has
served us so well. None come up to this benchmark. When I was a
child, the nuns said to us women that in time we will do great
things. I do not claim I am doing great things. I am only the
director of an organisation which exists on the small donations
of thousands of ordinary Australians. I can only do small things
but, if this Convention maintains the Constitution, if this
Convention causes our political leaders to abandon this
distraction and do their job of finding solutions to the problems
of ordinary Australians, then they will have done great things.
Mr BRUMBY- It is a great honour
and a privilege for me to speak in this debate and play my part
as one of 152 delegates in helping to shape the nation's future.
I speak in this debate as a representative of the Victorian
parliament, but I speak also as a person who spent seven years in
the federal parliament, including five years in this place. I
have to say that, when I came back here today and saw Michael
Hodgman, I thought I would never have been back in this chamber
seeing Michael Hodgman again representing the interests of- I am
not sure whose interests he was representing but he was here
today.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN-
Neither of you has changed.
Mr BRUMBY- Neither of
us has changed. It is a great honour to come back here at a time
when our nation seems ready to celebrate its maturity, to turn a
fact of life into a law of the land and to acknowledge that our
head of state should be one of us.
During my years in the state
parliament and the federal parliament I saw first-hand the
appointment and the discharge of responsibilities of
Governors-General Sir Ninian Stephen and Sir Zelman Cowen, and I
served in this parliament alongside the Hon. Bill Hayden. At the
state level I have worked alongside Governors Richard McGarvie
and, more recently, Sir James Gobbo.
As the former federal member
for Bendigo, I understand the crucial role that Victorians,
particularly those from the goldfields of Bendigo and Ballarat,
played in the establishment of our federation almost 100 years
ago. Sir John Quick's original home in Bendigo still stands today
and the monuments, the architecture and the symbols throughout
Bendigo and Ballarat stand still as testament to the efforts of
ordinary workers across the goldfields to achieve our federation.
If I might be a little
parochial, it was Victorians who in many ways drove the process
of change; it was Victorians who led the renaissance of the
federation movement under the Southern Cross; it was Victorians
who in every sense accommodated and drove the federation and even
gave away the capital; and it is the good people of Victoria who
continue today in the vanguard of progressive social change in
their support for an Australian head of state and in their
endorsement of multiculturalism- and I am proud to be here today
to represent them.
The challenge of this
Convention is to gain consensus for a model for an Australian
republic. I think that challenge and others have been clearly set
out by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and
others. If that consensus is to be achieved and subsequently
passed into law via referendum, then the model that we choose
must, in my view, effectively meet four key criteria. Firstly,
the model must be acceptable to both the government and the
opposition parties and, hence, to the federal parliament. A model
which does not enjoy bipartisan political support has no real
chance of obtaining the necessary public support required to pass
that referendum into law. Secondly, the model must be acceptable
to the Australian people, and they must have some ownership of
that process of change. Thirdly, the model must strengthen and
build on what is one of the best, most robust and well tested of
all of the democracies. And, while we remain a relatively young
parliamentary democracy, in many ways we are the oldest democracy
in the world- the first to provide universal suffrage and a range
of other initiatives where we have led the world in our short
parliamentary history. Fourthly, I believe that the model must
provide a symbol of renewal built around an Australian head of
state.
I have always been, for as
long as I can remember, a republican. I have been a passionate
republican. In response to the speech that has just been made by
Kerry Jones, I have to say that, irrespective of any merits of
the present system, it is totally anathema to me that our
official head of state is not an Australian and that we rely on a
foreign entity to approve, and potentially dismiss, our
Governor-General. It is not just the symbolism of that, as the
Prime Minister would say; it is a great anachronism that, as a
modern, democratic, forward-looking and independent nation, we
rely on another person in another country some 12,000 miles away
as our head of state. As much as she may be a great monarch of
another nation, the Queen is not one of us; our celebrations and
our achievements are not hers. The fact is that time has moved
on. As Mary Delahunty said earlier this morning, it is time that
our Constitution express the way we are, not the way we were.
I want to make some brief
comments on the issue of direct election. As I have said, I have
come to this Convention as a republican, but I have come with an
open mind as to the best republican model. Nearly two years ago I
appeared on the front page of the Melbourne Age alongside
a photo of Prime Minister Keating, with a headline reading
`Brumby versus Keating'. The article explained that, on the
question of the republic, I supported direct election with
codification of powers. This was of course, as you would recall,
a different position to that which was taken by the Prime
Minister, as he explained to me in his own special way over the
phone later that morning.
Over the past 18 months and
in the run-up to this Convention, I have had to look long and
hard at all of the options in terms of what is achievable, what
is workable, what is likely to achieve consensus from this
Convention and what is likely to receive bipartisan political
support. Having looked at all of the arguments in detail and
having listened to many of the excellent speeches which have been
made here today and yesterday, it is my firm belief that you
cannot have an elected president and at the same time maintain
our system of Westminster parliamentary democracy; the two simply
do not fit together.
As Malcolm Turnbull said
yesterday, there are essentially two models for an elected
president. You can have a president with full executive powers
like the American system, or you can have a president with no
executive powers, only ceremonial powers like the Irish system. I
think we need to be clear about this because there is a lot of
passionate debate about this. There is no in between system. An
elected president cannot be an impartial umpire. Even with good
faith and the best of intentions conflict will inevitably arise
between an elected president and the elected Prime Minister of
the day. That is the fact of the matter.
You could go through dozens
of potential scenarios but they are not difficult to envisage.
You could have a Liberal government with a Labor president. You
could have a Liberal government with a Labor president and minor
parties holding the balance of power in the Senate. That would be
quite a likely outcome in our system of federation. You could
have a president who is elected on a single issue campaign and
then confronted with directly contradictory legislation passed by
the House of Representatives. What position would that put the
president in? I repeat that the range of possible scenarios- and
some of them were outlined in the media this morning and in
speeches yesterday- are numerous and they are real.
In attempting to justify
their arguments, many point to the presidency of Mary Robinson of
the Irish republic between 1990 and 1997, claiming that it
provides an attractive model involving direct popular election
without apparent conflict with the elected government of the day.
But the reality is that the Irish model needs careful attention.
The fact is that the election of Mary Robinson was more Irish
good luck than good management. The 1990 election itself was an
anomaly. From 1945 until 1990 every president of Ireland was
supported by Fianna Fail. The deeply controversial Eammon de
Valera was president for two terms between 1959 and 1973, and he
moved directly from the office of the Prime Minister. He was
elected narrowly at the age of 76, and he was re-elected in an
even closer fight at the age of 83.
I think that point is worth
making. Many who support direct election say that the politicians
will not get a look in. But when you look at Ireland the people
who have had the first run at getting into the presidential
position have been the politicians. To the younger people who
spoke yesterday: Misha Schubert, who I thought spoke
exceptionally well but I cannot agree with her views; she wants
the full range of change- the power, the energy, the passion that
an elected president can bring. But, again, I would refer her to
Ireland. That is not what we got in Ireland for most of those
years. We got a person who was 76 years old and who was then
re-elected when he was 83 years old.
But that is not the end of
the story, because there was no election at all for the
presidency between 1973 and 1990. We had Erskine Childers from
1973 to 1974, who died in office. We had Cearbhall O'Dalaigh from
1974 to 1976, and we had Patrick Hillery from 1976 to 1980. In
the three cases between 1973 and 1990 a consensus candidate was
chosen by negotiation between the parties. So, again, I would say
to those who support the direct election of a president: have a
look at the record in Ireland, have a look at what has actually
happened, not just the Mary Robinson example because she was an
exception. I will come to her in a moment. Have a look at the
other examples. They did not give us the type of candidates that
many who support direct election would want to see as elected as
president of Australia.
The reason that between 1973
and 1990 there was no popular vote was that there was an
agreement between the major political parties. In 1990 Mary
Robinson was nominated by the Labor Party and the Workers Party.
The Fianna Fail nominee was the Deputy Prime Minister, Brian
Lenihan, and the third candidate was Austin Currie of Fine Gael.
One week before the presidential election Prime Minister Charles
Haughey was forced to sack Lenihan for having been caught out
lying. Nevertheless, Lenihan led on the first ballot in the
popular vote. Mary Robinson defeated Lenihan on the second ballot
with 52.8 per cent of the vote after Fine Gael then urged its
supporters to vote for her.
I would put this to the
advocates who keep quoting the Irish model: have a look at the
facts, as I have done over the last few months. If Lenihan had
won in 1990, the Irish presidential model might not have seemed
so attractive to so many of the delegates who are here today, and
so I repeat that there are essentially two choices at this
Constitutional Convention. You can support an elected executive
president, and I respect people who put that view; it is a
legitimate debate although I must say it is a debate we would be
better off having in Australia 20, 30, 40 or 50 years down the
track.
If you are going to support
an elected president, let us be clear about what we are talking
about. We are talking about an elected president with full
executive powers. We are talking about the American-style system.
That is one choice.
The other choice is to have
an appointed head of state accountable to the Prime Minister and
to the parliament of the day. I have to repeat that a hybrid
system simply will not work. You cannot have a halfway house; you
cannot elect a president and at the same time expect the
president to be an impartial umpire.
So I support a system of
appointment. Whether it is by the Prime Minister or by the
parliament on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, that
detail is to be worked through at this convention. Unless we are
going to say, yes, let us look at the American system with a
direct election of an executive president and going to go down
that route, we need to stick to having a serious debate about the
other two alternatives. One is appointment directly by the Prime
Minister- the McGarvie model- which has some attractions but I
think the people of Australia lack ownership of that model and it
does not have enough inspiration to take us forward into a new
millennium. The other is the one which, of course, has been the
model of the Keating Labor government and the model supported by
the ARM and is for a president appointed or elected by the
parliament of the day.
You cannot have both systems.
If we are not going down the American route, let us look
seriously at those two options- appointment by the Prime Minister
or election by the parliament- and have a serious discussion
about them. They are the two systems, and they build around our
Westminster parliamentary system of democracy. If I might
conclude by commenting on that system, there has been a lot of
criticism here that parliaments are not accountable. There was
Ted Mack's speech yesterday that the parliamentarians are not
accountable; they are not answerable to the people. With due
respect to Ted Mack, who is a person I respect, that is simply
not the case; that is simply not the fact in Australia.
We have more elections in
this country than just about any other country in the world. The
average we have had in federal elections since World War II would
be about ever 22 or 23 months. The people who make up the numbers
on the floor of parliament, who effectively elect the Prime
Minister, are out there facing the people in a full, open, robust
and democratic system. It is a democratic system. It is a
nonsense to say that if the Prime Minister or the parliament
appoints the Governor-General or the president of the day it is
not a democratic system. It is a democratic system.
There is another issue which
I will be raising next week. It is the role of the states,
because the Australian republic does not begin and end in
Canberra. Each Australian state will have to examine its own
Constitution, the role of its Governor and how it wants to
prepare itself for the new century in the light of national
change. I appeal to delegates today. I ask those who are
supporters of the monarchy to understand the popular sentiment
across Australia as we move towards a new millennium, the popular
sentiment which is expressed here in the numbers on the floor in
the Convention that people do want to see change. They do want to
see an Australian head of state. They do not want to see an
Australian who is one of us as our head of state. I ask them to
look seriously at the options, to play a constructive role, to
recognise the momentum of change and to get behind the models
which will give us a truly Australian head of state.
Mr HAYDEN- The Prime Minister
has made it clear that his preferred outcome from this
Constitutional Convention would be a consensually supported
recommendation which could go to the Australian community as a
referendum proposal. It would test the community attitude about
whether we should become a republic and when and what sort of
republic we should be.
On the basis of the Prime
Minister's declared openness on this, or receptivity on this
proposition, I have adopted the attitude that, where I can at
this Convention, I will contribute constructively towards the
formulation and refinement of resolutions which might come out of
working parties in respect of what sort of republic this country
might want. But, I have to say, that that is not my preferred
position. I do it out of a sense of constructiveness and a wish
to contribute as much as I can so that we can avoid serious flaws
in any proposition that may go to the public and which later
could haunt us with all sorts of problems of political
instability.
My preferred position is the
status quo. I am not here as an ideologue from the republicans or
from the constitutional monarchists. I am a pragmatist. I have a
simple test. What works? Does it work well? If it does, that is a
bonus. Is it acceptable to the public? It is because of all of
those calls, reading positively, that I support the status quo.
There may be a counter to
this. The opinion polls at the moment are showing slightly more
than 50 per cent of the public want a republic. But I am
convinced that the status quo is going to win in the referendum,
should there be one, in which this issue is contested. I recall
1984: four referenda were put by the government of the time to
the Australian public. They commenced with 80 per cent opinion
poll support from the Australian public. They finished with 60
per cent opposition. One man, Peter Reith, who emerged from
hibernation like a sore headed bear, fought the campaign almost
single handedly and managed to sow enough concern in the
community to turn that situation around to the disadvantage of
the government.
More recently, Malcolm
Mackerras published an analysis which showed that even in spite
of a majority vote overall in support of a republic the small
states could conceivably defeat that majority- that is, repudiate
the referendum proposal. Of course, the issue has been further
complicated in the course of the last two days because the issue
of states' rights has been injected into the consideration of the
matters before us.
Queensland and Western
Australia have made it quite clear that they will resist
vigorously any attempt to interfere with their internal
arrangements. So I could go back to Queensland some time after
the referendum, having had the joy of being a republican
Australian elsewhere, to become a constitutional monarchical
member of Queensland's monarchical system. I have no doubt that
Tasmania and South Australia will end up somewhere there too.
I suggest to the Australian
Republican Movement that they should be fairly sensitive to this
point because their natural allies in the Labor Party in
Queensland and in other small states are going to be very
seriously disadvantaged by this issue if it is one for contention
in the lead-up to any referendum.
Lastly- and I want to come
back to this in more detail if time permits- the Australian
Republican Movement has decided on a policy which is in conflict
with community attitudes. I think it is very brave but rather
foolish. If I were them I would go for greater prudence than
that. You do not win elections by telling the public that it is
not what they want that you are going to offer them but what you
say they are going to have to accept.
What worries me is that all
of this disruption to our community, to our social and political
processes is occurring over an extended period when we have a
republic now. The fact is that we have a republic now. Our nation
is a republic in all but name. Let me repeat it: our nation is a
republic in all but name. Kim Beazley said it yesterday. So here
we are engaging in a $50 million windsurfing exercise in this
chamber of Old Parliament House and what is the objective? To
change our de facto small `r' republic by putting a stamp of a
big `R' on the Constitution. There is an element of stunt in all
of this.
Let me tell you what the
implications of Mr Beazley's statement are. All the benefits of a
republic for Australia are here now and they have been here for
some considerable time. The Governor-General is head of state.
That is clear from Mr Beazley's statement. Furthermore, the head
of state is an Australian and is a resident in Australia.
Moreover, in respect of the last matter there is an unbroken line
of Australians as head of state- de facto in Mr Beazley's terms-
since Casey was appointed Governor-General in 1965. Sir David
Smith has made the point on more than one occasion that the
Governor-General is in fact the head of state of this country; de
facto the head of state. His view has been derided by many
sources opposed to his expressed attitudes. But we have Mr
Beazley supporting him, saying that he has been right all the
time.
One might ask what are the
virtues of the present fictions which surround the role of the
sovereign. The first and most important is that the sovereign is
more than arm's length from our political processes and is
respected and trusted; is not even suspected of being the sort of
person who might connive in any political actions or
conspiracies. In 1975, if the Prime Minister of the time had been
inclined to attempt to sack the Governor-General, I am certain,
with good reason, that the advice to the palace to withdraw the
commission would not have been proceeded with. There would have
been prudent delays and we would have been forced, as we were
eventually on the broader issue, to sort these sorts of matters
out ourselves.
If we lose the benefits of
the status quo which we draw down on at the present time, what
have we got? The best that I can see so far is the so-called
McGarvie model- a council of elders the members of which will act
on the advice of the government; that is, the government will
tell them what to do. It is a veil, and I think a not very
convincing veil, at a time of great political stress in this
country. People are not going to pretend that this process is a
sort of arm's length thing to which they have been accustomed in
the past under the status quo. Furthermore, this council of
elders could be reduced to a government cipher staffed by the
wrong sorts of people, and perhaps government won't want to staff
it with the right sorts of people. It would be subject of an
onslaught by a political party, losing out in a dispute which
went before it in respect of the head of state. In Australia we
play hard bodyline ball in our political differences. Of course,
the PM could sack the body; after all, it could be described as
unrepresentative slush or whatever the term might be. All in all,
I do not think it would be a very successful proposition if it
were to be adopted.
So, if we are going to move
away from the status quo, we are going to have to think a lot
more about how we handle a number of things. What has worried me
as a pragmatist has been that some of the black letter law
authority available to the Governor-General under the
Constitution, if it went to a president in its present form,
could be misused at some time by some sort of populist. I think
that George Winterton's contribution on Working Party 4 today
allayed much of that sort of worry, but what happens if there is
a referendum and the proposition for a republic gets up but
Winterton's proposal for defining how power is to be used is
defeated? The thing remains wide open. There is this uncertainty,
which leaves me greatly disturbed.
The dangers I see in the
proposals which are coming forward from the republicans are
related to the fact that in all models there is to be an
election. There is the two-thirds election by parliament,
mentioned with great reverence by Malcolm Turnbull yesterday as
though it shone refulgently in its own virtuous glory. Rubbish!
Anyone who says that has not been involved in political
processes, in or out of parliament. There will be horse trading,
there will be filibustering when it suits people, there will be
aggressive personal attacks in reviews. We are not very good in
Australia at bipartisanship on the big issues, especially when an
opportunity is seen to polarise the political debate. I do not
see this as a very healthy process at all.
When a president is elected
he has a constituency of his own and, if it takes two-thirds of
the parliament to sack him, it is unlikely he will ever be sacked
for political misbehaviour if he plays up to a sufficient number
from, say, the opposition party- whichever party it might happen
to be- and the independents in the respective houses. All he
would have to do would be to mobilise something like a little
over 40 per cent of the vote and he would have frustrated the
government of the day. My major problem is, as I mentioned, that
not enough attention has been paid to how we sack politically
errant, highly politicised presidents.
Then there is the case of the
direct election. I saw in one of the newspapers that we might end
up with a handsome TV sports personality if this sort of process
were adopted. Well, stranger things have happened in the
parliamentary process. I remember about 37 years ago that a
member of Queensland's finest walked straight off the plod to
come down to the House of Representatives with the presumption he
could become a senior minister or hold senior ministries, or that
he could be considered as an alternative Prime Minister. He might
even end up as a head of state of this country. I confess that
even stranger things have happened since that member left the
parliament, but I do not want to go into that. I think that is an
arrogant, conceited presumption. As long as sufficient controls
can be applied to the person who becomes president, it does not
matter what their background is. It is up to the public to
determine who they want to represent them in a democracy.
Malcolm Turnbull rules out
the direct election because we will end up with politicians. The
rule is, as I took it, that any Australian can become head of
state except one who is a politician. It seems to me that that is
a bit like saying that any Australian can become a surgeon except
one who is a doctor. I leave to the Prime Minister commentary on
former Australian heads of state who have been politicians, in
his statement of yesterday, and to Sir Harry Gibbs, the former
Chief Justice of the High Court, in his lecture `A republic: The
issues'. More worrisome, of course, is that direct election can
foster demigods. But if we can control a president who is elected
from parliament with two-thirds of the vote there, we can surely
extend the general principles to control someone who is elected
by popular vote.
The dilemma for the
Australian Republican Movement in all of this is that it wants
the minimalist position; that is, the two-thirds vote for a
president from parliament. What it is effectively saying is that
they trust people to make wise choices electing politicians.
Actually, they have no alternative in this but they are trying to
make a virtue out of it. The Australian Republican Movement and
the politicians do not trust the people to elect their first
citizen, their head of state. As I said, I see no problem with
politicians or anyone being elected, provided there are
sufficient controls. What the ARM is doing is rudely repudiating
the public. It is telling them they cannot have what they want.
They will get what the ARM and the politicians, in their superior
wisdom, determine. That is a rather dangerous election policy, I
should have thought.
More than seven out of 10
Australians want the right to elect their head of state. The
Australian Republican Movement, which at most represents about 10
per cent of eligible voters, judging from this recent election
for delegates to this establishment, is telling 70 per cent of
the Australian public, `Pipe down, we'll do your thinking for
you. Just follow.' Really, that is a little presumptuous. If the
republicans believe they can control the president then it is
insupportable to be spending $50 million on this roadside running
repair job on the Constitution which is before us.
I am not a republican. If I
were, however, I would support the `whole Monty' as they say
these days.
Well, I would not support it
but I think that is the way we should present this. If I were a
republican with a strong commitment to environmental issues,
dedicated to the rights of Aboriginal people, with a deep-seated
conviction on civil liberties, concerned about a bill of rights,
wanting to restructure the political system to make it more
democratic and so on, I would not wimp on the real challenges- to
comprehensively redraft the Constitution and to embrace
contemporary values, as was eloquently presented by Pat O'Shane
this afternoon. But I am not a republican.
If we are going to spend all
of this money for such a minor change, then that is unacceptable.
The republicans should be prepared to face the fact that as a
matter of integrity they have to go all the way and have a
popular election for the president and the major redraft that
elements of the republican representatives here are proposing.
Reverend TIM COSTELLO- It is a
great pleasure to speak after Bill Hayden, particularly because
as a real republican I guess I am trying to do some of the very
things he said he would do if he were a republican. Let me say
that I am a reluctant republican- reluctant because I do treasure
the achievement of constitutional monarchy. Like many of you, I
have stood near the spot where Charles I was tried in the Great
Hall of Westminster and reflected on the extraordinary
achievement of the emergence of the system of constitutional
monarchy that we enjoy. The ultimate triumph of parliament over
the crown is a great historical drama and the political genius of
that achievement is certainly enjoyed in the system that emerged.
So I am proud that we are heirs and beneficiaries of this
struggle in Australia.
I am a reluctant republican
also because the symbol of the Crown has been a dominant symbol
and therefore story in my history in Australia. I think the ACM
can rightly claim that this symbol has been moulded to fit the
Australian experience and that it carries the story of both
Australian identity and Australian history. I agree with them in
so far as this story is not a foreign story to me; it intersects
with my personal history.
But, having been Mayor of St
Kilda, in inner city Melbourne, I know that this story was
foreign to many others. At monthly citizenship ceremonies- and
this is where I started to become dislodged from being a
monarchist- I could not escape the incongruence and confusion
that swept over the faces of names like Svetlana, Mohammed and
Abu Dabu, as they swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II, her
heirs and successors in order to become Australian citizens. As I
watched their faces and tried to explain this incongruence, which
I admit does not occur now at citizenship ceremonies, I guess I
sensed that the emerging story was the story of a republic- a
story that was indigenous and home grown; that certainly
emphasised mateship, equality and interdependence that ultimately
was not enhanced by monarchy and allegiance to Yarralumla and
ultimately to Buckingham Palace.
I do want to say that both
stories, both symbols- Crown and republic- do speak of Australian
identity and experience. This week I believe we are experiencing
the rights of passage. I think it is an emotional clearing house
for very, very deep emotions. I guess I am saying that I am
articulating the transition that those of us who are republicans
have recognised is occurring within our nation. The dominant
story that resonates louder, stronger and more vibrantly with us
is no longer the monarchy but a republic.
Having said that, I am
fearful that we may vote for something less than a real republic.
Whilst I support a resident for president, that is not the heart
of a republic. A republic is a compact of engaged citizens who
believe that they are equals and believe that participation in
self-government and ownership of their future are the highest
virtues of free peoples. Yes, that can happen under a
constitutional monarchy; but the symbol of the Crown does not
obviously nourish active republicanism, certainly not as
sufficiently as I believe one of our own as head of state will
nourish.
In talking about a real
republic, I believe we must retrieve something of our de facto
republican history under a constitutional monarchy. At the turn
of the century we were one of the world leaders in developing
active citizenship that was passionate about minorities. We were
one of the first nations, for that reason, to introduce
proportional representation to express minority view points,
because citizens who were not in the majority should be heard.
Along with universal suffrage, the secret ballot and a host of
other citizens rights, we in Australia saw ourselves as really a
social laboratory for active citizenship, for democracy and for
justice.
Indeed, when Mr Justice
Higgins, in the famous basic wage case, fixed that basic wage it
included not just your food and rent for the working man- and
then it was the man- but the cost of a daily newspaper. He said,
`How else could the working man fulfil his civic duties if he
could not afford the paper to know what his government was
doing?' The rest of the world was left rather breathless at this
republican, if you like, equality, this breath of civic vision. A
real republic must recover these instincts.
Much of the drive for an
elected president comes from the sense of dilution of republican
instincts of self-government as our highest ideal. The party
system has not helped. The political party system, though Bob
Carr referred to some of its achievements over Independents just
seeking their own benefits, calls for loyalty before courage,
creativity and initiative- at least in the minds of most
Australians.
Most Australians know that
the votes are counted before the speeches are made. So massive
cynicism against politicians and against parliament results. This
cynicism has been quite palpable, if often unfair, over the last
two days in this chamber. Young people feel profoundly
disconnected from this whole enterprise we call the political
system- and not just young people. They and others see no way to
make their contribution. So for them the possibility that they
might elect their head of state- and the polls clearly show that
is what they are saying- a head of state who has authority to
pull the government they are starting to despise into line, is
very appealing. Who can blame them?
Direct election gives them an
avenue of political expression. A better answer, for mine, in a
real republic is to actually reconnect citizens' deepest hopes to
contribute to their nation with active citizenship. I supported a
directly elected head of state- up to a couple of hours ago- if
we had voted to look seriously at codifying the reserve powers
and removing the power of the Senate to block supply. We have cut
off that option.
I was supporting it for this
reason: I believe the Senate received the power to block supply
basically as a trade off to get the states into federation. But
the Senate has never functioned as a states house. Despite the
party system allowing the Senate to still function as a house of
review, apart from a couple of instances, in my view, it has
never really functioned as a states house. The parties make the
decisions in the Senate.
Furthermore, because of the
nexus between the Senate and the House of Representatives, the
possibility of hung parliaments in the future, with population
growth and with the balance of power increasingly likely to be in
the hands of independents or minority parties, means that the
prospect of blocking supply is going to be far greater. The
prospect of the need for the exercise of reserve powers is going
to be far greater. I wished that we had actually faced up to this
issue. I should say, for mine, that issue was worth facing up to,
quite apart from direct election.
I had believed- this now is
not possible given some decisions provisionally taken- that the
presidency should become an entirely ceremonial role because then
the unwritten historic conventions that have constrained the
Governor-General from a precipitate use of the reserve powers-
conventions that may only function because they adhere to the
Crown, as Sir Harry Gibbs argues, and will not adhere to the
McGarvie panel and a president- could certainly have been written
down. If this could have been done then an elected president a la
Ireland would have been open to us. Also, limiting the power of
the Senate at least to block the ordinary money bills- not any
other limits- would have reminded us that responsible and
representative government is the foundation of our political
system. It should be made to work- rather than creating a new
model with potentially a powerful president.
The politicians here and some
of us who have made comments on the political system must face
the charge that unwittingly we have undermined the confidence in
representative democracy in this nation through a number of
factors- perhaps through the lack of civility in debate that
people see, particularly in question time, on the news each
night, certainly through the perception that there is sheer
brutality in the number crunching of factions that decides who
gets in and how decisions are made, causing deep contempt for the
notion of representative government. Election by two-thirds of
parliament or the recommendation by the three elders in the
McGarvie model does not have much emotional resonance with the
people. It is going to be virtually impossible to sell. Direct
election with codifying and with limiting Senate power, which is
also going to be hard to sell, I know, was at least clearing some
of the biggest hurdles and was the way through. I am not quite
sure where I am going to go now with those decisions.
Sir DAVID SMITH- Come
back to us.
Reverend TIM COSTELLO-
That is a very generous offer from that side of the House. A real
republic must work on two issues immediately. The first is a
clear recognition in the preamble of our indigenous people, whose
prior ownership and existence, except in a negative way, was
completely omitted from the present Constitution. History will
not afford us the honour of being a true republic if we do not
face this profound moral issue. As many of you know, in the
Convention debates of 1890 our indigenous people were mentioned
only once and then it was by a New Zealander- Jack Russell, I
think his name was. A founding father said, `You do not need to
worry about them; by and large they are a primitive race that is
dying out. They are not going to be a problem.' We must face this
issue and the preamble is the place to face it.
Secondly, though this will
now be the subject of future conventions, I believe we must work
on a charter of freedoms and responsibilities that actually
entices the imagination of citizens and draws their concerns into
the new republic. Globalisation has already largely declared that
the nation state is finished. Constant change has left many
Australians feeling passive and totally locked out of shaping
their nation's future. If we become a republic we will be
reasserting our belief in the nation state. It becomes a
regrouping, a regathering time for active citizenship,
I hope. But it will only be
meaningful if it includes a recontracting of our commitment to
protect our freedoms and, perhaps more importantly in the nuances
of today, to actually commit ourselves to our responsibilities to
this nation. Responsibilities are actually more important today
than freedoms- responsibilities like the great phrase of JFK: ask
not what your nation can do for you but what you can do for it.
In other words it means young people engaging in active
citizenship that does not lapse into cynicism and helplessness.
I believe history is made by
the dialectic of principle and pragmatism. I do fear that
pragmatism may be winning. And I do fear that if it does win, if
the dialectic of principle is not powerfully there luring
Australians to actually see that we are on about some noble
ideas, then we may fail history. Thank you.
Convention
adjourned at 7.30 p.m.
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Last updated: 21 October 2000
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