 |
The Foundation for National Renewal |
 |
 |
The Constitutional Convention of February 1998 |
|
A missed opportunity for much-needed reform. |
| Introduction | Delegates | Proceedings | Summaries |
|
TRANSCRIPT OF
PROCEEDINGS CHAIRMAN- There are a number of consequential changes as a result of the dialogue we have just had in the Convention which require consideration by the Resolutions Committee. They include some adjustment, as I understand it, to your resolution, recommendation A. They also include inclusion of the recommendations as a resolution, and they need to be distributed to delegates. If there is a feeling that we need to have further consideration, that will be allowed after half past three, prior to the voting at 4 o'clock, so that everybody moving in at 4 o'clock is clear on the resolutions that have been received from the resolutions group. They can all then vote on them on an informed basis. Is there any other intervention from the floor on this matter before we proceed?
Sir DAVID SMITH- Is there any provision in our procedures for a personal explanation on the grounds that a delegate has been misrepresented?
CHAIRMAN- No, but I will take it.
Sir DAVID SMITH- I want to record my rejection and resentment of Mr Turnbull's last intervention. I cannot speak for all of my colleagues but I will speak for myself. I came to this Convention with goodwill. My position on the change of our Constitution is well known, as is Mr Turnbull's. I respect his right to put it and I expect him to respect my right to put my view. I resent the implication that we are trying to organise this Convention in order to produce a predetermined result. Mr Turnbull, of course, can recognise that situation because it is one that he practises extremely well. I came here prepared to state my case and I came to let others state their cases and to listen. I regard his last intervention as a gross insult. This is not a $50 million frolic to indulge Mr Turnbull's personal fantasies; it is to enable the people of Australia to consider a very important situation. He has insulted us and he owes us an apology.
Ms AXARLIS- We have all come here to achieve an outcome. If we do not have an outcome, it will be disastrous. Therefore we should all put our heads together; work on each others models; have a free, open mind and heart; and work for a model that will deliver a republic, if that is what you want, or the status quo in a way that will enable Australia to progress in this global economy. With all due respect to Mr Hayden, I am not here to achieve a fiasco. I wish to have the sort of result that can go to the public of Australia- all Australians. I consider myself a true Australian, even though I was not born here. I would like to say to those people who continually interject that I am offended by some of the comments. This is not parliament; this is not the place to posture. The purpose of this is to get outcomes. I am sorry I am emotional; I am of Greek origin.
Proceedings suspended from 12.54 p.m. to 2.15 p.m. CHAIRMAN- There are a few procedural items to go through first. This evening there will be a reception at Government House from 6 o'clock. Several delegates have asked me whether they would be able to get away from here in time to attend it. I would propose, therefore, that we do not allow our voting and other procedures to go on past 5.15, so the delegates might reasonably be able to get ready to go out to Government House. As to the working group that was set down, I think we will ensure that those who are participating in the working group have until, say, 8.30 tonight to make their reports, so they can adjourn their working group and return to finish their deliberations after being out at Yarralumla. Several people have commented on the speakers' list. I say again that it has proved extraordinarily difficult to try to accommodate everybody's wishes. Barry Jones and I have tried to make sure that we get a spread of speakers so that all the views presented are not successively the same. It is not always easy to know just what some people's views are. We will accommodate as best we can the requests of those people whose names are down. The list this afternoon is one which we might find difficult to accommodate. I would hope at 3.30 that we might be able to start our process of considering the Resolutions Group proposals. I am told there is an inordinately long list of amendments to be considered with respect to each of the working group proposals. While we have said the voting will begin at four, I would like to start the process not later than 3.30 so that we will have a bit of time to consider each of the amendments. I would propose with respect to the amendments that those who are moving them be allowed, say, three minutes to talk on them, because it is going to be very difficult to understand what they are all about. I have arranged for each of the amendments to be distributed so that you will have a package of amendments with respect to working group A and a package of amendments with respect to working group B. You will be able to look at the amendments that are going to be presented. So that we can best consider them- it is not easy, as you know- we propose that any motion that gets more than 25 per cent support be allowed to go off to the Resolutions Group for consideration as to whether or not it should come back. Accordingly, you will have multiple votes and you will not be wiping out what would normally be excluded if you pass a particular amendment, providing there is about 25 per cent support. It is an unusual voting procedure but I wanted to foreshadow that we will be looking at that later in the day. There are a couple of other items I have to report on. The Reverend Tim Costello, who will be unavailable on Friday, 6 February, has asked Mr Ron Castan to be his proxy. I will table that document. This afternoon we return to the sessions from the floor on the issue of the day. I invite the Hon. Matt Foley MLA to commence the debate.
Mr FOLEY- Ever since Governor Bligh's skirmish with the New South Wales rum corps there has been passionate debate over the arrangements for the appointment and dismissal of an Australian head of state or that head of state's representative. The debate over different models for appointment and dismissal of a head of state depends in turn on what we really want out of constitutional reform. In my view, in this process of constitutional reform, we should strive for two fundamental goals: firstly, to achieve an Australian republic based on the authority of the Australian people rather than on the authority of a foreign monarch; secondly, to achieve a more authentic constitutional basis for the law of the land in Australia and, in particular, recognition through a constitutional preamble or otherwise of the great traditions of Aboriginal and Islander law. I acknowledge that we stand here on Ngunnawal land, and I pay tribute to the original owners of this land. We need an Australian republic which replaces the old dogma of the divine right of kings and queens with the democratic authority which springs from the people. `Dieu et mon droit'- God and my right- may be a slogan appropriate for the lion and the unicorn which adorn the Speaker's chair in this chamber. But that slogan is a quaint irrelevance for the people of suburban Brisbane whom I represent. The real question on appointment of a head of state lies in whether the democratic legitimacy of a head of state can spring from the people's representatives in parliament, as in the Australian Republican Movement model, or from direct election by the people. Like most parliamentarians, I have traditionally been very sceptical of an elected head of state. It is, after all, already hard to make the executive truly accountable to the parliament. What will it be like if the head of state has the added legitimacy of direct election by the people? For this and other reasons, there is much commonsense in what Kim Beazley outlined to this Convention: a republican model providing for the election of an Australian president on the nomination of the Prime Minister and cabinet by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of both houses of parliament. But this has to be weighed against the profound alienation that many people feel from the political process that was outlined very powerfully and eloquently by Mary Kelly prior to lunch. It has to be weighed against the lack of confidence that many people feel in parliament and, in particular, the lack of confidence that people feel that parliament will represent their will. That alienation is something which we should try to heal. Constitutional reform is an opportunity to heal, to reach out. It does not come often, and we should not approach the process of constitutional reform in any way which would exacerbate this alienation. Also it must be said that unity in the republican cause, certainly at this Convention, will simply not be achieved without accommodating the deeply held views of those committed to direct election by the people. Then, of course, there is also the small question of what the people themselves want. And it must be acknowledged that there is a growing momentum on the part of the Australian people for direct election. For this reason, I have come to the view that the republican model which should be taken to the Australian people in a referendum should include the opportunity of direct election by the people. I encourage delegates to look carefully at the model proposed by Working Group B, chaired by Geoff Gallop, for it outlines a method which can give weight to those less populous states and to the territories. It goes without saying that any such model must involve codification of the powers of a head of state and a change in the powers of the Senate. The model which I contemplate is similar to the Irish model and, in particular, to the great example set by President Mary Robinson. But I do say this to the students of Irish history: let us remember the great conflicts between Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera. The Irish model did not descend from heaven; it proceeded after many decades of great turmoil. We should learn from that experience to listen to each other.
CHAIRMAN- Your time has expired, I am afraid, Mr Foley. Can you please draw your remarks to a conclusion?
Mr FOLEY- Yes, thank you, Mr Chairman. There is much work to be done to improve the spirit and letter of our Constitution. I encourage delegates to proceed on the basis of genuine dialogue and to avoid collective monologue.
CHAIRMAN- I call the Hon. Michael Hodgman. Mr HODGMAN- Sir James Killen exhorted me, `Hodgman, do not be ambiguous,'- and I will not. What an extraordinary matter we are debating. In the five minutes that I have to speak I am going to have to be brief and make some points on the most important question of the lot- if you do decide that we are going to become a republic- the appointment, the dismissal and the term of office of the president. I want to say two things about the debate so far. Not one single republican speaker has averted to the fact that under our Constitution we are a federation. I want to say to you that it is very difficult to change the Westminster system, a federation, to a republic. The second thing I want to say to you is this: none of you seem to have read the Australia Act of 1986, which was brought into this parliament by the Hon. Bob Hawke as Prime Minister, which had the support of all the states, which passed unanimously and which has very serious implications for what you are about to try to do. Without going into the question of whether the president is to be elected by the people, which would seem to be fundamentally democratic, or by the politicians in Canberra, ask people in the streets of Wagga, Bathurst and Launceston whether they would like the bloody politicians in Canberra to pick their president and listen to their answers- or whether you have the McGarvie model. The plain fact of the matter is that you have seemed to overlook one fundamental thing- the Constitution says `unite in one indissoluble federal Commonwealth under the Crown'. I have to say, looking at the republicans collectively, you are so split and so divided on this issue that there is no way known the people of Australia will accept your proposition of tearing up our Constitution. Let me put the blame where it should be. The most superior elitist group in this Convention has been the Australian Republican Movement. It ought to be renamed the `Arrogant Republican Movement' because it has cast to one side the other republicans who have come here in good faith to put their case. Let us look at the Australia Act. Very simply it says that it is an `act to bring constitutional arrangements affecting the Commonwealth and the states into conformity with the status of the Commonwealth of Australia as a sovereign, independent and federal nation.' So those who say that we are not yet independent, that we are not yet mature, are insulting this parliament which met here in 1986 and declared that we were `sovereign, independent and federal'. Let us look at some of the provisions of the Australia Act. My friend Professor Winterton, who is out of the chamber, will tell you that there is a very big question as to whether the preamble and the first eight sections of our Constitution can be amended even by referendum. Is someone going to tell me that the Australia Act can be amended without the concurrence of every state parliament? Remember this act came into existence under the little used section 51(xxxviii) of the Constitution. The six states came and asked the parliament to pass it. I am going to put it to you that constitutionally all six states would have to ask the Commonwealth to repeal it. You see, you have not thought about these things. I am going to be constructive. I see my friend Eddie McGuire over there and some very good, decent people on the republican side. What I am about to say to you is that the debate has nearly got off the track already. The former Governor-General is quite correct. What you did in the debate here on Tuesday was disgraceful because you turned your backs on those who would not conform with your point of view. I have told you that I will fight the republic right down the line. But it is a fact that if we become a republic- and please, God, it will not happen- I will be voting for the people of Australia to pick the president as they do in the United States, as they do in France. I would not let the politicians in Canberra pick anybody let alone the president of the Commonwealth of Australia. Is the new president to have the powers of the Queen or the powers of the Governor-General? You have not dealt with this. Under the Australia Act, you have not dealt with the question of governors. Do they become vice-presidents? You have not dealt with the fact that, constitutionally, a state may well say under the Australia Act, `We deal directly with the Queen.' If you look at the Australia Act, you will find under section 7 that if the Queen is in the state, she can overrule the governor. Would that be the position if there were an Australian president and the state retained a governor? I have five minutes to speak on one of the most important issues. That is no criticism of you, Mr Chairman. You know me well enough.
CHAIRMAN- Thank you.
Mr HODGMAN- When I
criticise you, you will know that I am criticising you. But these
things have to be looked at. I will conclude; I probably will not
have a chance to speak again until next week. I want to hear some
of the younger people, including some of the brilliant young
lawyers, that we have here. Some of the younger ones should come
forward and say what they want, because they are the future of
this country. You can talk about all the ores and riches and all
the mines, but the future is the young people, and they are the
ones I want to listen to. ·=============== Last updated: 21 October 2000 | |||
