The Foundation for National Renewal   The Constitutional Convention of February 1998

Federal Election October 2004: Which Candidates Trust the People?

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
Wednesday, 11 February 1998
Page 7

Mr KENEALLY- Steve is from Victoria and I am from New South Wales, so I believe that we have a powerful sense in this chamber of the federal compact in operation, and I honour that compact which created the Commonwealth of Australia. Whether or not the Australia Act entrenches the monarchy in each state, as Neville Wran said:

This does not pose insuperable constitutional problems in converting states that so choose from monarchies to republics.

The ARM is happy to support self-determination by states, because we are all statesmen and women, as to their arrangements concerning their governors and as to them taking their own route to republican stature if that is what they choose. This is simply an extension of what we seek and what we are permitted for the Commonwealth under section 128- that the Australians themselves, as a Commonwealth community, exercise the power to achieve the appropriate republican model.

The term `governor', as many speakers have said, is not offensive. I was relieved, as a citizen, when the Convention decided not to recommend the retention of the term `governor-general' because, as my old friend Lloyd Waddy said, diplomats would be kept busy interpreting the meaning of governor-general. The same problem does not apply to `governor'.

However, we have to acknowledge that, although it would be great if every state voted for the republic- and we republicans believe that, now that this Convention has moved the debate into a new gear, every state will- and it would be wonderful for our moral authority in passing as a federal community to a Commonwealth republic if that could be achieved, I do not think that we should set a stricter test for this move to a republic than we do for other constitutional issues. Section 128, with its demand of a majority of electors from a majority of states, is an adequate test for all constitutional issues.

I would ask all delegates this: in a republican Commonwealth of Australia, would our dear and respected friend, the monarch of Great Britain, want to be put in the position of retaining a partial monarchy of New South Wales or Western Australia? Implicit in some of the demands is the belief that a federal republic of Australia and a monarchical state level system would not collapse of its own absurdity and would not be as abhorrent to the monarch as it would be to all sane people, except some of the Gilbert and Sullivan personalities on that side of the chamber, one of whom I see has departed.

I have the honour of being the founding chair of the ARM. I do not get Christmas cards from Bruce Ruxton but I am proud that, for the first time at this Convention, republican models are being sanely discussed. Our monarchists raise the problem of radical instability resulting from some of the republican models that have been presented, but so many cabinet ministers dissent from the view that there is radical instability in what the ARM is presenting that the tanks in the street proposal no longer has credibility.

Mr Hodgman, I, like you, look forward as a citizen to the referendum. You indicated that the republicans have the numbers here. The reason the republicans have the numbers here is that they have the numbers in the community. I think the time has come when Australians want to create, as the copestone and the apogee of their own desire for fraternity and community, a constitutional republic which reflects their present and their future but which certainly does not deny the past and certainly does not deny the federal compact.

As I tread back towards citizenship- if it is not out of order- I praise and thank the chairs and the delegates at this Convention. I think that all of us citizens have been impressed by the level of the discourse and by the way the constitutional options have been severely subjected to criticism and exposition here. I think that perhaps this Convention might prove a model for future Australian discourse as well.

Councillor TULLY- This Convention cannot ignore the reality that if Australia is to become a republic we may still have six states with the Queen of England as their head of state. In Queensland, the situation is more complicated because in 1977, as was said earlier, the Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen entrenched the Queen of Queensland into the state Constitution. The effect of that legislative amendment means that the Queen of England will remain as the Queen of Queensland until there is a referendum in Queensland to change the state Constitution. Whilst the title Queen of Queensland may have some sort of ring to it, heaven forbid if that recalcitrant son of hers should ever become the king of Queensland. I would have to go and live in Victoria, I would think, with comrade Ruxton to get away from something so bizarre.

Some delegates are engaging in a mischievous and misleading exercise in suggesting there cannot be or should not be any change at national level to become a republic until all the six states have agreed on six state republics. If this were to be agreed to, it would mean that one state could hold the entire nation to ransom. Clearly, this is unacceptable. There is no legal or constitutional requirement for simultaneous change at all seven levels of government in this nation, however desirable that may be. The misinformation being peddled by some delegates at this Convention which seeks to delay the inevitability of an Australian republic is deplorable.

The preamble to the Australian Constitution which states that the people of Australia or to be more precise of the six colonies, with the exception of Western Australia, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble federal Commonwealth provides no impediment to the creation of a federal republic. In fact the sovereignty of the states would not be affected in any way. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply mischievous.

Let us not cloud the issue of an Australian republic with the need for reform at state level. It is quite possible to have a federal republic with six monarchical states. It would also be possible to have simultaneous referendums to cure this absurdity. But let us not fall into the trap of saying that Australia cannot become a republic without the unanimous agreement of all six states. This is simply a legal and constitutional myth perpetrated by some of the snake oil salesmen at this Convention. We cannot ignore the sovereign rights of each of our six states. We must leave it up to them to resolve their own arrangements in their own time.

If one or more of the states wishes to stick with the Queen as their head of state with a governor to represent her, so be it. But do not allow this to be a subterfuge to prevent serious constitutional reform at a national level. Those monarchical states which stick with the current system will simply perpetuate the last vestiges of colonial rule in Australia. It is not the role of this Convention to tell the states what to do. We can identify the legal and the constitutional difficulties, but let us not get entangled in a states rights issue which has the possibility of going beyond our charter here at this Convention.

As a final thought on this theme: what have the governors of the states ever really achieved? Some would say that they are simply the aristocratic toffs to rule over the working class. I have searched through the annals of Australian history to find one single, solitary, positive achievement of any governor since the First Fleet arrived in 1788.

After weeks and months of searching, I found one. On 29 July 1860 in London, Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane Baillie was born. As with my comrades on my side of politics I am always suspicious of anyone with a double-barrelled surname. You can have a fair idea before you meet them that they are probably a Tory voter.

What about Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane Baillie. He went on to become a governor of Queensland and later went to Bombay to serve as governor there. One day at Government House in Brisbane one of the servants accidentally dropped the morning tea while she was making it for Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane Baillie. It comprised a cake, dipped in chocolate and dropped into coconut. The governor of the day was Lord Lamington. It is he who gave his name to our national food or national cake. That was the single most important issue that I have ever found any governor in Australia has contributed to.

I was telling Patrick O'Brien about this story at morning tea last Friday. You will remember what that morning tea was. It was lamingtons. When I told my comrade from the west that he was eating a cake named in honour of a colonial governor answerable to Queen Victoria he nearly choked but he promised never to eat lamingtons again.

Senator BOSWELL- As a senator representing Queensland I think it is incumbent upon me to raise some issues affecting the states. The Senate is the states house although people would argue that that is incorrect.

The Australian republic raises many issues for the states and there are major complexities and legal steps required in the transitional process. In raising and talking about these issues it means we are taking the difficulties head on and recognising the realities associated with the creation of a republic. We have had a lot of froth and bubble in this debate, but I think it is time that we now get down to the realities of life associated with becoming a republic.

It is not a simple matter. There are basic questions such as whether there is one indivisible crown or six state crowns. Most legal commentators agree that there is only one, although Professor Craven disagrees with that. Professor Winterton today struck out one crown and replaced it with six. I would not have thought that that was an act of a true republican.

Then there is the question of what happens to the 1986 Australia Act. It has been enacted by the six states and the Commonwealth. In Queensland under section 7 all powers and functions of Her Majesty in respect of the states are vested in the state governor. Section 15 installs the state governor as the Queen's representative. In Queensland any change must be by referendum.

Any changes to the act can only be at the request of all state parliaments. Replacing the crown in the states requires amending every state's Australia Act. This could come down to the use by the Commonwealth of a section 128 referendum which we know needs to be passed by the majority of voters in the majority of states in Australia. We have been told by eminent jurists that the use of section 128 would no doubt end up being decided by the High Court. While it can be reasonably assumed that any state government would not stand out alone to remain a monarchy in an Australian republic, certainly the legal means to use 128 are unclear. It could come down to a decision of the High Court and the imposition of the decision on the states.

A lengthy High Court decision on the states power in relation to the Crown would not be desirable politically, or at all. I ask: have the republicans faced up to these realities? It has been suggested today that there could be different models in different states for appointments of the successors to state governments. This would be no way to have a united country, operating a federated system of states.

Then there is the other reality on the referendum legislation. Before the 1999 referendum can take place, a referendum bill will need to be passed through the federal parliament, detailing all required changes to the Constitution. Everything has got to change: the preamble and all other constitutional amendments- a massive project. The states will definitely need involvement and consultation in this intricate process of the referendum bill.

If the Crown is to be removed at the federal level and then disappears at the state level, how is this vacuum going to be filled? If the Crown disappears there could be many unintended consequences. Once you remove the Crown, you remove all the conventions that attach to the Crown. There are many areas of Crown involvement: mineral rights, which are vested in the Crown, and Crown ownership of land.

A seamless transfer will have to be 100 per cent guaranteed. But is this legally possible? We have seen court decisions not proceed along expected pathways many times. I say to the republicans: the effect of change will be diverse and open up many unintended consequences. The difficulties of amending the states and Australia acts and implementing the referendum will need to be addressed as soon as this Convention finishes. Republicans want to embark on this process without a guarantee it will work. Realities must be faced, including the major question involved with the states becoming a republic.

The young people today, with enthusiasm which I admire, have addressed the main issues and driven forward a republican idea. But what we have not heard from these enthusiastic young Australians- and I welcome their contribution- is how to get down to the nitty gritty of how we process or become a republic. This is not being addressed by this conference by any means.

Ms RODGERS- It would be extremely dangerous to attempt to force the states to become republics. It would be equally dangerous for any state or the Commonwealth to go it alone. As the former Chief Justice Sir Harry Gibbs said:

There is a strong argument that a referendum supported in a majority of states, but not in all states, would not be enough to effect the position of state governors as representatives of Her Majesty. The position of state governors is entrenched by the Australia Act and that act can be amended only by an act passed at the request, or with the concurrence of, the parliaments of all states or by an act passed pursuant to powers conferred on the Commonwealth parliament by an alteration of the Constitution made in future through a referendum. However, it is doubtful whether an alteration to the constitution which affected the governors of all states could be made unless a majority of electors in all states voted in favour of the alteration. There is a further argument that the monarchical character of the Constitution is established by the Constitution Act, not merely by the Constitution itself and that no amendments to the Constitution could validly give the Commonwealth parliament power to amend the act.

I come from Western Australia. Western Australia is different in constitutional terms from the other states in two respects. Firstly, we are not mentioned along with the other states in the preamble. Why? Because we came in later. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, a British act, authorised Queen Victoria to proclaim:

The people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania and also- if Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto- of Western Australia shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Secondly, we are the only state to have sought to secede from the Commonwealth. When we approved a referendum to secede, we sent it to London. A select committee looked into the question and then recalled that it was not a British matter; it was not for Britain to dissolve the Federation. Our constitution had already been repatriated. Australia itself could change its own constitution. Australia was independent. Needless to say, the Commonwealth did not implement the referendum.

It is probably difficult for the people of Sydney, Canberra and Victoria to understand how we feel. We are responsible for a substantial proportion of Australia's exports, yet we do feel that we are short changed. In addition, much more power has accrued to a distant Canberra government than was ever intended. The High Court- and we have only had one judge there- has forgotten that we are a federation.

Let me say one thing: the people of my state expect that any substantial change in the original compact will require a new deal. We agreed to unite in an indissoluble federal Commonwealth under the Crown. Change any aspect of that and the whole deal is open to re-negotiation- not only about the Crown. We want to talk about tax. We want to talk about the external affairs power which the High Court has interpreted to increase Canberra's power. After all, if you enter into a partnership and your partners want to change the business into a company, the whole structure and all the terms and conditions are open to re-negotiation.

Turn Australia into a republic, and an essential feature of what we agreed to in 1901 has one and only one result: the whole deal is open to negotiation. Today I give formal notice to the members of the Western Australian parliament and to the Western Australian members of the Commonwealth parliament here present: in the event of the 1901 Constitution being reopened, you have an obligation to derive the best deal for Western Australia. That is your clear duty to the people of Western Australia.

Let me say one further thing, and I am warning of this: I will be informing the people of Western Australia about the extent to which you looked after our interests. But I must say, I even fear for the foundation of the Federation if you in any way attempt to force a republic on to the Western Australian people without our separate agreement. Let me draw on the wisdom of a Canadian observer who says:

Republicans have from time to time argued that the Canadian scenario could not take place in Australia, for there is no single group like the French in Canada to act on or force a division. But I am not sure. For one thing, were, say, Queensland and Western Australia, or both, to vote no in a referendum, it seems to me that the damage to the Australian Federation could be nearly as great as that which resulted from the exclusion of Quebec from the constitution.

So, my fellow Western Australian delegates, your job is to insist that, if we become a republic, all the deals are off. Western Australians would expect nothing less, and I shall be monitoring these matters closely and reporting on them.

Ms KIRK- Mr Chairman, delegates: I would like to address a matter that has been raised by a number of delegates this morning. That matter is whether the states can and/or should be forced by the Commonwealth to adopt republican constitutions, should Australia become a republic.

The Commonwealth parliament may have the ability to abrogate state entrenched manner and form provisions and/or to otherwise alter the state constitutions, without the states' consent. The two potential sources of power for this have been identified as sections 51(38) and section 128.

Legal commentators agree that section 51(38) could be used by the Commonwealth to empower the states to just disregard the manner and form provisions. However, there are two possible restrictions on the power of the Commonwealth to adopt this course- namely, section 106, and the limitation on Commonwealth power outlined in the Melbourne Corporation case.

On these points, I would like to make the following comments. First, it is unclear whether section 106 restricts the Commonwealth's power to affect the constitutions of the states or whether the state constitutions are subject to the legislative powers of the Commonwealth. Second, as section 51(38) requires the consent of the states before the Commonwealth can legislate pursuant to this power, the Commonwealth would be unlikely to infringe the implied prohibition in the Melbourne Corporation doctrine.

The other method that the Commonwealth may pursue to directly or indirectly alter the constitutional system of the states is the section 128 referendum procedure. The Commonwealth could attempt to impose a republican system of government on the states without the consent of the people of the state. Whether this is possible depends on the effect of section 106 which, as I said, may limit the Commonwealth's power to affect state constitutions.

I agree with the view expressed by many other delegates in the chamber this morning that an attempt or even the threat of the Commonwealth using the section 128 procedure to impose a new constitutional structure on the states would be fatal to an attempt to introduce a republic. It is essential that the states consent to the constitutional reforms that will give effect to a republic and that the people of the states are given the opportunity to participate in determining the constitutional structures of their state. To a lesser extent, the section 51(xxxiii) procedure would also take the decision making process away from the people of the states and thus the ability to determine for themselves the states constitutional structures. The preferred option is therefore for a state referendum to be held simultaneously with the section 128 referendum, at which the constitutional matters concerning the states and the Commonwealth can be determined by the people.

Mr EDWARDS- When I spoke the other day, I made the comment that this Constitutional Convention has no mandate or authority to impose anything on the states. But I would also say this: while no federal government or a convention such as this should endeavour to bully the states, likewise the issue of states rights should not and indeed cannot be allowed to become an impediment to Australia having an Australian as its head of state.

I listened with interest today to the Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court, to the Deputy Premier, Hendy Cowan, and to my colleague Geoff Gallop. I was impressed not just by the leadership of this group of political and civil leaders from Western Australia but also by the leadership that has been set generally today by other state leaders. I was very impressed by the speech by Jeff Kennett. Indeed, he spoke very strongly. I noticed that, when he came into the chamber and came over here to speak, Bruce Ruxton thumped his chest and pointed at Jeff Kennett and said, `My leader.' I simply say to Bruce Ruxton, `Follow your leader.'

The other thing I want to comment on today is the leadership that has come from another section of the Convention. I refer specifically to the young people generally who have spoken here over the last couple of days. The highlight of all the speeches and indeed the best and most moving speech I have heard in this forum was that delivered by Andrea Ang yesterday. As she spoke, I could not help feeling a strong sense of emotion and pride in our young people. I want to say to those people who sit here slinging insults, such as that which we heard this morning where republicans were called mongrels, that Australians do not want to listen to that sort of insult. Indeed, Australians will not be moved by that sort of insult.

What Australians will be moved by is the sort of leadership that we have seen displayed by our states leaders, who have the issue of looking after states rights as their paramount priority. Australians will be moved by the kind of leadership we have seen displayed by so many of the young people here today.

I conclude by reiterating this: the states should not be bullied. I know that the states will not allow themselves to be bullied into accepting what they feel is not in their best interests. Equally, the issue of states rights should not be allowed to become an impediment to Australia having an Australian as a head of state either.

The Right Reverend John HEPWORTH- The states cannot and will not be bullied, but nor can the states be ignored. For too long the Australian Republican Movement has had as a fundamental part of its platform that it does not matter what the states do in the republic. That is not a statement of pragmatism, it is a statement of contempt. Australia is not composed of a unitary central government in which the states are somehow increasingly irrelevant. Australia is a federal system and demands to continue as such. Any republican model that is serious must take this into account.

I acknowledge that we do not have a serious model before us yet, because we do not have one that includes the states. To say that we will go to a republic that is simply a Canberra republic, which in Sydney presumably means a part of the western suburbs, is to state a nonsense. If we cannot design a republic in which Australia's political system becomes republican, we will have failed. The states must be part of the design.

It is a complete nonsense, and not only a legal nonsense, that we can somehow unravel the Federation by having a republican Constitution in Canberra, with all the rhetoric of unifying the nation- and all I have heard of that in the past 10 days has been anti-state and anti-federal rhetoric. The union of the nation under a strong federal symbol of a presidency I translate in only one way, which is that the states have become irrelevant. It is a legal nightmare to suggest that state constitutions will go on in some way, undisturbed, with their own links to the Crown. That could only, I presume, have been designed by somebody totally ignorant of the implications of the Australia Act.

I was absorbed and fascinated to listen to Dr Gallop. One might have hoped that he would have known better. He constructed a great card castle on a hypothetical case of the Prime Minister advising the Queen about a matter within the province of a state Constitution. Section 7, paragraph 5 of the Australia Act states:

The advice to Her Majesty in relation to the exercise of the powers and functions of Her Majesty in respect of a State shall be tendered by the Premier of the State.

Our republican friends find it impossible to get this into their minds, but the continuation of the states is of the essence of our Constitution. Indeed, they have been strengthened by the sovereign powers conferred most recently in the Australia Act. Those powers confirm the daring of the original Constitution, which created a limited central government within the symbols of Australian nationalism but gave final and sovereign power over so many day-to-day matters to the states. That is the essence of the Constitution. A republic that is only in Canberra but leaves the states undisturbed, as the ARM would have it, is a Clayton's republic. It is the grand continuation of the banana republic. It is Paul Keating's final wish.

It is not beyond our wit to design a system that includes the states. I admit that it raises the hurdle, but it raises it in the most realistic way. All the states must change at the same time- not just as a legal imperative but as a political imperative, primarily- in order that Australia will not be divided in this way. At the moment we are going into a referendum with polls showing that the basic threshold question of the republic has between 50 or 60 per cent support. We are a divided nation. We will now divide off the states and make their discussions irrelevant, yet again dividing the nation.

Our Constitution is designed to include the separation and division of powers, but to include them in a constructive and creative way. That is what we are abandoning if we regard the states as irrelevant to the republican debate until such time as they might decide to come in.

Mr WILLIAMS- There has apparently been a desire expressed on the part of some delegates to have a Commonwealth view as to the position of the states in a change to the republic. I can offer some comments from a legal perspective. I will make some comments of my own in relation to the political perspective as well.

The legal view can be simply stated. Section 128 of the Constitution provides for changing the Constitution. A change in the head of state involves that. A referendum proposal is only passed if it is adopted by a majority of electors in a majority of states with an overall aggregate majority. So the system for change involves the participation of states as identified entities.

There is a whole host of further technical issues that could be addressed or dealt with in this Convention but, for my part, I do not think this is the appropriate forum to be arguing about legal technicalities. The technicalities about transition to a republic at the state level have in fact been canvassed at considerable length in legal discourse over the last decade or so. Professor Winterton has written extensively on the subject. I understand that he spoke this morning and gave a general and very fair perspective on the issues.

From the government perspective, I remind delegates that in an advice to the Republic Advisory Committee, the then Acting Solicitor-General, Mr Dennis Rose QC, canvassed many of the questions that I think might be on the lips of some of the delegates. His advice is public. It is dated 29 June 1993, and appears as appendix 8 in the appendices volume of the report of the Australian Republic Advisory Committee at pages 296 to 311. He gave quite detailed advice, and that advice continues to be the major advice to government on those issues.

As I said, I do not believe that this is the occasion for visiting the details of technical legal advice. It is clear enough that there is doubt surrounding the effect on the states of change at the Commonwealth level. But, in putting any proposal for a referendum to the people, the technical arrangements ultimately adopted should include the states.

For my part, I would not advocate any change that would exclude the states or in any way promote division between the states and the Commonwealth on a matter of such fundamental importance to the future of our federal system of government. At the political level some focus has been placed on what would happen if a section 128 referendum proposal were passed by a majority but not unanimously by the states. For my part, I strongly urge and hope that this would not arise. Change should occur when Australians generally want it and that means generally across Australia.

In my speech on the principal question before this Convention on Wednesday last week I said that I thought it was absurd to contemplate the possibility that we would have a Commonwealth republic and states that retained the monarchy. But I do not see that as being a legal question; I see that ultimately as being a political question having a political solution. What the solution would be would depend upon the circumstances. But as I said in my speech, I do not believe the Australian people would allow that absurd situation to arise. I very much doubt whether Buckingham Palace would have it either.

I would urge all delegates to be looking to a process that is orderly, involves everybody and involves all the states and an outcome that is equally unanimous in nature.

Sir DAVID SMITH- I would like to ask the Attorney-General whether he is able or willing before the final votes to give this Convention a formal legal opinion, as the first law officer of the Crown, as to whether or not the conversion of this country to a republic requires the approval of four states or six states. It is a simple question. Is it capable of being given a simple answer?

Mr WILLIAMS- I think I have already answered that. The answers will be found in the advice of Mr Rose and the report of the Republic Advisory Committee. I am happy to take you to the particular passages. It involves more than one question.

Father JOHN FLEMING- Assuming that the matter of the states is a political question in the terms that have just been put to us, I for one cannot be so sanguine about what might actually turn out when matters go to a referendum. I think it is entirely possible that Australia could find itself in the position of being- as distinct from directly choosing- a republic at the federal level with monarchies at one or more of the state levels. This absurdity might happen per misadventure but it might happen, at least until I am given some guarantee that it could not; and the guarantee would have to be that before Australia became a republic, as Bishop Hepworth said, it would have to be incarnated in the structures of all of the states.

There is something that I find curious about Working Group M, which seems to contemplate the absurd. Mr Tully has said that the unanimous agreement of the states is not necessary. The absurdity of that is that we are being persuaded to become a republic on the basis that our current symbols are not unified. Yet we would then tolerate the possibility of a situation where we would be massively disunified. A republic at the federal level and six monarchies is crazy. But the crazy is possible unless, as I say, I could be persuaded that a formula will be found that it will not be. That formula would be the agreement of all the states.

At the moral level, if people enter into an agreement- a compact- it seems to me that when some of the parties to the agreement want to change the agreement, all is up for grabs, as Ms Rodgers has pointed out to us. All states are then free to renegotiate the terms of the federation and to secure the best deal for themselves. It seems to me to be the logical conclusion of all that has been put before us.

This millennial dreaming of which we have heard so much wants to ignore the complexities and the possibility that per misadventure, rather than by actual design, we would end up with an absurdity, where our symbols are symbols of gross disunity rather than symbols of unity- a strange situation. Clare Thompson said a little earlier that the states are the rocks on which federation is built. I find this a singularly inappropriate simile. We are not rocks. Rocks are inert. The states are living, vital elements in an agreed compact. What the states might do will be out of their own free choice- not as merely rocks upon which some live edifice is built, but as the real heart and soul of life as it is lived in this country.

It is true that within the states a large measure of autonomy is enshrined in many areas affecting the local culture of the people. We are not rocks; we are the living veins. If you like, we are the organs that drive the country. To me it is very unfortunate and is putting the cart before the horse to talk about republic Australia before one talks about republic South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania.

I return to the fundamental point that I want to make here. That absurd situation cannot be ruled out because somebody thinks that Australians would be far too wise. The problem is that, in putting something to us in a certain kind of a way, it may mean that per misadventure an absurd situation arises and then we have to find our way out of it.

I would say, therefore, that what this really means for us all is that the question of the republican models is incompletely thought through and thought out and must be rethought. I hope it goes to a referendum. I really do, because the more we think about it, the more the complexities become apparent and the more Australians will say that it is not a particularly sensible thing for us to be doing.

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Last updated: 21 October 2000