Oz Politics Blog

Today’s blog begins with a tragedy. Remember the nine Australians killed in the Sea King helicopter that crashed on the island of Nias, while delivering aid to the victims of a recent earthquake. When the caskets arrived in Australia, the Indonesian President placed medals of honour on each casket, while the Australian Governor General only placed a sprig of wattle. There was a subsequent outcry about why the Australian Government could not place Australian medals of honour on each casket as well.

Yesterday and today’s media carried two (possibly contradictory) explanations.

The first was that the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal could only be awarded to civilians (not the military), and it could only be awarded in circumstances involving conflict. Yesterday, the Prime Minister sought an amendment to the regulations for the medal, which the Queen approved.

The second was the assertion that a military medal of honour was not able to be placed on the casket because of bureaucratic delays. According to the Courier Mail,

The Sea King victims could have been posthumously awarded the more prestigious Australian Defence Medal last week if the Queen had given her formal approval for the medals to be issued.

It now appears delays by the Federal Government were responsible for the Queen’s failure to sign documents allowing the Defence Medal to be issued.

What caught my eye with both these stories is that they necessitated the involvement of the Queen. I was intrigued because the popular anti-republican rhetoric is that the Governor-General is our de facto head of state, while the Queen is merely the absentee and largely symbolic Sovereign. Yet here we had the Queen (and not the Governor-General) actively involved in our system of government issuing legislation to amend the Australian honours system. It was at best incongruous with the claims of the constitutional monarchists.

I discovered that the issue arises because the Australian honours system is managed under an ancient form of imperial legislation known as Letters Patent, which derives from the remnants of the royal prerogative that have not been replaced by the authority of the Parliament. Letters Patent include black-letter law made by the Queen on the advice of her Australian Prime Minister without the involvement of the House of Representatives, the Senate or the Governor-General.

The Australian Parliamentary Library has a useful research note on Legislation Made Outside Parliament. In respect of the Australian honours system, it said:

The Sovereign is said to be ‘the fountain of all honour and dignity’ and traditionally enjoys the sole right of conferring all titles of honour, dignities and precedence. Although this right is one of the prerogatives of the Sovereign it is usual, however, where titles are conferred as a reward for parliamentary or other public services, for the Sovereign to be guided largely by the advice of the Prime Minister.

When implementing the Order of Australia in 1975, the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam continued the ancient practice of instituting the Order by Royal Letters Patent rather than by parliamentary legislation. One advantage of this was to provide a degree of tradition and continuity with the old scheme of imperial honours giving the appearance of the monarch rather than the government making the change. Another advantage was that the Letters avoided parliamentary scrutiny.

Aside from the appropriateness of the Queen’s direct involvement in our legislative affairs, another question for me is whether this form of imperial legislation is the best method for managing Australia’s honours system. Unlike the United Kingdom, that also manages passports and its civil service under the Royal Prerogative, the Australian Parliament has legislated for passports and the public service. Surely the Australian Parliament could also legislate for the Australian honours system, and delegate legislative power in respect of the regulations for individual awards.

And surely, we do not need to rely on that archaic monarchic maxim — the Crown is the fountain of all honour and dignity — to underpin the Australian honours system.

For the second month running, the ACNielsen poll has given Labor a commanding lead in two-party preferred voting intention (see here and here). Labor is ahead on 52 per cent to the Coalition’s 48 per cent.

The other key points are:

• “On primary votes the Coalition is up two points to 43 per cent, ahead of Labor, which is steady on 39 per cent”
• “Mr Howard has also widened the gap as preferred prime minister - rising two points to 52 per cent while Mr Beazley fell two points to 38 per cent”
• “The approval of Opposition Leader Kim Beazley is up six points to 55 per cent. This puts his rating higher than Mr Howard’s approval, down one point to 53 per cent”

While Beazley should be pleased with the overall result, there would be two points of concern for Labor. Labor’s primary vote is lower than it would like, and Howard’s preferred Prime Minister result is significantly better than Beazley’s.

ACNielsen also took the opportunity to stir the Howard versus Costello pot (see above links and this one).

The poll found that 46 per cent of people though Howard had done a better job as PM than Costello as Treasurer. Only 26 per cent thought the reverse.

I will update I have updated my poll graphs, you may need to hit the refresh button on yoour browser to see the latest.

There is an arcane will-she won’t-she debate going on. In the blue-blood corner we have David Flint arguing Camilla will never be ‘Queen of Australia’. And in the red corner is Greg Craven and Crikey who argue that the wife of the King of Australia is the Queen of Australia.

Like so many things to do with Australia’s constitutional arrangements, this is a debate about convention versus legal status. It is another product of our de facto status as an independent republic clothed in the legal status of a constitutional monarchy, where nothing is quite what it seems. But first to some background.

For this debate it is worthwhile drawing a distinction between two types of queen. A queen regnant is a queen who reigns in her own right. A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. (There is also a queen dowager, the widow of a king, but that is not important to this story. And a fourth type: a queen mother, who is a queen dowager that is also the mother of a reigning monarch.)

The Queens Regnant (I just love this plural form) of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom since the Norman Conquest have been Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II (of William and Mary fame - another special case), Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. The Queens Consort are too numerous to list, but the late Queen Mother was the most recent.

After a number of Imperial Conferences in the early 20th century, a separate Australian Crown was formally established through the Statute of Westminster (enacted in the United Kingdom in 1931 and adopted by Australia in 1942, with its effect backdated to 1939). However, it was not until 1954 that a separate Australian title was formally granted to the monarch (and subsequently amended by the Royal Styles and Titles Act 1973). Should Prince Charles becomes king, and assuming he keeps his current name, he would be Charles the Third, by the Grace of God King of Australia and His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.

As his Queen Consort, Camilla would not be given a formal Australian title by the Royal Styles and Titles Act 1973. That Act of Parliament only applies to the monarch, be it a king or a queen. However, by convention, the wives of all past kings have been queens. And by convention the wife of the King of Australia would be the Queen of Australia, just as the wife of the King of Spain is the Queen of Spain.

To placate public opinion, Charles has indicated that should he become King, Camilla would be known as Her Royal Highness the Princess Consort (an allusion to Queen Victoria’s husband, the Prince Consort). What has been subsequently revealed is that this would require legislation in a number of Commonwealth countries to have effect. Otherwise the common law convention that the wife of a king is a queen would prevail.

There is a delicious irony to all this. Camilla and Charles share an ancestor in Edward VII: Charles the legitimate heir and Camilla’s line is from the mistress’ get. When Edward was crowned King he barred his estranged wife from attending the coronation ceremony. Nonetheless, she still became Queen Alexandra. Apparently, when Camilla met Charles she said, ‘My great-grandmother and your great-great-grandfather were lovers. So how about it?’.

What does this mean for Australia? My best guess is two fifths of bugger all. Whether Camilla is called Queen or the Princess Consort has no effect of Australia’s constitutional arrangements. Charles would be King of Australia, and that is the only position of relevance in our constitutional arrangements.

Nonetheless, republicans believe Charles is the best reason yet for Australia to complete the repatriation of its constitutional arrangements and finally cut its ties with the British monarchy. While I agree, there is still some work to be done in finding a republican model that has widespread Australian support. In the interim, King Charles and Queen Camilla are likely to grace the Australian stage.

Nigerian Francis Arinze is now the favourite in the papal race at PaddyPower. He is also the favourite at BestBetting.

Pinnacle Sports has Italian Dionigi Tettamanzi as the favourite.

Betfair has suspended trading on this prediction commodity.

The Parliamentary Library has just released its research note on the timetable for the next Australian elections. The last possible date for the House of Representatives election is 19 January 2008, but as elections are typically avoided over the Christmas-January break, 8 December 2007 is the last likely date.

Usefully, the research note includes dates for State and Territory elections. If there are no early elections in Tasmania or Queensland, the next election will be in the Northern Territory, sometime before 15 October 2005. Of note, four of the States and Territories have fixed election dates.