Oz Politics

CANBERRA, 8 JUNE 1995

Mr Speaker, the Opposition welcomes the statement made last night by the Prime Minister about the Government’s proposals to put a referendum to the Australian people, inviting them to create a Federal Republic by the year 2001. The outlining of the Government’s proposals in a sense ends the phoney war stage of the debate about Australia’s Constitutional future and presents to the Australian people the option and the model desired by the Government.

I want to say first, on behalf of the Coalition, that this is an important debate. Although the question of the Constitutional structure of Australia is not something that weighs heavily upon Australians as they go about their daily lives, although the question of whether or not Australia becomes a Republic will have no bearing on our standard of living, our capacity to economically penetrate the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region, nonetheless, however, Mr Speaker, the Constitutional future of our nation is a matter of great importance and I believe it should be treated in an important, sober and, to the maximum extent possible, non-political fashion.

This debate, Mr Speaker, is not about who is the better Australian. There are decent, passionate, loyal Australians on both sides of this argument. The overwhelming issue - indeed the great test, I believe the great answer and the great issue - is what system of government will best deliver a united, stable and tolerant Australian nation. Let me say, Mr Speaker, that the interests of eighteen-and-a-half million Australians are more important than the identity of one.

I think even the Prime Minister would acknowledge that the system of government under which we have operated since Federation in 1901 has been a highly successful system. Australia has been one of fewer than 10 countries that has been continuously democratic for the whole of the 20th century. There are few nations in the world that can boast the degree of tolerance and harmony and stability which has been the inheritance of the Australian people.

As Members will know, I have been a strong supporter of the present Constitution. I haven’t disguised that and I don’t disguise that. But, as a political leader, and as a passionate Australian, I recognise that attitudes in the Australian community over a period of time have changed. Attitudes towards the Constitutional Monarchy in Australia are now very different from what they were 30 or 40 years ago. As the Prime Minister said last night, those changed attitudes in part reflect the changed composition of our population. They also in part reflect the natural drift - I hope never in acrimony but because we are going in some respects our different ways - the natural historical drift apart between Australia and the United Kingdom.

I therefore recognise, as an Australian and as a political leader, that there is a mood in the Australian community to address and perhaps embrace change. And I want to say a few things tonight on behalf of the Coalition about the process whereby that mood should be addressed, how it can be assessed and how it can best be harnessed to produce an outcome that will unite and not divide the Australian community. It is important that if change is to occur it occurs in a united and not in a divisive fashion. The great unity of the Australian people is the most precious asset we all have and the greatest obligation we all have, whatever our political beliefs, is to act ultimately on important matters in a fashion that binds together and does not push apart the Australian people.

And it is important that all of us, whatever our views may be, honestly address this issue and recognise the strengths and the weaknesses of the various arguments that are put forward. The change proposed by the Prime Minister is a very significant one. It goes beyond being a purely symbolic change. If Australia were to become a Republic, it would end this nation’s link with the second-oldest institution in Western civilisation. Now, some people may find that a source of satisfaction, even joy. Some people will be utterly indifferent. Other Australians will find it distressing. Still another group of Australians will ask themselves whether such a move is absolutely essential in order to finally confirm the independence of this country.

This is one of those issues where a degree of tolerance and understanding, particularly between the generations within the Australian community, is essential. The older section of the Australian community must understand that younger Australians have a different view towards the Constitutional Monarchy than they do, and equally there has to be an acceptance on the part of the younger section of the Australian population that the institution is held in very high regard, even by deep affection, by many of the older sections of the Australian population.

We do have a very strong, free, liberal and democratic system of government. And what makes it strong and free and liberal and democratic is that it is built upon two principles. The first of those principles - and this does not appear to be in dispute between the Prime Minister and myself - that is the principle of a Westminster parliamentary system of government. It is not the most perfect system that could be devised but, in that famous remark of Winston Churchill’s, “It’s much better than any of the alternatives”.

The other great virtue of the present system is that we do have a politically neutral Head of State, and one of the questions that has to be addressed in this whole debate if whether we could possibly devise a system of government in this country which could deliver a more neutral Head of State, a more neutral set of arrangements for the Australian Head of State, than exists at the present time. I want to explore that for a moment by tracing briefly the careers and the contributions to public life in Australia of four distinguished Governor-Generals of this country, all former politicians, two Labor and two Liberal.

The first of those was Sir William McKell, who in 1947, then Mr McKell, was appointed by the Chifley Labor Government as Governor General of Australia. On being appointed to that position, McKell abandoned his partisan Labor leanings and discharged his obligations as the Governor General of Australia with very great distinction. And many Members of this House will know that in 1951 when following proper constitutional practice, he granted the Menzies Government a double dissolution of the Parliament, he incurred the wrath of some of his erstwhile Labor colleagues, some of whom took years to speak to him again, but he did the right thing by the office.

Few people would argue that Lord Casey and Sir Paul Hasluck as former senior Liberal Ministers were also very distinguished and politically neutral Governor Generals. Indeed, one of the first events I attended as a new Member of Parliament in 1974 was a farewell dinner to Sir Paul Hasluck and I well remember the glowing tribute to his political neutrality that was paid by Gough Whitlam who was then Prime Minister.

And the final person in the group is the present Governor General Bill Hayden. I acknowledge that when his appointment was mooted, I was publicly critical of it, because it struck me as passing strange that the person who had publicly expressed such avowedly republican views should be offered the vice regal post. But I equally acknowledge, and I’ve done it before and I do it again tonight, that he has discharged his obligations with dignity, fairness, and complete neutrality.

The point I simply make about that and the reason why I briefly trace the experiences of those four distinguished Governor Generals of Australia, is that all of them have behaved in a politically neutral fashion. All of them, despite their differing political backgrounds, have been subsumed by the great traditions and conventions developed over centuries of the Crown which had devolved upon the Governor Generalship of Australia.

Now, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister in his proposals last night, has adopted in part the recommendations of the republican advisory committee. He has adopted the proposal that the President should be elected by two-thirds of the Parliament, but he has not adopted the proposal of the Republican Advisory Committee that some attempts should be made to codify the powers of the new Head of State, the proposed President of Australia. That is an interesting proposal, because what in effect the Government is inviting the Australian people to do is to accept the proposition that you can without any legal doubt, let or hindrance, transfer unimpaired, the reserve powers of the Governor Generalship to the President in an Australian republic.

And it is interesting that on this particular subject, Professor George Winterton, who I think was a member of the Republican Advisory Committee, is a leading republican and a professor of law I think at the University of New South Wales, had this to say, and I think it is worth reading the quotes to the Parliament because it is relevant to the debate about the efficacy of the proposal put forward by the Prime Minister.

And I quote :

“If the Governor General’s powers were inherited by a republican Head of State, since the link with the monarchy would be severed, the present conventions governing the exercise of the reserve powers might not subsist. They might if they were regarded more generally as conventions of Australian Government, although they are not uniquely Australian, but are of course shared with Britain, Canada and New Zealand and other countries. But if they were seen as conventions of the monarchy, abolition of the monarchy might well extinguish them as well. So a republican constitution cannot simply continue the present constitutional position of conferring powers on the Head of State in general terms, relying on the constitutional conventions to govern their exercise”.

Now, Mr Speaker, I put that forward and I remind the Parliament and I remind the people of Australia that they are not the words of somebody who is resisting change. They are in fact the words of somebody who is an avowed supporter of change, and the relevance of those words is that they cast some doubt and they raise questions about the preferred proposal and the preferred option put forward by the Prime Minister last night.

Mr Speaker, the proposal of the Government is that future President of Australia should be elected by a two-thirds vote of a joint sitting of the Parliament. Inaccurately last night the Prime Minister said that no Party had enjoyed two-thirds control of a joint sitting since the end of World War II. In fact, in 1946, the Chifley Labor Government had 69% of the Members and Senators present at a potential joint sitting of the Parliament. Now, it may well be suggested Mr Speaker that that was because at that time we had a different method of choosing the Senate. And of course, and I notice my colleagues opposite nod in agreement but I might also remind them that it is quite possible for the present method of electing the Senate to be altered by a simple vote of both Houses of Parliament, and it does not require a constitutional amendment. In other words, the present unlikelihood of either side of politics getting a two-thirds constitutional changes that he intends to make.

Mr Speaker, last night, and I think quite appropriately to a debate of this kind, there was much discussion about the sense of independence and the spirit of independence felt by Australians particularly as we approach the centenary of Federation. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this is not a debate about who is the better Australian. This is a debate about what is the better system of government for the eighteen and a half million people who inhabit this continent, and the independence and the sense of independence of a nation is not measured solely in legal or constitutional terms. And there is little doubt that the sense of independence and the sense of national identity that emerged in the Australian people early this century preceded many of the legal changes that were referred to by the Prime Minister in his speech last night. And I think it is important when we’re talking about independence and we’re talking about a sense of nationhood not only to see it in constitutional and legal terms but also to see it in broader terms. There are, for example, many people who believe that no matter what our constitutional set up, Australia cannot see herself as truly independent if we continue to labour under the enormous levels of foreign debt that we do at the present time.

But Mr Speaker, I want to say a couple of things about the prospects that lie before us if the proposals put forward by the Government are in fact implemented. Can I first of all say that the prospect that Australia might end up a Federal Republic but have one or more of the States’ continuing links with the monarchy is a prospect that fills me with a great deal of disdain, and I do not think it would be an outcome that would be in the overall interest of the Australian nation. But Mr Speaker, can I put it to the House, and can I put it to the Australian people that the worst possible outcome that we could possibly have in this country would be to have a referendum on converting Australia to a republic, held in two or three years time but produced what could only be regarded as an inconclusive result.

If one of the tests of whether a nation should change its constitutional arrangements is the test of whether or not that change is likely to build on the existing unity of the nation, then surely the time to have a referendum to alter our Constitution is at a time when at best it can reasonably be discerned that change is likely to enjoy overwhelming support. If we were to have a referendum in 1998 and that referendum were to be carried narrowly or were to be defeated narrowly, I think that would be the worst possible outcome, and I remind the Government and I remind the Australian people that in the history of Federation, only 8 out of 42 referenda proposals have been carried. No major referendum proposal has been carried which has not enjoyed the support of both sides of Parliament, and that is one of the reasons why we believe very strongly on this side of the House that the best way to tap into the mood for change in the Australian community at the present time is not to go down the take-it-or- leave- it path outlined by the Prime Minister last night. It is rather, Mr Speaker, it is to establish a People’s Convention and I will come to that in a moment, and in putting forward a proposal for a People’s Convention, I might remind the Parliament that there are other issues of great constitutional significance that many sections of the Australian people would like examined.

There are many Australians who believe that the External Affairs power of our Constitution is currently being abused. There are many Australians who believe that the relations between the Commonwealth and the States are not operating satisfactorily. There are many people who believe that if it is time a hundred years from Federation to examine the status of our Head of State, it is also the right time to have a look at some of these great constitutional issues.

So I say to the House, Mr Speaker, that it is essential that not only the issue of whether or not Australia should become a Republic is examined, but also there be a mechanism to examine these other issues. And that is why the Coalition unhesitatingly recommits itself tonight, if elected at the next election to establish in 1997 a People’s Convention to examine not only the question of whether or not Australia should become a Republic but also the question, all these other questions that so many other sections of the Australian people wish to examine.

And I repeat tonight, Mr Speaker, that if that People’s Convention is established, it can examine a number of issues. It can examine the role of the Head of State in the Australian Constitution, including implications of change for the role of the States. It can examine the allocation of legislative and executive powers and functions between Federal and State Governments, including areas of overlap and duplication. It can examine the use of the External Affairs power of the Constitution. It can examine the question of whether we should introduce four year instead of three year terms for the Federal Parliament.