There was a second element to Gough Whitlam’s famous “”maintain your rage” speech on November 11, 1975.
He also urged those gathered before Parliament House to “”maintain your enthusiasm”.
Seventeen years later he was still at it: taking an active part in public debate of constitutional issues and urging students to maintain their enthusiasm for it.
In the Senate chamber of the old Parliament yesterday, Mr Whitlam called for a Republic, yet again. He told about 400 law student students (crammed into the chamber which 17 years before had denied Mr Whitlam’s Government Supply) that Australia should have a President elected by a secret ballot of a joint sitting of the two Federal Houses of Parliament.
The students greeted him with warmth an enthusiasm. Reminded that Mr Whitlam’s Government abolished tertiary fees, several students displayed a banner saying “”Gough 4 President”.
Mr Whitlam himself referred to the possibility of the title “”Protector”, the title Cromwell took when England was a Republic, but thought it too militaristic.
“”I can see nothing wrong with the title “President’,” he said.
It was vintage Whitlam. Earlier, former Governor-General Sir Zelman Cowen referred to showing Australians visiting his Oxford college a portrait of William IV to which many had responded: “”Why is Gough wearing those funny clothes.””
Mr Whitlam seized upon the reference. He linked William IV to at least two Governors-General. Lord d’Isle, Australia’s last non-Australian Governor-General, was related by marriage, hence the hereditary peerage.
His main objection to the monarchy was that the Queen was non-resident and non-participatory. She could never represent Australia outside Australia. When she spoke to the US Congress or visited the Solomon Islands she did so as Queen of Britain.
Some said the monarch was a constitutional safeguard, but the events of 1975 disproved that. The Queen could do nothing to stop “”the coup”; the Governor-General had acted on his own.
“”Having a monarch is no guarantee of periodic elections or one vote one value,”” he said. “”The monarchy in Australia is sheer window-dressing.””
The words “”Queen” and “”Governor-General” should be taken out of the Constitution and replaced with “”President”. A President should have one well-defined power: the transfer of the baton of prime ministership if the Prime Minister is defeated at an election or defeated on the floor of the House of Representatives (neither of which happened in November, 1975).
Other changes show that the change to a Republic would ultimately be well-received.
Mr Whitlam said God Save the Queen was sung at Liberal meetings after “”the coup”, yet last month a Liberal Member of Parliament proposed a motion condemning the Reserve Bank for replacing Caroline Chisholm with the Queen on the $5 note.
The oaths of allegiance had changed. Earlier, people had changed from displaying the Union Jack to displaying the Australian flag.
“”Things do change,” Mr Whitlam said.
Mr Whitlam was taking part in a debate as part of the Australasian Law Students’ Association’s conference being held in Canberra this week.
Sir Zelman said there was no doubt about Australia’s independence. The Australianisation of the Governor-Generalship had ensured this. It began with the appointment of Australian-born Sir Isaac Isaacs on the insistence of the Scullin Government in 1930. The present system had served well. He was worried there might be an anti-British sentiment in the republican movement. Though there was much new in Australia, the British heritage had deep significance in national life.
Professor Leslie Zines, of the Australian National University, explained what might be necessary legally to change to a republic.
It would not be acceptable to have a provision saying the Prime Minister shall appoint the President, even though that was the practical state with the appointment of the Governor-General now.
It was not as easy as just crossing out “”Queen” and “”Governor-General” and inserting “”President”.
However, it was general accepted that a referendum under present arrangements (a majority in a majority of states) would be enough to make the change. It was unthinkable that some states could remain monarchies while the rest of the country was a republic, and vice-versa.
Professor Zines was concerned that the republican debate distracted people from other more important constitutional issues. For example, one sentence and one of thirteen agenda items on the monarchy at the centenary constitutional convention last year received huge debate and coverage. Questions of human rights, the Senate and Supply and other important issues got scant coverage.
The Senate-Supply issue “”is a time-bomb that needs to be resolved now”.
Professor Zines rather wickedly suggested the ACT showed how you could have a republic without a head of state. After all, it was now a monarchy without a monarch.
Professor Zines pointed to the ACT Self-Government Act which says the ACT “”is established as a body politic under the Crown”.
But there was no Crown representative, he said. The Crown had no part in ACT life. There was no Executive Council. The Crown did not commission judges nor appoint ministers. The Crown was abstract, a ghostly apparition. It was a monarchy with no monarch and therefore it is possible to have a republic without a head of state.