Salome’s mother requested the head of John the Baptist to be delivered on a silver plate, but it was King Herod who had to issue the final order.
The Australian people sought John Hewson’s head, but the representative of the monarch will execute the order by appointing the Keating Ministry under Sections 61 to 64 of the Constitution.
The swearing in of the Keating Ministry at Government House will be a reminder, if it was needed, that Australia is a constitutional monarchy and that the man being sworn in by Her Majesty’s representative does not like, though he is prepared to work within it now to change it.
Clearly, the GST, Medicare, industrial relations and unemployment were the big issues in the election. However, Mr Keating also put his neck out on the republican issue, and it was not chopped off. In the campaign he moved the debate from whether Australian should become a republic to what sort of republic it should be.
The election itself should provide a large part of the answer: Australians do not like radical change. But it also provides an illustration of a greater problem. The election has delivered the Government an antagonistic Senate. If we are going to have a President, the question remains, will the President be able to do a John Kerr? Will the President be able to sack the Prime Minister if the Prime Minister cannot secure Supply from the Senate?
Mr Keating says he wants a committee of eminent Australians to look at what sort of Federal Republic of Australia we should have. The electorate’s revulsion of radical change expressed on March 13 should indicate that the electorate will not want a Fightback-style blueprint to change Australian society.
The Labor republicans’ enthusiasm over the Keating win and Liberal republicans’ feeling that the Keating win comes with a consolation prize must be tempered with the reality that change in Australia is treated with suspicion. (I don’t think, incidentally, that there are any National republicans.)
The republican movement has two factions, for want of a better word. One is the minimalists. This faction thinks that the republic should come about through the minimum change necessary to the Constitution. It would mean merely deleting the word Governor-General and replacing it with President, deleting the word Queen, and providing for some mechanism to choose the President.
The other faction wants to use the opportunity to overhaul the whole Constitution to make it more democratic. Notably it wants a Bill of Rights stating basic freedoms. The overhaulists, however, to not have a uniform view. Some seek a US-style executive presidency which selects ministers from outside the Parliament and with no Prime Minister. Others want a President elected directly by the people but still having a Prime Minister. Some want to abolish the states. Some want to curb the powers of the Senate. Some want fixed terms, and so on.
The overhaulists sound a little like Fightback. And their Fightbacks might suffer the same fate as Dr Hewson’s. One reform, carefully handled, could be sold to a people notorious for knocking back constitutional change; three or four major changes in one package are unsaleable. Ask Dr Hewson.
Even with a minimalist approach, however, two quite fundamental changes will be virtually unavoidable: the way the Head of State is appointed and, perhaps more importantly, the way he or she is removed.
At present the Head of State is born to the job and the Prime Minister in effect appoints the Governor-General to represent the Monarch, so that the Governor-General is in effect Head of State. It is unlikely that the Prime Minister will continue to appoint the President in the new republic because he or she will be seen as a government lackey. A direct election by the people is also undesirable because the President would be seen to have a mandate to take an active role in the political process. It could lead to a radical change in the way Australia is governed. It is more likely we would have an indirect election of some sort with the President elected by a joint sitting of Parliament, perhaps with some delegates sent by the states.
Removal is more important. At present the Prime Minister can just ring up Buckingham Palace and the GG is on his bike. Given the Whitlam experience, no future Prime Minister in a crisis is going to sit around waiting to be dismissed. He would rather sack any uppity GG first and replace him with a complete lackey.
Under a republic, however, a President, once chosen, could only be removed by some constitutional process such as a vote by both Houses of Parliament on grounds of misbehaviour. This is roughly how it works with High Court judges.
This immediately puts a President in a stronger position than a Governor-General, especially when dealing with a crisis. The issue is a critical one as the troublespots of the world show. As well a providing a broad framework of government, Constitutions provide peaceful ways of dealing with political conflict. That can only be achieved if the broad mass of the people see the constitutional process as legitimate. If a significant number see the process a not legitimate they feel justified in using violent means to achieve their political ends.
Australia’s closest touch to that instability came in 1975. Immediately one raises the question of selection and powers of a President, that crisis comes to mind. Its root cause lay in the power of the Senate granted by the Constitution to tip out an elected Government through denial of Supply.
As a Whitlam Minister, Mr Keating is keenly aware of the time-bomb, and aware of how inextricably linked it is to the question of a presidency. A presidency with its own fountain of power is more likely to do a Kerr, and in any event cannot be stopped by the Prime Minister from doing a Kerr by the simple expedient of telephoning the palace.
During the election Mr Keating proved that there is majority and perhaps a consensus to removing the British monarch as Australia’s Head of State. But that is only one part of the equation. Building a consensus on ühow to replace it is another.
Given the slap in the face for radical change last Saturday, it may take some time.
The election results add a further difficulty. It has delivered a blocking in the Senate to a combination of Coalition senators and Senator Harradine. This gives a heightened awareness to the Supply issue, and because the Senate power is in conservative hands again, that side of politics might be less likely to relinquish it the process of creating the republic.
Moreover, usually both Houses have to approve a referendum Bill, though the Reps can force a referendum in some circumstances. The present Senate is unlikely to agree to a proposal that would reduce the Senate’s power. Though Mr Keating has said there would be no referendum during the term, there is no reason why he might not seek one concurrent with the election at the end of the term.
If he does so, he might have to forgo any chance of defusing the time-bomb of the Senate’s power. And without that defused, the powers of the new President will never be merely ceremonial; they will always carry the potential for active participation in the political process.
It is just as well that Mr Keating has promised to give the nation some time to debate the issues. The election result has shown the need for a little more than a minimalist approach, but has firmly shown how difficult that will be to achieve.