John Howard and the Coalition are putting the cart before the horse over the republic. It is a waste of time and money to have a constitutional convention about constitutional reform and whether Australia should become a republic and then to have a vote on some sort of consensus. It should be now obvious that a majority of Australians do not want the British Head of State to be the Australian Head of State and that a majority does not want the Queen (or, worse, King Charles III) to open the Olympic Games, or indeed any other major event in Australia. Australians want an Australian citizen whose primary loyalty is to Australia as Head of State.
It would be better if there were an advisory referendum with the next election on the issue, asking a simple yes-no in favour of an Australian Head of State and an Australian republic. When that inevitably returns a yes vote, the whole of Australia, monarchists and republicans alike, could then devote itself to the question of what sort of republic. Only then is a convention of much use.
As it is, a convention will achieve nothing … perhaps that is what it is designed to achieve. If it is all or partially elected, the money and effort that goes into that election would be better spent on an advisory referendum. But that might be too revealing for Mr Howard who wants to cling to the constitutional monarchy against the wishes of an increasing majority of Australians. If the convention is all-appointed it will mean nothing other than a talkfest that will generate no ideas that are not already in circulation.
The trouble with Mr Howard’s approach is that it has been a reactive one. The Coalition’s policy has been driven almost solely in reaction to the policy of the former Prime Minister, Paul Keating. A lot of the Coalition’s thinking was not even about the republic; it was about using the issue to drive home an anti-Keating message to help win the 1996 election. It pursued a dishonest, ad-hominem argument … if Mr Keating endorses it, it must be wrong. It had to come up with something, so it invented the people’s convention. It spoke about the people having the maximum say. The Coalition (and others) have further muddied the water by pursuing the idea of having a directly elected president. This may have some superficial and temporary appeal among people who have not thought much about the issue. In fact, a direct election will cause a Coaltion-vs-Labor contest for the presidency and inevitably a politician president … precisely what people do not want. However, if the president is elected by a two-thirds majority of parliament … by the politicians … candidate from either major party will be vetoed and a non-politician distinguished Australian will take the post.
Whatever one thinks of Paul Keating and his other policies, his proposals on the republic was fundamentally sound. The existing roles of the Queen and the Governor-General (who is chosen by the Prime Minister) would be replaced by a president who would be nominated by the Prime Minister and ratified by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the Federal Parliament. It would a minimal change of virtually no constitutional significance, but of immense symbolic significance.
To emphasise the minimalism of the change, the present Governor-General, Sir William Deane, could easily be the first president.
There is no need to muddy the waters with other constitutional changes, however worthy. They can be discussed separately later.
The Olympics and the new century, however unrelated to the Constitution, are still catalysts for change and the opportunity should be seized.