Prime Minister John Howard has admitted that sharing a head of state with another country is an anachronism and that changing to a position where Australia has its own unique head of state is the best argument for a republic. It is a welcome, though belated, change of position. Nonetheless is it an important change of position for the Prime Minister. It is important that he take a key role int he debate. Its timing is equally important. It means that the Constitutional Convention, which opens on February 2, will not be a debate about whether Australia should be a republic, but rather it will be a debate about what sort of republic Australia should be.
In some respects Mr Howard’s new view might seem to be contradictory. He has moved slightly towards a republican position by accepting one of the major arguments of the republicans — that we should have our own head of state because sharing the same person as head of state with Britain is symbolically inappropriate. In doing that he has sided with the view of a very large majority of the Australian people. In contrast, Mr Howard has flown in the face of popular opinion by saying that the head of state in a new Australian republic should not be directly elected by the people, but be appointed. His preferred option for appointment would be on the model proposed by former Victorian Governor Richard McGarvie. Mr McGarvie proposed that the head of state be appointed and dismissed on the advice of the Prime Minister, as is the case now. But instead of the advice being given to the Queen it would be given to a Constitutional Council of three, perhaps more, eminent Australians with constitutional experience. The positions would go, in order until filled, first to retired Governors-General; then to retired state Governors; then to retired Chief Justices; High Court justices; and then Federal Court Chief justices and Federal Court justices. If no woman was appointed to the first two positions, the third position would got to he next woman in priority. The rules would be such that membership of the council would be self-determining. State governors would be appointed, with the equivalent office holders, in the same way.
The McGarvie model very closely replicates the present system. Instead of the Queen ratifying the Prime Minister’s appointment or dismissal, the constitutional council would do it. As with the present system it relies, to a very large extent, on the prime minister doing the right thing — not appointing hopeless party hacks and not dismissing a head of state on spurious grounds because he or she dared exercise some independence.
There is a lot of merit in the idea, especially if one wants to keep as much of the constitutional machinery of the present system while changing the symbolism of having a shared head of state with Britain.
Mr Howard is right in at last recognising that the mood of the Australian people at the moment is to change that symbolism while at the same time ensuring that the change has a minimal impact on the system and machinery of government of one of the longest continuing democracies still existing in the world — such a thing is not to be tampered with lightly.
Mr Howard is right to be extremely wary of a directly elected president.
It is inevitable that an elected position would attract candidates from the major parties and that a candidate of one or other of the major parties would usually win the position. That would present potential grave conflicts if the president were from a different party from the party of the government of the day.
The other way of looking at it, is to reduce the number of situations where the head of state might be called up to exercise discretion. At present these revolve around who to appoint as Prime Minister immediately after an election or a no-confidence motion where there is no obvious majority party or coalition; whether to permit an early election or a double dissolution and what to do if the Senate blocks supply.
It may be better to address these questions so that it does not matter whether the head of state is elected directly by the people, indirectly by Parliament or appointed by the Prime Minister.
These questions can and have been addressed. The prime minister should be elected by the Parliament immediately after an election; all no-confidence motions should name the new prime minister; and the parliamentary term should be fixed at three years with half the Senate elected every three years simultaneously.
Perhaps the Senate’s power over supply should be taken away. The double dissolution as the means of resolving deadlocks between the houses should be replaced. Instead, the Senate should only be allowed to delay bills until the next election, after which the House of Representatives, if so minded, should be able to pass the bill without the Senate’s consent. After all, the rejected bills would have been considered by the people as part of the election campaign.
These measures would drastically reduce the need for the head of state to exercise discretionary powers and so it would matter less whether the president were directly elected or appointed.
Opinion polls suggest that the Australian people have not yet grasped the fact that a directly elected presidency will result in a fight between a Labor and Liberal candidate with one inevitably winning and the Australian people getting the politician president they so ardently want to avoid. The polls suggest that they might never grasp that fact. Perhaps now it might be better to acknowledge that fact and work out ways of having a directly elected president without jeopardising the fundamentals of the existing system.