On November 6 Australians will be asked whether they approve of a law “”to establish the Commonwealth as a republic with the Queen and Governor-General begin replaced by a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament”? And whether they approve of a preamble to the Constitution which includes key elements of “”hope in God”; rule of law; recognition of sacrifices of those “”who defended our country”; “”honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders for their deep kinship with their lands”; recognition of immigrants; and responsibility for the environment.
The preamble question is of far less moment than the republic question. It will not matter a great deal whether it is passed or not. It will not alter Australia” perception of itself or the world’s perception of Australia. In that regard, the republic question is critical.
It would have been better if it had been done a different way. The debate should have been in two stages. The first question should have been, “”Do you want a republic with an Australian head of state replacing the Queen and Governor-General”. If Yes, there could have been a second question on how the new head of state was to be chosen.
But it is too late for that now. The question of whether we have a republic is to be muddied with the question of how the head of state is chosen. The muddying of those questions, however, should not be a cause to vote No.
There is more to commend the proposed system than either the present system or any system with a directly elected president.
It is ridiculous for Australia to have as Queen of Australia the person who is Queen of Great Britain – a person selected on hereditary, not on merit and selected with a requirement of being a Protestant.
A directly elected president is not ridiculous, but it carries danger. Inevitably there will be a Liberal candidate and a Labor candidate and one or other will be elected. The president will be political and will be able to claim a mandate against the Prime Minister.
Treasurer Peter Costello is right on this and Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith is wrong. Notice, no Coalition members have followed Mr Reith’s stand. A directly elected president will change the system of government.
The model on offer keeps all of the best attributes of the present system and removes it one anachronism – the hereditary role of head of state which is a position no Australian can aspire to.
The wording of the question passed this week is an improvement on the skewed wording originally proposed by Prime Minister John Howard, though it is not perfect. At least the question now gets to the essence of the proposal: the Queen and the Governor-General go and are replaced by a president.
It would have been better to have stated the president must be an Australian. It would have been better to state that the president is “”approved” rather than “”appointed” by the joint sitting of Federal Parliament.
Opinion polls have revealed that a difference in wording could produce a different result. Even so, there is still a long time until voting day. By then more people will have engaged in the debate. More people will have sought answers to their queries and formed an opinion based on a much wider set of knowledge than that put in the question.
To date, far too much emphasis has been put on the method of selection of the head of state, and far too little emphasis on the fundamental question of replacing the British Queen with an Australian-born person at the apex of the Constitution.
Australians should vote Yes on November 6 unless they are clearly in favour of the indefinite continuation of the monarchy, for that is what a No vote means. A No vote does not mean a vote for a directly elected president. That is not on offer.