Last week the republic waters were further muddied with the flag issue and the “”split” between Coalition MPs who had signed a “”Vote No” statement and those who attended a “”Vote Yes” meeting.
The muddying gives rise to a couple of thoughts.
Many writers of letters to the editor have suggested that we are putting the republic question in the wrong order. They say we should first vote on whether we want a republic and then we should vote on what sort of republic we want. Some went further to assert that Prime Minister John Howard deliberately jumped straight to a referendum precisely to muddy the waters. He knew there would be an argument over what sort of republic and that would, he hoped, result in a No vote.
I don’t buy those views.
Let’s do a couple of “”what ifs”. What if there had been an indicative referendum asking “”Do you want a republic?” and it had passed by a substantial margin.
Then there would still have to be a referendum with precise changes to the Constitution mapped out. It would ask what sort of republic.
You cannot have an either-or referendum under our Constitution. You cannot ask in one question: “”Do you want a directly elected president OR do you want a president chosen by Parliament?” If you ask such a question it will not result in any changes to the Constitution. You can only get a change to the Constitution if you ask a single-leg question, “”Do you approve of the (precisely worded, detailed) changes spelt out in the (named) Act of Parliament?” If that question is approved by a majority of voters in a majority of states the stated changes are made to the Constitution.
So it would not matter what preliminary processes were gone through, ultimately a Yes-No question would have to be put on a precise wording.
And when that happened, it would not matter what had gone before, it would be inevitable that monarchists would say vote No and all the people unhappy with the type of republic proposed (including many die-hard republicans) would also say vote No.
An indicative referendum giving approval for a republic would not have been accepted by monarchists. After such a vote, David Smith, Alan Fitzgerald and so on would surely still have argued a No vote in any subsequent referendum.
What if the proposal was for a directly elected president. My guess is that there would have been an alliance between monarchists and cautious people to argue a No case because a directly elected president would change the balance of power and perhaps the system of government. My guess is that that alliance would be very much more powerful that the present bizarre alliance of the monarchists and direct-elect proponents. It would have been an alliance of natural conservatives. The present Vote-No alliance is between those who want radical change and those who want none. It is has a certain amount of friction and inconsistency.
You have to ask, if you want something other than the present minimalist proposal, what is it going to be? And, seriously, what chance would it possibly have against a united conservative opposition? In that line up, the present monarchist friends of convenience of the direct-elect people would be their sworn enemies.
The present very modest proposal keeps everything about the present system intact. Anything else would have invited far stronger and more successful opposition than this proposal is getting and it would probably fail. It would be like the 1988 referendums: seemingly motherhood at first but once subjected to scrutiny become vulnerable to a scare campaign along the lines that a directly elected president will take on the mantle of the people a do mad things.
People who want a directly elected president would be asking too much in one jump and fail.
They should take heart, though, that once there is a president in place, even an indirectly elected one, the monarchists would be out of the equation forever. And then a later campaign to change the way the president is chosen would be an easier fight.
Those wanting a directly elected president should take heart. Rather than despair that referendums are too difficult they should look at Australia’s electoral history which reveals constant changing and fine-tuning of electoral methods. No other country on earth engages in so many changes of electoral systems. The Senate system has been changed in a major way twice and in a minor way a dozen times, similarly with the House of Representatives. At the state level we have fixed-terms, semi-fixed terms, proportional, single member and so on. They change frequently.
There is every reason to believe that a change for the method of electing a president can be changed. But first you have to have a president.
On the flag matter, some have argued that a republic is the first step to changing the flag. Quite the contrary.
I think we have an either-or situation, just like Canada.
Canada changed its flag, but there is no move to take the Queen out of the system. Once the maple leaf went up the flagpole, the world and the people of Canada could say, “”Here is the nation that has that lovely maple leaf symbol that says Canada.” The association with the former colonial power is no longer made and no-one pushes to remove it.
I think if there is a Yes vote on November 6, moves to change the flag will fade away. Once Australia is a republic, the Union Jack in the corner of the flag will no longer be seen as a symbol of former colonial status. It will rather be seen as a symbol of an important part of our history in the same way that the Union Jack is in the Hawaiian or the old republican South African flag.