Peter Hollingworth is bound to cop demonstrations, as least for a while. It is likely new assertions will be made about sexual abuse and how his diocese responded to it. It is likely the media will seize upon this. He may well – unlike Kerr — resist it.
It has been, and will continue to be, a trial by media. This is because the Constitution provides no other way. As events showed yesterday, the fate of the Governor-General lies in the hands of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is bound by no-one and no rules in deciding whether a Governor-General stays in office. On this occasion, Prime Minister John Howard decided that he should stay. He had done nothing in office to warrant dismissal and he had done nothing in previous offices that amounted to criminal conduct.
The events arose as Howard himself is under accusations that he misled the Australian people before the election about whether asylum seekers threw their children into the sea. There were assertions that his demonisation of asylum seekers on false evidence enabled him to falsely win the election. Even if that is a long bow, what if a Governor-General thought that it was sufficient grounds to sack a Prime Minister, appoint a caretaker and order a new election? The confluence of attacks on the legitimacy of the holders of both pivotal offices shows that the possibility of a race to the phone to Buckingham Palace is not entirely fanciful. In 1975 the Queen took the Governor-General’s advice and refused to entertain the Prime Minister, because convention required it. It would appalling if the Queen did the same thing again – dismissing a popularly elected Prime Minister because a Governor-General in personal strife asked for it.
It shows that Australia is still dependent on the British monarch, even if on rare occasions. It shows that we do not have – but should have – a set of constitutional rules for the appointment and dismissal of an Australian head of state that rely on procedures which are entirely contained within Australia. And incidentally that they should be broader than the say so of the Prime Minister of the day (provided he gets to the Palace first).
Yesterday’s events reveal how the procedures for the appointment and dismissal of the Australian Head of State are unsatisfactory. Even if we are to continue with a constitutional monarchy, we should at least have a system whereby the Prime Minister is not permitted under Australian law to submit a name to the Queen for appointment as Governor-General or ask the Queen to dismiss a Governor-General without, say, a two-thirds majority of Parliament.
In the absence of a process for dismissal, of course there was a trial by media. He may have been acquitted in a judge-alone trial yesterday, but new charges are likely to arise and the media trial with a jury of public opinion is likely to continue.
Hitherto in this media trial, the defendant willingly answered the summons, went into the dock and made a statement which became subject to cross-examination.
He could more easily have refused to recognise the jurisdiction of the court.
Hollingworth and his advisers appear to have little understanding of the media. The two most telling indictments against Hollingworth arise directly out of statements he himself volunteered.
In December, his statement after three weeks of pressure following a court case in which a girl was awarded $830,000 damages against the Anglican Church for sexual abuse by a teacher, Kevin Guy, at Toowoomba Preparatory School was 1000 words long. No media outlet would give it a full run. They were bound to select. They selected one 50-word sentence: “”I am sorry that legal and insurance considerations to some extent inhibited our taking a more active role and more overtly expressing the Church’s concern for the physical, emotional and spiritual welfare of those affected by the actions of Mr Guy.”
It was based on a well-founded fear of lawyers and insurance companies, but the eyes of people speaking for the victims of child abuse it was the archbishop putting money before victims’ comfort, mammon before god.
Then came the ritual of malfeasance in governance. The cover-up or explanation is worse than the crime. Hollingworth and advisers wrongly thought that if only he could speak directly to the Australian people in a long segment, of course, they would exonerate him. It was a big mistake arising from an arrogant view that the world will see it as you do. His defence of the priest with the 14-year-old – that she led him on – might be a widely-held view among over-50 males. To others it added another offence to the indictment. The defendant misunderstood the nature of sexual abuse, inequality of power etc.
But Howard could not dismiss him because he would have to give reasons which would have inevitably invited comparison with his kids-overboard conduct.
But allowing him to continue in this environment on the say-so of one man is still unsatisfactory. In the absence of a constitutional process where the head of state gets a chance to show his innocence and fitness for office or is shown to be unfit, victims and media will continue to bay for blood.