THERE is something demeaning about the ride in the big white car ride to the Governor-General’s residence in Yarralumla – not just for defeated Prime Ministers, but also new ones. 
Australian Prime Ministers, though indirectly elected by the people, must be appointed by the Governor-General who in turn is the appointed representative of the monarch who holds office by hereditary or divine right.
The monarch happens to be the monarch of another country. The position is not gained on merit. We happen to have a good Queen now, but we could just as easily have a fool or a knave, as the history of the English monarchy well shows.
That ride to Yarralumla could easily be made unnecessary, by borrowing from a couple of very democratic jurisdictions of British heritage that have in effect done away with any political role for Crown – the Australian Capital Territory and Papua New Guinea.
Don’t pooh pooh Papua New Guinea. Of all those desperately poor now-independent parts of the former British Empire, PNG has had the most transitions of government peacefully through free and fair elections.
So how can the Governor-General’s role be side-lined.
This week’s events and the whole three years of the minority-rule Parliament offer a good illustration.
The ACT Parliament has had minority governments for 20 of its 24-year existence. It has also had two successful no-confidence motions in existing governments.
Despite this seeming recipe for instability, the system has worked smoothly without a Governor-General, Governor, Administrator or any other representative of the Crown having any role. The people and their elected representatives have run the process.
At an election the independent ACT Electoral Commissioner – who heads a statutory authority and is appointed on merit and can only be dismissed by the Parliament – declares the elected members of parliament.
They meet and are sworn in by the Chief Justice who presides over the Parliament until it fulfills its first item of business – the election of a Speaker.
The Speaker then calls for nominations for Chief Minister (or Prime Minister in a national setting). The people’s representatives then elect the Chief Minister, who holds office until the Parliament elects a new Chief Minister.
Here we should insert the Papua New Guinea constitutional requirement which states that a no-confidence motion in a Prime Minister must name the new Prime Minister or it is invalid.
So that is one major political role of the Governor-General done away with.
The other is the requirement for the Prime Minister to get the Governor-General’s permission to call an election.
In 1983 this role changed Australian history. Then Governor-General Ninian Stephen asked Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser for more information and justification before granting Fraser a double dissolution election. In the hours that it took Fraser to get the material together, Labor changed its leader from Bill Hayden to Bob Hawke. The rest is (a different) history.
Again we turn to the ACT. The ACT has always had fixed election dates. They are held on the third Saturday in October. It works well. Everyone knows where they stand and can plan accordingly. The incumbent does not get the advantage of surprise.
More importantly, there is no role for a monarchical representative.
Much of the above could be accomplished by legislation without the need for a constitutional change which could come later if it was thought the system was working so well it should be put beyond legislative undoing.
The Governor-General’s role would be reduced to chief mourner and bridge opener.
And whoever wins the next election should pass legislation to insist the Governor-General’s appointment be approved by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the Federal Parliament – a subject which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.
DOT DOT DOT
This week something happened in the ACT which could well be used in the Federal sphere – the replacement of a resigning member.
The ACT Legislative Assembly is elected in much the same way as the Australian Senate – multi-member electorates and proportional voting.
But when an ACT member dies or resigns they are replaced in a different way from dead or resigning senators.
The political party of the retiring senator nominates his or her successor. The party can nominate whichever party member it likes.
In the ACT, on the other hand, the vacancy is filled by a countback. The preferences of the votes of the retiring member are distributed to see who would have been elected if that person had died the day after the election. Invariably, the vacancy is filled by someone of the same party, because that is how the preferences usually run.
This week the vacancy caused by the resignation of Zed Seselja was filled. It was a very close-run thing. Nicole Lawder won from fellow Liberal Val Jeffery by just eight votes. The recount was done by computer (all votes in the ACT are either by computer or entered manually into the computer by electoral staff). It took just a few minutes.
In the Federal Senate, the vacancy would almost invariably go to the next candidate on the party’s ticket, but the ACT does not allow party tickets and the order of candidates is varied on different ballot papers.
This change, however, would require a change in the Constitution because the 1977 constitutional amendment lays down a method for replacing senators.
Replacing resigning senators might become common after September 14 if there is a change of government. Quite a few Labor senators would not want to hang around in Opposition.
Another interesting questions arises. A half Senate election will be held with the next House of Representatives election – presumably on 14 September. But the people elected then do not take office until the following July – that is nearly 10 months later.
What if one of those newly elected people dies? Section 15 of the Constitution says: “If the place of a senator becomes vacant before the expiration of his term of service . . . .” then a replacement procedure follows.
But a person does not become a “senator” and have a “place” in the Senate until they are sworn in, and they are not sworn in until July. Pity no-one thought of that when the overly legalistic 720-word 1977 amendment was drafted.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 29 January 2013.