I imagined a typical public meeting on matters of legal reform. Twenty or so earnest, well-informed people with a commitment to community matters would be dwarfed by a large lecture theatre hired by the impossibly optimistic organisers.
And thus I prepared a brief talk on Crown reserve powers in the ACT and how they might apply nationally _ fairly esoteric but suitably informative stuff for my imagined audience.
Little did I know. The Nicholls Theatre at the National Convention Centre was packed to overflowing.
The first speaker got only a minute or two into his speak and the interruptions began. The purpose of the meeting was quickly lost. Instead of a meeting about the machinery of providing Australia with an Australian head of state, it became a childish slanging match.
“”Nought out of ten for that one. I bowled you middle stump.”
“”You’re a hypocrite.”
“”You’re a windbag.”
The committee was accused of having a secular humanist agenda to undermine Australia as a Christian state. Malcolm Turnbull patiently read the existing no-religion clause in the Constitution. Professor George Winterton’s eyes rolled backwards.
The alleged hidden agenda stretched to the flag and the abolition of the states. Australian republicans were accused of being Irish traitors.
The cliches and predictable poured out: “”This great nation of ours . . .”. “”The republic won’t provide one job.” “”How much is it all going to cost.”
It was nearly all emotion, scare campaign and hyperbole. It was good entertainment, but there was no debate to speak of and precious little information. And Canberra is supposed to have the highest education level in Australia.
We have a Catch 22 here. A conundrum. We cannot get over this ignorance about the Constitution and the way Australia is governed without much broader education. But you cannot broaden the education about constitutional matters much without having an understandable Constitution that says what it means and means what it says. But you cannot change the Constitution until you educate enough people to understand the changes and approve them.
The face of the Constitution says Australia is run by a Governor-General with sweeping powers. The reality is different. The thing is riddled with conventions and mystical reserve powers. The code of government is disguised. That puts it beyond the grasp of nearly all students before about Year 11 and beyond many people permanently. It is like English spelling. Kids learning English learn to spell later than kids learning Spanish because the letters do not correlate with the reality of the sound, just as the words of the Constitution do not correlate with the reality of government.
Ignorance then invites cynicism, apathy and resignation. That might be all right for the mysteries of computers, car engines, double-entry accounting and the holy trinity, but not for civic affairs in a democracy. It invites manipulation.
Initially, I thought the depressing conclusion from the meeting was that there is no quick way through this Catch 22. But now I realise that this might be just a Canberra phenomenon. The Canberra constitutional monarchists seemed to be very different from the Sydney and Melbourne ones. The intellectual rigour of Leonie Kramer was missing. The compassion of Michael Kirby was absent. The straight bat of Lloyd Waddy was not being played. There was no logic or coherence.
With the exception of Malcolm Mackerras, whose views are well-known, and one or two others, it was as if the pro-monarchy speakers were talking about something else. Then it hit me. The hidden agenda in Canberra seemed to be on the monarchists’ side; not the republicans’. It was hauntingly similar to the non-self-government issue which ran off in a bewildering tangent of rights to bear arms and taking fluoride out of the water. One of the speakers was angrily accused of being racist.
In Canberra, we were witnessing the taking over of (agree with it or not) the decent civic cause of constitutional monarchy by people with a wider agenda. I don’t think it will come to much nationally. In Canberra we only lost our fluoride for six months. But it is worth keeping an eye on things.