People favouring the direct election of the president should look at the referendum of December 12, 1981, for inspiration.
At that referendum the Tasmanian Government offered two choices: a dam on the Gordon River below the Franklin River or a dam on the Gordon above the Olga River.
Of course, a very large number of people in Tasmania did not want any dams at all.
The “”no dams” group, conservationists and others who cut across party lines, organised a campaign for people to write “”No Dams” across their ballot paper and to vote informal.
The result of the referendum was a 53 per cent to 9 per cent win for the larger dam, but the informal vote was 38 per cent, nearly all of which were marked No Dams.
The government and the power elites (pardon the pun) of Tasmania gave the people a choice of Dam A or Dam B when a very large number wanted neither.
Ultimately, the No Dams option won the day. It took a change in Federal Government and the undemocratic referendum cost the State Labor Government office. The subsequent Liberal Government wanted to push ahead with the big dam as soon as possible, the Liberal Premier Robin Gray at one stage warning that Tasmania would run out of electricity without the Franklin dam. Ho-hum.
The clincher, though, was public opinion. More people saw the economic and environmental absurdity of building huge dams to generate cheap electricity for industry that was not there.
So, too, with the republic. Public opinion has stubbornly asserted it wants a direct election for the president.
As it happens, I think that will result in one Labor hack and one Liberal hack fighting it off in an election with the inevitable election of a politician to the job. Moreover, it will be a politician with a large ego, inflated by the receipt of the people’s mantle at and election. Maybe large numbers of people don’t realise this. Maybe they do, but still prefer a vote of the people than a two-thirds vote of Parliament for someone good and true from the power elites, like a judge or military chap.
Whatever the merits of those arguments, ultimately the people should get their way, if after a long period of public discussion they hold fast to a considered view. That is democracy.
So what should a person who wants to directly elect the president do at the referendum in November?
It seems absurd that they should vote in a way that would prolong the British sovereign’s role in our Constitution.
Rather they should organise a nation-wide write-in campaign. They should urge their supporters to write on the ballot paper the words “”Direct Elect”.
Having done that, they should either tick the Yes box for the minimalist republic or mark no box so an informal vote is lodged.
Ticking the NO box is an utterly illogical and dishonourable course. A tick in the NO box is a vote in favour of indefinite constitutional monarchy. If that happens, the shutters will go up on constitutional reform.
But that is the present position of Phil Clearly, Ted Mack and the other adherents of a direct election. They — the most ardent republicans — will vote for the continuation of the monarchy.
If, however, the minimalist republic wins, the shutters will not go up on constitutional reform. Rather people will be encouraged that reform emanating from the people’s convention model is achievable. There will be another convention reasonably soon to look at things like the preamble; the way the (by-then in place) president is chosen; and perhaps a Bill of Rights.
You can build on the first bit of reform because reformers would not be discouraged. But if the No gets up, the direct-elect people would get no support from either constitutional monarchists (their present allies) or republicans who are happy with an indirectly elected head of state as a first or final step. They won’t want to put their necks out a second time.
However, with a write in campaign the direct-elect opinion could be measured. It would not be just an indistinguishable part of an homogeneous block of No votes including those of the constitutional monarchists.
If No wins both direct elect and constitutional monarchists would claim victory — neither convincingly. And Australia would go to sleep.
Imagine, though, a narrow victory for republic with an identifiable slab of direct-elect opinion expressed either as informal vote or by scrutineers who estimate the number of write-ins on YES ballots. (Indeed, you could FOI the ballots or a sample of the ballots and actually count them.) With this result the direct-elect people would have a solid basis on which to re-open the question of how to choose. If, on the other hand, the direct elect people vote No the constitutional monarchists will claim every one of the those votes as theirs.
If the direct elect people had any courage, they would organise a write-in campaign and not attempt to claim a spoiler’s victory on the coat-tails of the 30 per cent or so people who are constitutional monarchists.
Surely people wanting a republic and a directly elected Australian head of state could not claim victory if the November vote assures us of exactly the opposite — the prolongation of the hereditary monarchy resident in Britain.