The Government appears to be in a bind about how to respond to the Republican Advisory report. The chair of the advisory committee, Malcolm Turnbull, pointed out this week that it took five months to create the report and the Government has taken 18 months not to respond to it. He fears the debate about the republic is going off the boil. Essentially the difficulty appears to be not whether Australia should be a republic or not; but what sort of republic should it be.
The questions of what sort of republic boils down to two fundamental questions: how should the president be elected and what powers should the president have. On the first point, the options are between a direct election by the people and an indirect election by the Parliament. Opinion polls show that the broad mass of Australians feel they should elect the president directly. They say also that they do not want a recycled politician or political hack to be president. Of course, the two are inconsistent. People naively imagine that if they elect the president directly, they will get their wish. Not so. If there is a direct election, there will be a Labor candidate and a Liberal candidate and a raft of also-rans. Inevitably, one or other of the Liberal or Labor candidates will be elected. If, however, there is an indirect election, that is an election by the members of Federal Parliament at a joint sitting requiring a two-thirds majority, the Liberals can block a Labor hack and the Labor members can block a Liberal hack.
The result will be the election of a person of national stature who has never been in the political mire of stature. In short if the politicians elect the President the result will be a non-politician; if the people election the President the result will be a politician. This message, however, is not getting across to the mass of people very quickly. Further, it appears at present that if the people do not get to elect their president directly they will vote against a republic altogether.
The reserve powers of the President presents a further bind. Because of the events of 1975, Liberals support broad, undefined reserve powers and Labor supporters do not. To be true to the sentiment of 1975, Labor would like a codification of the President’s powers. This would inevitably muddy the waters and cause some people to reject a republic on this ground alone because it would be seen paranoiacally as some Labor grab for power. The opinion polls suggest that a decisive number of voters would make up their mind on a republican referendum not on the central issue of whether Australian should be a republic or not, but on whether they agree with the proposed kind of republic on offer.
Some diehard republicans will vote No just because they do not like the type of republic on offer. Further, constitutional monarchists will vote No as a matter of course in a one-off referendum that offers only two choices: no change or a republic of a particular sort. It means they will be disenfranchised from an important question: well, if you lot must have a republic, I would like a republic of this or that kind. The solution now appears clear: a two stage process. The first non-binding referendum perhaps at the next election would merely ask, “”Do you want a republic with an Australian Head of State?” If that is passed, the second binding referendum at the election after the next election would determine, perhaps in two parts, the way the President is elected and the codification if any of the President’s powers.