The Big Republicans are not satisfied with pencilling out the word “”Queen” in the Constitution and substituting it with “”President”. They want a fresh start with a completely new Constitution, putting sovereignty firmly in the hands of the people, not in any way derivative of the British Crown and the divine rights of kings.
The small republicans, on the other hand, seek the smallest change possible. This is the view of the Australian Republican Movement. It seeks only one thing: that the highest office in the land under our Constitution should not be filled by a foreigner.
The small republicans are headed, among others, by Donald Horne who wrote a book called (I think, from memory) The Lucky Monarchy.
They recognise that Australians are very wary of constitutional reform of any sort and feel that any big-bang republicanism would be rejected out of hand.
Indeed, if the award of a BEc came only after a broad liberal education, rather than the pine plantation of an education that it is, Dr Hewson and his advisers would know about, and use, the writings of a well-known 16th century Scottish political sociologist, MacHiavelli, to exploit the small republicans’ fears.
MacHiavelli was a true monarchist, his main work being üThe Prince,@ an essay on tactics his mate Macbeth could use to keep his throne without getting misdirected by dangerous feminists.
To further his monarchist aims, Dr Hewson should announce tomorrow a referendum for a republic with a President elected by all the people with wide powers to veto legislation and appoint and sack the Prime Minister. The proposal would include an extensive bill of rights and full sovereignty for Aboriginal people. When it is rejected by a thumping majority of the people in all states, Dr Hewson would have put the republican cause to rest for at least two decades.
This possibility, however, did not deter two academics at a conference last week from taking the Big Republican position.
Dr Drew Fraser, of Macquarie University, attacked the “”constitutional doctors” of the Australian Republican Movement who “”treat the abolition of the monarchy as nothing more than a constitutional appendectomy a simple matter of snipping off a decayed and useless political organ.”
He argued that it did nothing to increase the power of citizens over the government. One of the ironies of becoming a republic that way was that it would have to receive Royal assent. He preferred the setting up of a constituent assembly to draft a new republican constitution. The assembly would have no politicians and those seeking election to it would not bear party names.
Politicians had a vested interest in maintaining their power through the doctrine of sovereignty of Parliament, he said. Under a republic, more power should be given to citizens, including that to initiate changes to the Constitution, which at present could only come from the Commonwealth Parliament. The change to a republic should also come with a Bill of Rights.
Another Big Republican, Associate Professor Campbell Sharman, of the University of Western Australia, had a delicious idea to keep popular control over the Executive. Whenever MPs were elevated to the Ministry mid-term, they would have to submit themselves to re-election at a by-election. This pits the two main pursuits of politics against each other: power and re-election.
Professor Sharman said there was no point talking about a republic without talking about a increase in parliamentary and popular control over the executive.
“”If republicanism is seen as no more than a struggle over totems, it will fail,” he said. It would only succeed “”if it was seen as a serious attempt to make the governmental process more responsive to popular wishes and representative institutions”.
The present balance was too much in favour of the government of the day. The executive should be defined and limited. The lack of definition created a convenient cloak of ambiguity which gave the executive greater power. And the fact the Crown was head of state had a subtle effect of increasing executive power.
However, changes would be difficult because under the Constitution the executive controlled which questions went to referendum.
“”This is the paradox of constitutional change in our system: the only changes worth making are not on the agenda,” he said.
As the well-known Palestinian political sociologist said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.