The Republic Issue at the moment

The Queen is dead, long live the monarchy Crown

DAVID MARR – October 31, 2009- smh.com.au

Yet Republicans have pencilled this time [of the next succession to the Throne] in their diaries to start the next big push to get rid of the crown. It’s not an obviously winning strategy. They are not proposing to have the constitutional machinery in place to allow a seamless transition from the Queen of Australia to a president.

Instead, amid the archaic excitements of a coronation watched by billions, Australia is expected to muster the enthusiasm for conventions, a few rounds of plebiscites and hand-to-hand brawling with monarchists to stand, at last, on its own constitutional feet.

Since the defeat of the referendum 10 years ago next week, republicans have been living in a state of postponement…

via The Queen is dead, long live the monarchy. – smh.com.au

The models proposed so far have been uninspiring, to the point where no one wants to hear about models.

How about we keep the structure as it is and regularly elect someone to act in the role of the Queen since Federation.We can keep the role of the Governor-General as it is so that an elected head of state will not have the reserve powers at their disposal.

The standard models for a republic have the fault that they try to roll both The Queen and the Governor-General into the one position of head of  state. This creates a head of state that is potentially powerful enough to take on the Prime Minister and who might claim a popular mandate if he (or she) were directly elected.

These are not just flippant comments. There are a number of people who have independently come up with similar models that aim to only replace the Queen in our constitutional system, rather than trying to replace both the Queen and Governor-General with a head of state. These are the Copernican Models.

My unique approach is both radical and conservative so it is likely to put almost everyone off side to start with. It may initially sound like a contradiction of terms but institutions can change over time. My basic idea is that we could emphasise the ‘Republic’ in a ‘Crowned Republic’ by modifying the meaning of the Crown itself. we could institute an Australian Crown that is democratic. We could directly elect an Australian to serve for a limited time as our head of state, with regular elections and in such a way that there is a different person elected each time. We could change the trappings of our head of state to make it all look more contemporary and use legislation such as a Style and Titles Act to give the office a respectable title. Underneath it all, though, we could keep our Constitution largely as it is with at least a new section to spell out the process for electing the head of state. The text of the Constitution would then still refer to our head of state as the ‘Queen’.

Such a  model would be very minimal with regard to changing the constitution. It is conservative by keeping the structure as it is, while also being radical to propose a modification to the Crown to turn it into a democratic institution – rather than keeping it as a symbol of monarchy. This model proposes that we do away with the monarchy but we retain the Crown and make it democratic. Personally I think this approach is completely within our national character, and it will work.

To dilute the power of an elected head of state in such a model, I propose limiting the direct election for the head of state to only one particular state at a time and then rotating the presidency around the states (and territories) so that each directly elected president has a term of one year only. A head of state could not claim to have a popular mandate outside their home state in this situation, and their term in office is very short and can not be renewed, unless the person is re-elected after a round robin of  the states has been completed – perhaps after 6 years or so.

This approach of having state-based elections for the head of state with a state-based round-robin also fits well with changing the Australian Crown into a democratic institution because in our Federation all the states and the Commonwealth have their own unique relationship with the Crown. Each state has a Governor and the Commonwealth has a Governor-General. Strictly speaking, with this model for a republic the issue of codifying the reserve powers is a separate issue to becoming a republic and it does not need to be brought into the debate. The powers of an elected head of state in this model is a separate issue to the reserve powers of the state Governors and Governor-General. An elected head of state would not be able to exercise the reserve powers as in 1975, but the appointed state Governors and Governor-General will retain that power. Section 59 in the Constitution and whether it needs to be deleted or amended with a bee-sting clause is, however, of direct relevance to the issue of the power of the head of state in this model for a republic.

For more information on this approach to the issue of the republic see:

The Copernican Republic Forum,

The Australian Republic Category on this blog, and

The Egalitarian Republic page also on this blog.