Secondary agendas in the republic movement

The issue of changing our head of state so that we have an Australian as our head of state is the prime focus of the republic movement in Australia. Or it should be.

We find instead that the change to a republic has been taken as an opportunity to rewrite or modify the system of government in Australia in general. The republican movement has tried to load a number of other issues together as a package for constitutional change with the republic.

Along with the despair of nothing much happening in the ten years since the republic referendum, some of the recently proposed changes to our system of government and the Constitution are attempts to change a number of enabling conditions that would make it easier to usher through a successful outcome to a referendum. One item on a wish list was to water down of Section 128 to make it easier for a referendum to pass and there are quite a number of people arguing for citizen initiated referenda.

Even the issue of a model is clouded and confused. You could say that there are a couple of STRUCTURAL MODELs that have been implicit in the debate but that have not been adequately discussed.

There are basically two STRUCTURAL models for a republic.

The existing structure is what we have had in place since Federation in 1901.

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Existing Structure – “Crowned Republic”

• The head of state: The Queen (monarch)
• The representative of the head of state: The Governor-General and State Governors (appointed)

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Proposed Structural Model – ARM Republic Models

• The head of state: The President (appointed or elected)

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Proposed Structural Model – Copernican Republic Models

• The head of state: The President (elected)
• The representative of the head of state: The Governor-General and State Governors (appointed)

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The structural models are quite different. The difference is in who can exercise the reserve powers. In our existing system and in the Copernican models, the head of state can not exercise the reserve powers. In the ARM models the head of state will be able to exercise the reserve powers and they are likely to be codified in some way.

From the conventional ARM perspective, when they talk about models they are talking about different ways to select the head of state. They assume implicitly that their new structural model will involve collapsing the current role of the Queen with that of the Governor-General into the one new role of President as head of state. They do not acknowledge that this is a significant and radical structural change and they do not acknowledge that we can have a change to a republic while still preserving the structure (of a head of state and a representative of the head of state) that we currently have. This is really where the problem for the republic issue is. The Copernican models are about looking at what we currently have and seeing that differently.

One of the strangest aspects of this debate about the republic is hearing or reading claims that the Governor-General is our head of state.

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Hey, I know how to go about convincing the public that we know what we are doing on the republic. How about we go the happy-clappy, born-again Christian thing. We can all stand there staring at the camera like grinning idiots while someone strums away on a guitar. The film could all be slowed down so it would give people a GOOD feeling about the republic. That would do it. Don’t talk about models – show them models, in swimsuits. Go the emotions and anyone who disagrees we could portray as a stuffy killjoy. After all, cynicism is the biggest hurdle to the republic. They need the message that they can trust us, that we are one of them. And the House inquiry into the mechanisms of referendum will give us all the dosh to push that eye-candy tosh. That’ll work. That’s what education about the constitution is all about. Everyone loves a harmless romantic.

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All you need to complete the story is an evil clown pulling the strings from ARM HQ in a bid to trash Australia’s democracy.