27.04.08
Preserving our system of governance
Ron Walker put this submission to the Australia 2020 Summit. He argues why we should remove the Queen, but preserve our constitutional separation of powers between the Head of State and the Governor General.
I am glad we are moving towards a Republic, but there is one very weighty issue that was completely overlooked in 1999. That is: if we combine the roles currently exercised by the Queen and the GG into one office holder, we will be changing our constitutional system. Much safer to continue to keep them separate.
Our present constitutional system is that we have a Head of State (currently hereditary but soon, I expect, to be elected, either indirectly or directly) and an appointed vice Head of State who holds important powers, both those explicit in the Constitution and the inferred so-called “Reserve Powers”. These include the power to withhold assent from legislation if it has not been constitutionally passed. It is a power never used but whose existence has worked wonders in keeping the bastards honest. The Reserve Powers include the power, demonstrated by John Kerr, to sack the Prime Minister, appoint a successor of the vice roy’s's own choice and prorogue Parliament, thus precipitating elections. They also include many other powers as yet unused and perhaps unimagined, but which it is good to hold in reserve against unforeseen contingencies. If, for example, a terrorist blast had eliminated the whole Federal Parliament on opening day earlier this year, the Governor General could have appointed an interim government or himself ruled by decree until a new Parliament and government were constituted. No one would have doubted his constitutional power, indeed duty, to do so. No one would have imagined that the Queen should or could do it in his stead.
To give these powers to our Head of State (as was proposed in 1999) would be a drastic change, fraught with danger. It would concentrate real power and ceremonial status in a way to which we are not accustomed. It would tip the scales in favour of Kerr-style delusions of self importance and imprudent political activism by the Head of State. The only conservative model for a post monarchic Australia is one in which we not only continue to have a Head of Sate (only now, he or she would be not hereditary but elected, either directly or indirectly), but also retain an appointed vice Head of State to hold the powers currently vested in the viceroy – (with a strong preference for a bipartisan process of selection, to avoid the sort of political dangers we saw in the Hollingsworth affair).
By all means sack the absent and impotent Queen, but preserve our constitutional separation of powers between the head of State and the vice head of State.
