Constitutional monarchy is about a desire for a figure above
politics representing the interests of all subjects by upholding a nation's
laws, who can act without fear or intimidation and be the focus of loyalty
without having to win the transient favour of voters or politicians. When
people line the streets to see monarchs pass by it is an occasion to reflect
on the wisdom of giving political power to a charismatic president able to
command adulation on the same scale for their own purposes. Around the world
and throughout history the consequences have been disastrous. It is as
Winston Churchill wrote on 8 April 1945: "This war would never have come
unless, under American and modernising pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs
out of Austria and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums
we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer on
to the vacant thrones. No doubt these views are very unfashionable..."
Many republics have been inaugurated through coups and civil wars. In the
20th century, Brazil and Argentina experienced military dictatorship,
Yugoslavia disintegrated into a bloody conflict, and Italy was governed by
more than 50 different administrations after world war two. The French
republic has had five different incarnations since the revolution, with
their president now more powerful than the parliament and prime minister.
It is the natural order of things for human beings to live in kingdoms under
Kings and Queens, as it is for other living creatures on Earth. It is not
for nothing that Christians pray "your kingdom come". Out of 116 republics,
only the US and Switzerland have a record of stability and unity to match
the Commonwealth of Australia and neither of their systems have been
successfully exported anywhere else. It is often said monarchs reign but
they do not rule. The genius of constitutional monarchy lies not so much
with the power the crown exercises but the power it denies others. It is to
the monarch and through them to the people that the vice-regals owe their
allegiance, rather than mere politicians. A classical example was in 1975,
when India's prime minister Indira Ghandi sought to impose an unjustifiable
declaration of emergency to avoid the consequences of a court ruling against
her, and the president hesitated. Mrs Ghandi reminded the president that she
and the Congress Party had "made" him. It was to the party and to her that
he owed his position and loyalty, and he signed. No Australian vice-regal
would have. Their loyalty is to an apolitical monarch and thus to the
people. That they would not want to go down in history's page as a partisan
was demonstrated in 1951 when prime minister Robert Menzies sought a double
dissolution election that many in the opposition party thought would be
blocked by the Governor-General Sir William McKell, a former Labor premier,
to avoid an inconvenient election. Disregarding any feeling of loyalty to
his former party and, acting as per convention, parliament was dissolved
accordingly.
During Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's golden jubilee year in 2002, prime
minister Tony Blair said: "A lot of people of my generation have decided in
part because of how important a unifier for the country the Queen has been
that actually this is a better system - rationally, not simply emotionally
or as part of tradition - but rationally this is a better system."
Constitutional monarchy as the ideal form of governance is supported by the
Human Development Index. Complied by the United Nations, each year this
league table lists and ranks the average achievements in each country in 3
basic dimensions of human development:
(1) a long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
(2) knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds
weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary enrolement ratio
(with one-third weight).
(3) a decent standard of living, as measured by the natural logarithm of
gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in
USD.
Making up only 15% of countries, constitutional monarchies are a select
group. In 2009 almost all were concentrated at the top, with Australia at
number 2. Of the top 20 developed countries, 60% are constitutional
monarchies. Republics make up about 90% of developing countries and all
least developed countries.
In addition, constitutional monarchies are known for high levels of economic
and political freedom. Of the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage
Foundation's rating of 157 countries enjoying economic freedom, 8 of the top
22 are constitutional monarchies. Under the monarchy Australia has been a
pioneer of democracy, with Federation in 1901 being the first example in
world history of a nation coming into being through entirely lawful,
peaceful and democratic means.
According to Transparency International, in 2009, 64% of countries that were
perceived as being least corrupt were constitutional monarchies.
The Australian Monarchy is cost effective. The monarch receives no
remuneration from the Australian taxpayer for their services. Being
domiciled in the United Kingdom means the capital and maintenance costs of
the Royal residences and the civil list are met by the British taxpayer. The
vice-regals, who, in the monarch's absence, act as heads of state federally
and in the six sovereign states, and abroad from 1971, accumulate a modest
bill, which amounts to much less than is accrued by their counterparts in
federal republics such as the United States.
Across a range of indicators a hereditary constitutional monarchy fares
better as a system of government than does electing a politician as
president.
The referendum on the Republic Bill in 1999 was less about an earnest
attempt to forge a more democratic and independent nation in time for the
Centenary of Federation and more about increasing the power of politicans.
In reality it was a hastly cobbled together compromise, amended up until its
last hours in parliament, which proposed replacing the Queen and the
Governor-General - who is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the prime
minister and serves at Her Majesty's pleasure, with the reserve powers of an
English monarch - with a president, elected by a two-thirds majority of the
members of the Commonwealth parliament, and instantly dismissable by the
prime minister without reason, without notice and without appeal, and bound
by a prescribed constitiutional obligation to act on ministerial advice,
which was not foreshadowed at the constitutional convention which drafted
the amendment, even if the advice tendered was illegal, improper or foolish.
Labelled by its detractors as the "politicians republic", it would have been
the only one in the world without an impeachment process for the president,
and divided anti-monarchist opinion ending in defeat by 54.83% in the
popular vote and 6-0 in the states. Such was the enthusiasm of academics and
journalists and the political elite for the change, visiting media expert
Lord Deedes wrote in the London Times, 8 November 1999: "I have rarely
attended elections in any country, certainly not a democratic one, in which
the newspapers have displayed more shameless bias. One and all, they
determined that Australians should have a republic and they used every
device towards that end."
The monarchy is Australia's oldest institution, planted when the Union Flag
was raised on Possession Island on 22 August 1770 and the east coast
declared British territory by Lt. James Cook, RN, which facilitated the
arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. The symbolism reminds Australians that
for better, worse or indifferent as a result of that European civilisation
arriving on these islands in less than 200 years there was a modern, western
nation established here because of this fact. The monarchy is as Australian
as the English language or cricket. The monarch is not a foreigner, but
rather a non-resident - a professional, globe trotting sovereign - for a
society which enjoys its existence in a borderless world. Remaining a
Commonwealth Realm is the best safeguard for the host culture. The price of
any further votes on republicanism must be constitutional protection of the
national language, holiday and flag as part of the proposed amendment, or as
a simultaneous question.
As the Foundation of Australia took place without the consent of the
inhabitants of the time being, the view has been advanced there is the need
to re-negotiate the nation as a "reconciled republic". However it is the
case that modern aboriginal people have generally approved of the
demographic changes that have occured since British settlement by marrying
the heirs and successors of the colonial population and more recent arrivals
and their progeny in large numbers.
The proportion of aboriginal adults married (de facto or de jure) to
non-aboriginal spouses was 69% according to the 2001 census, up from 64% in
1996, 51% in 1991 and 46% in 1986. The census figures show there were more
intermixed aboriginal couples in capital cities: 87% in 2001 compared to 60%
in rural and regional Australia.
When Captain Phillip stepped ashore at Sydney Cove, most authorities place
the aboriginal population of Australia at between 250,000-300,000. The last
accurate census on the number of full blooded aborigines was in 1961; today
the number may be no more than 30,000 out of a total "indigenous" population
of 517,200.
In 1996 the census showed almost 72% of aborigines practiced some form of
Christianity. Further data on aboriginal assimilation was recorded in the
2006 census, which showed 31% of aborigines lived in major cities and
another 45% in or close to rural towns, a major increase compared with 46%
living in urban areas in 1971. There was been a move away from communal type
living with one in three aborigines owning their own homes. Aboriginal
languages, of which there are several hundred (many extinct or nearly so),
are spoken by 12% of the Aboriginal population (aged 5 years and over), of
whom 78% are also proficient English speakers.
Based on current trends, it is more likely than not that the dysgenic traits
carried by aboriginal people and nature will decide the matter and remove
this argument for change in the fullness of time.
None of these truths are likely to have any impact on the plans of self
appointed aboriginal leaders and their white sympathisers, or even be heard.
The declaration of a republic could place Australia on a slippery slope that
leads to retrograde steps such as the reception of customary law,
re-introduction of separate elected representation, reserved seats in
parliament, constitutional recognition and a Bill of Aboriginal Rights, a
treaty and sovereign aboriginal states carved out of Australian territory.
However, the fact that turnout for elections to the former Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Commission was typically around 20% of eligible
voters, and that there is no national non-funded aboriginal voice, points to
there being no such thing as a collective aboriginal identity and suggests
the artificial nature of the separatist agenda, and it would seem these
fantasies are and will not be supported by most common aboriginal people
themselves.
All that remains for radical aboriginal rights activists to do is to
reconcile themselves with the fact their future lies not in statements of
separateness but as an ethnic minority with equal citizenship subject to one
law in a united Australian Federation.
According to their platform the Australian Labor Party "will conduct
plebiscites to establish support for an Australian head of state and the
preference for different forms of a republic."
This process model should be opposed and a second referendum on a republic
put back at least thirty years after the question was first brought to a
head.
Australians deserve constitutional certainty. The two non-binding polls have
the potential to destabilise one of the most successful constitutions in the
world, without it being replaced by an unknown preference. A government can
make support for a plebisicite virtually anything they want by the
formulation of words put to the electorate, who are in effect asked to write
politicians a blank cheque.
A less burdening alternative for the Australian taxpayer with the same
effect would be to commission the Australian Bureau of Statistics to conduct
a Republic Attitudes Survey similar to the national poll on preferences for
the national tune in 1974.
There should be a moratorium on an Australian republic until 2029, with the
agreement of the parliamentary parties backed by legislation similar to the
Flags Amendment Act 1998 (Cth).
A guaranteed period without the possibility of a referendum on Australia's
constitutional status would give republicans time to complete the monumental
task of developing a framework for a popularly elected presidency and let
the text of their proposed amendment lie on the table, ready to be tabled in
parliament and put to the people under section 128 of the constitution if
and when a groundswell of public opinion sufficient to justify this course
of action exists, and government the opportunity to implement the
recommendation of the inquiry into the Plebiscite for an Australian Republic
Bill 2008 for the "establishment of an ongoing public awareness campaign on
Australia's constitutional system which engages as wide a range of the
public as possible."
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anti-monarchy myths, Canadian Monarchist Online <http:> at 25 November 2009
Bob Birrell and John Hirst, Aboriginal Couples at the 2001 Census, People
and Place (2002)
David Flint, The Cane Toad Republic (1999)
David Malouf, Made in England: Australia's British Inheritance, Quarterly
Essay (2003)
Gary Johns, Waking up to the Dreamtime: The Illusion of Aboriginal
Self-Determination (2007)
Julian Glover, Blair: monarchy is a better system (2002) Guardian <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/may/23/constitution.uk> at 25
November 2009
Kerry Jones, The ACM Handbook (1996)
Nigel Morris, Report on Aboriginal people in Australia (2008)
Peter Howson, Pointing the Bone: Reflections on the Passing of ATSIC (2004)
Quotations, The Constitutional Monarchy Association <http:> at 25 November
2009
W. Sanders, J. Taylor and K. Ross, Participation and representation in ATSIC
elections: a ten-year perspective (2002)