By Pip Hinman
From day one, it was clear that the two-week constitutional convention would achieve its desired aim — to construct an elaborate show of "the Australian people" deciding an important course for the nation. However, with both Labor and the majority of the Coalition willing to entertain only the most trivial of reforms, the convention ruled out any prospect of fundamental changes to the current undemocratic constitution.
Not that this meeting, estimated to have cost $50 million, had the slightest chance of doing anything else. The die had been well and truly cast some years ago.
Since former PM Paul Keating raised his "minimalist" republic model in 1995, as a way of cementing a national consensus for Labor's economic restructuring plans, the terms of the "republic debate" have always been limited to whether the new head of state should be selected or elected. As expected, this secondary matter was the main sticking point at the convention.
But, just in case the convention's delegates got carried away, the Coalition took out a double insurance policy. First, half the delegates were appointed (the other half were voted in — via an undemocratic, non-compulsory postal ballot — by 42% of eligible voters). Second, the meeting's brief was limited to advising the government on the powers of a future president, the method of election or selection and when a referendum should be held.
The convention itself was thoroughly undemocratic. The Resolutions Committee, headed by deputy opposition leader Gareth Evans and Attorney-General Daryl Williams, made all the critical decisions behind closed doors.
John Howard agreed to take the Australian Republican Movement's (ARM) "compromise" model to cabinet. In this model, a committee, including "community representatives", would make secret nominations to the PM and opposition leader, who would then choose a president for acceptance by a two-thirds majority of sitting MPs.
The president could be removed immediately by the PM, whose action would need to be ratified by a simple majority vote of the lower house.
This is essentially the original ARM-Keating model, with a committee thrown in for some popular window dressing.
Popular election
Polls have consistently shown a majority in favour of directly electing a new head of state. This reflects the widespread distrust of politicians, and anger at declining living standards and parliamentary rorts. In their bid to ingratiate themselves with the general public, Howard and Co. have been at pains to argue that the only way to ensure a "non-politician" as head of state is if he or she is appointed by the parliament. This is wrong.
Whichever way the president takes office, he or she will have to abide by the undemocratic parliamentary status quo (in which one of two major parties with the same policies can take government with a minority of votes) and uphold a fundamentally undemocratic constitution which, even with a reworked preamble, will remain a set of rules to shore up a minority's power and privilege.
The main reason the Coalition has been prepared to tolerate the selection/election debate is because it provides a veneer of democracy. The fact that so many Coalition MPs have recently outed themselves as republicans, albeit as minimalist ones, also says much about the pressure on politicians to be seen to be dynamic and modern in their thinking.
Nationalism
But the main reason for the Coalition's late lunge onto the republic bandwagon is the same as Labor's. It too wants to take advantage of the nationalist symbolism, implicit in a move to a republic, to garner consensus for its neo-liberal austerity agenda.
This is also the reason why business is behind the republic model. A Financial Review-Morgan poll of 327 high-income small-business owners, managers, professionals and farmers conducted in January found that 62% were republicans.
According to company director and appointed delegate Helen Lynch, a president should go out and "sell" Australia. "The head of state ought to be the advocate for the brand — Australia — the person who promotes and protects our brand image in the global supermarket ... a resident for president is in the best interests of Australia, and Australian business", she said last year.
Labor and ARM use similar arguments. According to ARM, the move to a republic is "inextricably entwined with the way we see ourselves as a vibrant, confident and independent participant in the emerging economies of the Asia-Pacific region". Given that this group is headed by Malcolm Turnbull, former merchant banker and business broker, who has been credited with clinching the deal to deliver Fairfax to Conrad Black, and includes such people as Janet Holmes à Court (Australia's richest woman), the business focus is hardly surprising.
The ACTU declared its support for a republic in 1995, but while its campaign literature back then called for the debate to be taken out of the hands of lawyers, politicians and academics, it has since gone silent on this matter.
At the convention, ACTU president Jennie George, an elected ARM delegate, argued against the direct election option. In a similar vein, Kim Beazley ignored his own party's recent conference, where the majority expressed support for direct election, and congratulated the PM on accepting the ARM model.
There were a number of prominent politicians and former politicians — including Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett (who made a brief token appearance at the end of the second week), WA Labor opposition leaders Geoff Gallop, SA Labor leader Mike Rann and former governor-general and Labor leader Bill Hayden — who initially argued for a directly elected president for populist reasons. Most of these fell in behind the ARM line in the end.
The nationalistic euphoria engulfing all delegates around the final votes at the convention gives a taste of what's to come in a future referendum. The government and opposition alike are counting on reinvigorated nationalism to convince more ordinary Australians to continue to sacrifice for the profits of the corporate ruling class.
Real accountability
Just Republic candidate Pat O'Shane and Independent Australia delegate Phil Cleary were outspoken against the exclusion of a model with a directly elected president from the promised referendum. They were dubbed "radical republicans" by the media.
Cleary said that Australia missed a big chance to "take hold of our collective future". However, even if these "radical republicans" had been successful on this question at the convention, this would hardly have offered us a really accountable and democratic government.
Australia's political system is fundamentally undemocratic because the big decisions affecting people's everyday lives are not made by any elected bodies or officials. They are made in the corporate boardrooms.
Of course, it is worth fighting for reforms that give people more democratic rights. More significant even than a popularly elected president would have been the placing of sharp limitations on the powers of the head of state and a bill of rights. This was rejected as "out of order" by the stage-managed and rigged constitutional convention.
To make the shift to a republic more than a superficial change, there would also need to be formal constitutional recognition of the prior occupation of Australia by Aboriginal people (the basis for genuine national land rights legislation). But the appeals by some of the handful of indigenous delegates fell on indifferent ears.
Radical democratic reforms — such as the popular election of judges, the replacement of the undemocratic electoral laws (which discriminate against parties that don't have the support of big business), proportional representation introduced into the House of Representatives, shorter parliamentary terms and the right to recall, and the making of crucial decisions like embarking on wars through popular referenda — were not raised by any delegate.