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Thinking practically about an Australian republic

By Greg Craven - posted Wednesday, 20 November 2002


Design

On the question of design, there is no point in expecting narrow and broad republicans readily to agree on a republican model on the grounds that they are all the same species. On the contrary, each group has distinctly different constitutional suppositions.

To the narrow, typically conservative republican, the Australian Constitution is a remarkable document that has stood the test of time in providing a century of progressive constitutional democracy. It should not be tampered with lightly, and all that is required is a minimal, republican adjustment.

To broader republicans, the Constitution is at best outdated, and at worst pernicious. It fails to deal adequately with such issues as human rights, and needs extensive surgery. At the very least, popular democratic principle requires that the head of state be elected.

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Between these two positions, the only obvious common ground is that Australia’s head of state should be an Australian citizen.

In particular, it should be quite clear that narrower, more conservative Australian republicans will be irretrievably opposed to an elected head of state.

There are two straightforward reasons for this. First, an elected head of state would enjoy a popular mandate, destabilizing the Australian constitutional settlement. Second, any model of direct election would require radical surgery to the Australian Constitution.

This is made usefully clear by the direct election models included in the discussion paper of the Australian Republican Movement. All will prove anathema to conservative republicans.

Model Three, with its president selected by a directly elected presidential college would see a head of state chosen by a body which itself unavoidably would become an object of party political contest. The president then would draw an indirect but powerful popular mandate by virtue of the fact that he or she was chosen by those who had been popularly elected for the sole purpose of electing him or her. The practical impossibility of removing a political president completes the picture.

Model Four, providing for full direct election, would face all of the well-worn charges concerning the incompatibility of popular mandates residing in both the head of state and the head of government. It would share the difficulties of Model Three in relation to dismissal, and add to them the practical nightmare of codification.

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Model Five, comprising direct election from a parliamentary list bravely combines all the practical and theoretical difficulties of full direct election with the fact that those most enamored of direct election presumably would be highly unhappy with parliamentary limitation of their choice.

Finally comes Model Six, discussing the possibility of an executive presidency. The simplest observation to make of this model in relation to conservative republicans is that, whatever theoretical virtues it might or might not have, it would be entirely unacceptable as involving a wholesale reconstruction of the Australian Constitution.

The result is that the basic differences in republican definition and supposition naturally produce basic differences in republican preference. Broad republicans typically desire direct election, while this is entirely inconsistent with the operating assumptions of narrower, more conservative republicans.

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About the Author

Professor Greg Craven is Vice Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, Deputy Chairman, Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Reform Council, and a constitutional lawyer.

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All articles by Greg Craven
Related Links
Australian Republican Movement
Notre Dame College of Law
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