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Determining a republican model

By Greg Barns and Anna Krawec-Wheaton - posted Tuesday, 22 April 2008


To achieve genuine consensus and national unity on the type of republican model will require a sense of public ownership. If a plebiscite setting out various options for the election or selection of an Australian Head of State is to be put to the Australian people, as the 2020 Summit proposes, then it must be one that emerges after a community, rather than government driven, process.

A deliberative democracy process - where ordinary citizens meet and deliberate over a period - should be utilised to maximise interest in the plebiscite and to ensure an informed vote on it. Deliberative democracy informs, breaks down myths and fears and prejudices. It brings a community together. It ensures that it is not only the representatives of our democracy who decide the process and substantive questions pertaining to an Australian republic. It empowers the essence of the Australian democracy - the people themselves. It is bottom up, not top down.

The rise of deliberative democracy in its country of origin, the US, has been phenomenal. According to one analysis, about 50 million Americans say that they are involved in some form of deliberative democracy project each year. In British Columbia a 2003 citizens’ assembly helped to devise that Canadian province’s new electoral system. And in emerging economies such as Brazil and India deliberative democracy experiments in cities and regions is proving high successful.

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We should not be surprised, given the level of mistrust and cynicism about the partisanship and dissembling that is a hallmark of modern political practice, that deliberative democracy is proving so successful.

Perhaps the most relevant example for the purposes of a deliberative democracy approach to the Australian republic is that of British Columbia in 2003. The BC government established a citizen’s assembly consisting of one man and one woman drawn from each electoral district, and two Aboriginal members, to examine and recommend a new electoral system for the province. The Assembly participants were chosen at random through a process designed to ensure that they were truly representative of the Province. The citizens’ assembly reached a consensus on a new electoral system after months of hearings, meetings and deliberations.

As John Gastil and Ned Crosby noted, the BC experiment demonstrated that a “seemingly apathetic public can come alive when presented with a real opportunity for civic action. Though the assembly members had their expenses covered, they attended many meetings at considerable inconvenience. Attendance was nearly perfect.”

And the Assembly showed that “ordinary citizens are capable of careful deliberation and sound policy judgments. Whereas we often go to the polls lacking important information about the initiatives we're voting on, the assembly members became knowledgeable on the world's different voting systems, and they developed a nuanced understanding of their province,” Gastil and Crosby observed.

The BC electoral reform referendum, held in May 2005, did not succeed. It failed to achieve the required 60 per cent province wide support but achieved almost 58 per cent of the vote. But the success of the deliberative democracy process used is undoubted.

Such a process could easily be adopted by Australia to further the republic debate. It could, for example, be an initiative of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). Having the states and territories involved in the republican debate in a formal way is important because each jurisdiction’s constitutional arrangements are altered by the move to a republic.

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A random selection process along the lines of the BC citizens assembly process of say 300 Australians - a man and a woman from each electorate - and Aboriginal representatives a and co-chairs appointed by COAG - would provide for a truly representative democratic exercise.

No doubt, in that group of 300 or more there would be monarchists, direct electionists, minimalists and those who were undecided on the question of a republic.

The role of a Republic Deliberative Assembly would be to deal with what options for a Republic should be put in a plebiscite. This Republic Deliberative Assembly would hold hearings, listen to constitutional experts, lobby groups and political parties. The voice of Australian citizens would be heard directly by the Republic Deliberative Assembly.

Importantly, the decisions that emanate from the Republic Deliberative Assembly’s deliberations would be binding on the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments. In short, it is the Australian people, who would be deciding what, when and how, in relation to constitutional reform, not the Australian Parliament. The latter’s only role would be to pass any necessary mechanical legislation to enable a plebiscite to take place.

Of course, adopting a BC citizens' assembly style approach to a deliberative democratic republican debate and process is not the only option on the table. The Australian National University’s John Uhr has argued for a deliberative approach that is designed to ensure that a republic referendum is not subverted by political gamesmanship by the various protagonists in the debate.

Uhr has argued that the 1999 Republic Referendum was illustrative of what he terms the “deliberative deficit.” Generally, writes Uhr, “the deliberative deficit refers to the imbalance between, on the one hand, resources available to strengthen community deliberation, on the one hand and, on the other hand, the deceptions and misrepresentations of many referendum activists which weaken the deliberative process.”

Uhr argues that the one high profile experiment in deliberative democracy in Australia - the Australia Deliberates weekend in Canberra in the lead-up to the 1999 Referendum - demonstrated that when political protagonists are held in check and people are presented with balanced and reasoned argument, very different results emerge. In the case of the Australia Deliberates experiment, the case for a directly elected president collapsed from 50 to 20 per cent over the course of that weekend.

A deliberative democratic approach is consistent with best practice referendum culture, according to Uhr. He wants to “strengthen community deliberation through a new form of consumer or voter protection against the impact of deception and misrepresentation by referendum activists”. The solution - a Referendum Commission which is established and funded by an all party parliamentary committee.

The Referendum Commission would take over the responsibilities of the Australian Electoral Commission for the conduct of referenda. But the most important aspect of its work would be to work with the parliamentary committee overseeing it to arrange for plebiscites followed by publicly elected constitutional conventions, “to allow for greater public participation in developing the details of any agenda of constitutional change”.

As Uhr points out, it is vital that if Australians are to decide the matter of a republic, they are entitled to do in an atmosphere of “rational deliberation”

The republic is, at the end of the day, not a concept that can be sold politically as being in one’s own narrow material or even emotional interests. It is a public and civic enhancement concept. A deliberative democracy approach to an Australian republic would enable Australians who are agnostic about the concept, or perhaps even hostile to it on the grounds that it will do nothing for their own interests, to experience the broader public spirit and rationale for the notion that Australians should have their own head of state.

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This article is adopted from Greg Barns and Anna Krawec-Wheaton: An Australian Republic (Scribe 2006).



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About the Authors

Greg Barns is National President of the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

Dr Anna Krawec-Wheaton is an educator and researcher on contemporary Australian issues.

Other articles by these Authors

All articles by Greg Barns
All articles by Anna Krawec-Wheaton

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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