An Australian republic is not a priority

Klaas Woldring argued that the removal of the Windsors might well be combined with laudable broader goals associated with improving the standards of Australian government and democracy, but the connection is not automatic.

Part of the predicament in Australian democracy has been cured by the removal of Howard, who had centralised power, ruthlessly quashed civil society groups and politicised public appointments, all to a hitherto unprecedented extent. However, the larger problem for Australian republicans (in the broad sense) was not solved by the Federal Election; namely what to do about the wider sense of disconnect between the electorate and their public institutions that in many countries is a product of the neo-liberal post-modern form of capitalism.

How to maintain a sense of communal belonging that is conducive of engaged citizenship when we are increasingly configured as self-maximising individuals who merely “consume” government “services” as we lead our disaggregated lives?

Ironically, vice-regal office is one of the few remaining Australian institutions that has not succumbed to the ideology of managerialism. Curiously then “republicanism”, in a narrow sense, may be antithetical in some ways to nurturing a recovery of the broader ideal of building an Australian republic.

Reflecting on the situation in the United Kingdom, historian David Starkey recently came up with a similar conclusion in the final part of his television series on the Windsors which screened in Britain in December. Starkey told interviewers that in the face of the “moral vacuum left by the sellout of the state to business interests” it might be the Crown that took the role of speaking for altruism, neighbourliness and public service. The Monarch, in other words, might become the custodian of those human values that transcend dry economic liberalism. In 2008, Starkey was in a sense saying, monarchy is the new republicanism.

The idea of the Royal Family, or their vice regal representatives, acting as a kind of protector of the public good has a certain appeal, but ultimately there is something deeply troubling about the notion of returning to the days of an unelected monarch becoming actively involved in articulating a vision of the good society.

Indeed Australia has had some recent and unsettling experiences of vice-regal officers attempting discursive intervention.

Former High Court Judge Sir William Deane was Governor-General of Australia between 1996 and 2001, during which time he tried to exercise a healing voice above politics in relation to the process of “reconciliation” with Aboriginal people.

Unfortunately, Deane’s vista of what was beyond politics was rather different to that of John Howard, who was elected a short time after the Governor-General had been appointed. The result was a Queen’s representative who enjoyed the admiration of many (including this writer) but the opprobrium of others, leading to widely expressed doubts about the legitimacy and appropriateness of an unelected figurehead becoming involved in contentious public matters.

Despite his republican beliefs, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has stressed the view that “kitchen table concerns”, including housing affordability, child care, health costs and industrial relations reform, are higher priorities for his government.

There are many reasons why Australian progressives should agree with the new Prime Minister that making the transition from the monarchy, though worth doing as a matter of principle, is not an immediate concern. In contemporary Australia, the transition to a republic does not bear upon the great questions that should animate the political centre left.

Whether Australia is a constitutional monarchy or a republic will have no impact on questions of socio-economic disparities, environmental sustainability or foreign policy.

Historically, monarchies may have represented tyranny, inequality and inherited privilege but in 21st century Australia these associations are purely symbolic. Entrenched advantage, far from being the province of any discourse of divine right of nobility is now a product of neo-liberal economics and globalisation, forces that are producing new dynasties of super-capitalists.

In Australia the wealth gap between the corporate elites and the rest of the population has increased exponentially over recent years. Economically blessed by the Chinese hunger for raw commodities, many Australians are doing very well, but some are doing obscenely better than others.

In a de-regulated neo-liberal world, singling out the Monarch as a representative of unfair disadvantage seems strikingly antiquated.