A new political party for new times

A chance meeting in a taxi between Graham Higgins, a former media advisor to a senior Howard Government Minister, and myself, a former ALP parliamentarian and police anti-corruption campaigner, helped kick-start the formation of Australia’s newest political party - the Republican Democrats.

We started talking and realised we might have once held opposite political affiliations but still shared common ground on many issues. We also discovered similarity in that we’d long been disconnected from the parties we had once supported. We both felt the parties we had belonged to had degenerated into organisations focused on doing whatever it takes to win government; the results being increasingly apparent in diminishing standards of public policy and disappointing national leadership.

When I told Higgins of plans to put in place a new centre party in Australia based on commonsense and a fair go, Higgins agreed to take on a leading role. He is now Deputy CEO of the Republican Democrats which announced its existence nationally on June 22 this year.

In the first three weeks, the Republican Democrats have been swamped by people all over Australia interested in joining, volunteering, becoming candidates and seeking information about policy.

It’s a bold undertaking to try and create a third mainstream political force in Australia but we believe that the recent electoral success of the Liberal Democrats in the UK - where they won the balance of power - shows that modern western democracies want more than a forced choice of left or right. As Republican Democrats we say that the Greens are not a real alternative - its members sit to the left of Labor.

Asylum seekers

As CEO of the Republican Democrats I would suggest that the recent asylum-seeker race-to-the-bottom debate shows that there is little real difference between the ALP and Coalition on moral issues and Australia desperately needs a centre party as a moderate counter-balance to either side.

The Republican Democrats advocates increasing immigration quotas from transit countries, onshore processing of asylum seekers and rapid release into the community of women and children and family groups. After all most Australians know that more than 90 per cent of asylum seekers banished by the Howard government to Nauru and Manus Island under its Pacific Solution were found to be genuine refugees. Onshore processing is viewed favourably by many Australians because it is the humane and compassionate solution which will generate far better outcomes for refugees. A large number of asylum seekers suffered severe mental and physical harm as a result of the Pacific Solution, forced to exist in a veritable limbo for years.

MPs from all sides of politics know the asylum-seeker issue is a beat-up.

The Republican Democrats agree with Tasmanian lawyer and political commentator Greg Barns that Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott’s similar positions on asylum seekers are nothing more than the shameful outsourcing of public policy to small numbers of irrationally fearful fringe-group voters in a mere handful of electorates in south-east Queensland, western Sydney and some regional areas.

A Republic for Australia

But Republican Democrats say there is another issue where the fringe will continue to drive major public policy unless the two-party system stranglehold can be broken. In this federal election, the Republican Democrats believe theirs is the only party with the political will to put the republic question to the people. They see that becoming a Republic of Australia is an essential over-arching step which must be taken quickly to bring Australia’s structure of government and public administration into the 21st century.

The Republican Democrats want to help drive reform to change the shape of Australia’s public administration and create true separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The opportunity beckons for Australia to have a head of state who can appoint competent federal ministers who aren’t MPs, instead of factional political mates or cronies selected on the basis of their support for a party leader or by faceless party bosses behind the scenes. With respect to our chief law officer and defence minister, for example, the benefits should be clear.

Because the Republican Democrats disavow the extremes of both left and right, they alone are free to talk the talk of a republic ahead of this year’s election campaign. Republican Democrats intend to make the 2010 Federal Election a referendum on Australia becoming a republic before the next election in 2013.

The Republican Democrats say polls indicate that the Australian people are way ahead of last election’s crop of politicians on the republic question and the opportunity to become the Republic of Australia brings with it exciting opportunities for other great big positive changes including a modern new constitution founded on modern-day knowledge and law. This opens the door to ways to refine or improve our type of constitutional democracy, including incorporating aspects of the American democratic model which could greatly improve separation of powers. The party also supports the European idea of citizen-initiated referenda.

A secular population

Both major parties’ talk about sustainable population growth is more dog-whistle politics masking an underlying issue concerning many reasonable Australians who do not want our country to ever become conflicted by any religion - be that Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, or anything else. Australians are telling Republican Democrats emphatically that they want all intending immigrants to formally accept our system of law, the separation of church and state, and equality between women and men.

While Republican Democrats support these new ideas, getting them into our present Constitution would be a nightmarish, likely impossible task.

The opportunity for Australia to move to a republic offers the chance of an exciting new political era for our nation. I can think of no other country which has a similar opportunity to undertake such positive radical reshaping at this important time. Australians are telling us they are ready to move to a republic and are hungry to have a frank discussion about all opportunities to improve our systems of constitutional democracy. They say they want a new constitution which values and sets out honourable entitlements for First Australians, enshrines a secular spirit for our clever country, and establishes our shared vision for our future.

How Australia is governed is an issue and constitutional reform is inevitable. Republican Democrats say they are the only party talking about the Republic of Australia because they have a solution. Part of that solution, they say, means ensuring public policy is driven from the centre, not the fringe.