Canadians support their Constitutional Monarchy - and so do Australians!

It is strange indeed that the Australian media has not reported the strong support for the constitutional monarchy in two polls commissioned this year by leading Canadian media organisations. After all, republicanism seems to be considered particularly newsworthy here. When a Canadian minister, during The Queen's Golden Jubilee visit, mused about Canada becoming a republic, that actually made headlines in Australia!

One poll commissioned by the Globe and Mail and CTV recorded a 79 per cent support for the Canadian constitutional monarchy! They "somewhat" or "strongly" agreed with the statement "I support the constitutional monarchy as Canada's current form of government where we elect governments whose leader becomes Prime Minister". This is a far more accurate question than that asked in any Australian opinion poll on this issue. What is particularly interesting is the result in French Canada.

The Regional breakdown was:

Atlantic Canada	87%
Saskatchewan and Manitoba	84%
Alberta	85%
Ontario	89%
British Columbia	79%
Quebec	73%
Canada	79%

The breakdown according to age answers those who say (as Mr Cassin wrote recently in The Age and former Senator Susan Ryan prophesises) that as constitutional monarchists are dying off, republicans need only sit back to get their republic. This is of course subject to their ever agreeing on what sort of republic they want. Even the ARM now admits it doesn't have the answer but it still wants a republic! The breakdown was:-

Youngest Canadians	86%
Middle Aged Canadians	76%
Older Canadians	74%

Apart from registering massive support for the constitutional monarchy among the youth, the poll found that both younger (66 per cent) and older Canadians (64 per cent) were more likely to feel that the constitutional monarchy helps to define Canada's identity than the middle-aged (57 per cent) did. There is a parallel in Australia. Research at the time of the referendum indicated the middle aged were more inclined to vote "Yes" than either younger or older Australians. So these results offer little comfort to Mr Cassin or Senator Ryan - they will be waiting forever.

So we are back where we were at the beginning of this debate. The republicans demand a republic but have no idea what sort of republic. And we Australians have had the advantage of something superior to an opinion poll - a Swiss-style referendum. Fortunately our Australian Founding Fathers insisted on this. Why? Because in a referendum, unlike a plebiscite, the people are told in advance and in detail what they are really voting for. This is why so many republicans now want a plebiscite.

Notwithstanding a massively funded and supported 'Yes' campaign by the elite establishment in the referendum in 1999, all states voted 'No' as did 72 per cent of electorates. On this result, we were told that many or most of the No voters were really republicans. Since most of those who say this predicted and campaigned for a 'Yes' vote, how would they know? The point is that when Australians considered the republicans' official preferred model, which the taxpayers paid generously for them to develop, the people indicated an overwhelming preference for what they had and consequently still have.

But back to opinion polls, which, like plebiscites, can be so easily manipulated.

Until November it had been a long time since any opinion poll on this issue had been published in Australia. Note that I say "published" - we do not know if polls were taken but not actually published. As some media organisations are campaigning for a republic they do have a certain conflict of interest on this issue!

A poll was in fact published in The Australian on 15 November 2002, in time for a conference at Griffith University in Brisbane, held in conjunction with that newspaper and the Australian Republican Movement. (It also coincided with the British media's concocted Burrell affair designed to exact revenge on the monarchy because of the success of the Golden Jubilee they had predicted would fail.) The conference was free to the public, but only those supporting some form of republic were invited to speak. So why it was not openly called what it was - a conference to promote republicanism - rather than the misleading title "Australian Constitutional Futures: The Nature of our Future Nation" is not clear. What is clear is that after Corowa, official republicans are not at all interested in hearing from anybody who questions the need for such change.

The Australian poll asked the meaningless question "Are you in favour of Australia becoming a republic?" As Sir Henry Parkes said at the time of the movement for Federation, and as the then Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Moran, repeated, Australia is already a republic. Most of the great political philosophers of the past would have seen Australia as a republic. Indeed the word "Commonwealth" is the English version of the Latin-derived word "Republic".

In late nineteenth century Australia the word "republic" became code for independence from Britain and that on mainly racist lines. Leadership for this came from The Bulletin, which argued that "Australia had to choose between independence and infection, between the Australian republic and the Chinese leper"! (I can still remember The Bulletin's front page when I was a young man; it bore a banner saying "Australia for the White Man") What The Bulletin wanted was that Australia be free from any constraints London might impose - or more likely request - on the emerging White Australia Policy. In fact The Bulletin wanted to push that policy towards apartheid. That is why today's republicans rarely if ever talk about their late nineteenth century republican forebears. They are too embarrassed by them!

Now there is absolutely no point asking, in an opinion poll, a question that centres on a term that is meaningless - unless of course you want to confuse the issue. That the word "republic" is vague and meaningless became clear yet again at the Griffith Conference, where the republicans showed themselves implacably divided on its meaning. Although several of the speeches were published in The Australian, a crucial one from conservative republican Greg Craven was not. It was referred to only in a press report and in Paul Kelly's opinion piece. It would demonstrate what Professor Craven has said before: under the current ARM policy, Australia will never become a republic.

While Australia's constitutional monarchists have a legitimate point of view in this debate - after all 50,000 of us were out there working at the time of the referendum - at no stage were their comments or reaction sought by the media either during the lead up to the Griffith conference or in the days following - with one notable exception. That was in relation to the former ARM Chair Greg Barns' desperate outburst in which he denounced the monarchy as "corrupt" and "rancid" and a "menace to democracy"! At that stage he was relying on the sleaze purchased by the chequebooks of the less-than-credible London newspapers. ACM was asked about this by the media - but not The Australian. Of course ACM condemned his attack. In fact his outburst was so over-the-top that there were fears among republicans it would backfire and do serious damage to their cause.

Incidentally, during the recently highly successful visit of Prince Edward for the Fortieth Anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, I was asked about the Victorian Premier Steve Brack's decision to cancel an arrangement to see the Prince because of the election the following Saturday.

I told the journalist that as the Prince holds no constitutional position here, it would have been gracious, but not essential, for the Premier to see him. But given the election, it was for the Premier to decide his priorities, and we did not condemn him for that. So there was no story. (Had I condemned the Premier, it would certainly have been reported.)

The Australian's week long promotion of the Griffith Conference might have justified the publication of a letter from ACM. It did not, so here is their unpublished letter:-

20 November 2002

The Letters Editor
The Australian

Sir,

Paul Kelly (20/11) is right to refer to the irreconcilable divisions among republicans. The point is our present constitutional system is overwhelmingly Australians' preferred model. This phenomenon is even more marked in Canada where a major opinion poll shows support for their similar model at 79%.

Australians are right to be wary of new constitutional models dreamed up by the experts. And a constitution similar to the first taxpayer funded Keating-Turnbull model has just proved a disaster in Trinidad. According to Justice Handley (www.norepublic.com.au), they can't remove the president although he is acting unconstitutionally. Why? The Opposition - as we predicted - won't join in the necessary two-thirds vote!

Predictably the media has ignored Justice Handley's revelation. Since many of the commentators lapped up the first Keating-Turnbull model for a republic, it is understandable that they would not want to remind readers how wrong the experts and the commentators could be, and how right ACM was! That would just not do, would it?

And ACM also decided to try to correct Peter Charlton's comment in The Courier Mail that the ARM did not target the monarchy in the referendum. It did. One way was to say that a No vote was a vote for King Charles and Queen Camilla. This was used on more than one occasion by former NSW Premier Neville Wran. It did not work. Australians are far too sensible for that.

21 November 2002

The Letters Editor
Courier Mail

Sir,
Peter Charlton (19 November 2002) is wrong. The ARM did target the monarchy during the referendum, but this tactic just did not work. And Australians do prefer their constitutional system. In that respect, they are little different from their Canadian cousins. When they were asked whether they supported the constitutional monarchy the result was overwhelmingly 73% support in Quebec to 87% in Atlantic Canada. If Australians were asked that question, rather than about a vague and undefined republic, the result would be similar.

The point is that you can hardly have a debate about grafting a republic on to our splendid Constitution without the participation of one side in the debate. Of course, in any real debate, ACM will be there as it was in 1999.

And ACM will seek to demonstrate, yet again, that Australians are just as supportive of their Constitution as Canadians are.