Canadians support their Constitutional Monarchy - and so do Australians!

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!