Thinking practically about an Australian republic

The crucial point is that attempting to devise models of direct election that will tempt conservative republicans is quite futile. It would be like trying to procure a sufficiently attractive elephant, in the hope that one could persuade one’s dog to conclude a match.

All of this has basic implications for the practicalities of a republican referendum.

Practicality

At the end of the day, the only real republic is not one that is satisfying to devise, but one that is approved at referendum. We cannot go from being alleged "Chardonnay republicans" – those who devise republics in North Shore restaurants – to "Cocaine republicans" – republicans who are just deeply, deeply deluded.

To this end, we need to absorb the simple and objective lesson of the 1999 referendum: passing a republican referendum always will be desperately hard work, and will be bitterly and skillfully contested.

For this reason, I react with frank disbelief to the view that it will be easier next time if only we have a radical model with a wholesale constitutional revision tacked on. It is like the high-jumper failing at four feet, who wants the bar moved to ten in the hope that sheer elan will carry him through.

In fact, one hundred years of referenda, and one highly evocative republican referendum, have provided us with a fair guide to referendum success. Clearly, the people must like the broad idea proposed (a republic), but as 1999 showed, this will not be enough. Fundamentally, there must be as broad a consensus as possible in favour of a republican model, with correspondingly large support and minimal opposition. Critical to this will be the achievement of bi-partisan political support, without which a republican referendum will be doomed. Finally, it has to be accepted that the larger and more complex the model, the easier it will be for its opponents to attack it and confuse the electorate.

There is one brutal reality that emerges from this analysis. Starting from the obvious position that any republic will be opposed by a determined monarchist apparatus, no republican model will succeed without the support of narrow, conservative republicans, as well as that of broader, more radical republicans.

The proximate reason for this is clear. If bi-partisan support is indispensable for a republic, it has to be accepted that the overwhelming majority of those political conservatives who are republicans are, unsurprisingly, conservative republicans. Without them, there will not be bi-partisan republican support. This position is compounded by the fact that conservative constitutionalism is not entirely party-specific, and extends into some reaches of the Australian Labor Party, with Premier Carr being an obvious example.

This has blunt implications for the intersection of republican definition, design and practicality. In terms of definition, unless Peter Costello is accepted as a card-carrying republican, there never will be an Australian republic.

In terms of design, direct election, let alone direct election in company with a range of other constitutional innovations, is a dead duck. It never will be supported by republican conservatives, and its adoption as a referendum model simply will delivery the conservative wing of the republican movement into the arms of the monarchists.

Of course, it is sometimes suggested that a process of constitutional "education" might produce an electorate more inclined to accept dramatic constitutional reform. There are two points to be made here. First, anyone who could suppose that the Constitution ever will become an object of popular interest in Australia is a supreme optimist.

Second, the terminology of ‘education" suggests that there is a correct constitutional answer in these contexts, to which people will come if they only are sufficiently informed. The truth is that it always will be perfectly possible for intelligent people to disagree on such issues as direct election, a bill of rights and the general adequacy of the Australian Constitution.