Democracy: Choosing Australia's Republic

By Richard McGarvie

It is of vital importance to the future of Australia’s democracy and federation that the right decision be made on the republic issue. This is not a simple question of choosing between a monarchy and a republic, between the Queen and an Australian head of state, though that choice does need to be made.

But before Australians can make that choice, they need a proper understanding of our present system, and they must be offered a republic that preserves the quality of democracy of that system, not one that would degrade it.

In Democracy, Richard McGarvie explains the evolution of our system of government, the safeguards provided by the roles of the governor-general and state governors, and why the reserve powers and the constitutional conventions are so important.

McGarvie’s meticulous examination of the proposed models for a republic, including the Turnbull model proposed in the November 1999 referendum question, exposes the dangers in choosing the wrong republic. He warns that the method of appointment and dismissal of the head of state are crucial to the maintenance of our democracy.

If Australia does choose to become a republic, there is a safe way to proceed. Democracy shows the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Sep 28, 1995
• ISBN: 9780522880663

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MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

PO Box 278, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia

[e-mail]

www.mup.com.au

First published 1999

Text © Richard E. McGarvie 1999

Design and typography © Melbourne University Press 1999

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Designed by Sandra Nobes

Typeset by Syarikat Seng Teik Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia, in 11pt Bembo

Printed in Australia by Brown Prior Anderson

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

McGarvie, R. E. (Richard Elgin), 1926—

Democracy: choosing Australia’s republic.

Bibliography.

Includes index.

ISBN 0 522 84808 7.

1. Republicanism—Australia. 2. Democracy—Australia.

3. Australia—Politics and government—1990–    .    I. Title.

321.860994

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Republic Issue

1Australian Governorship

2An Operative Head of State

3Constitutional Responsibilities

4The Models

5Methods of Dismissal

6Choosing a Head of State

7The Discretionary Reserve Authority

8The McGarvie Model in Operation

9Resolving the Republic Issue

Epilogue

Appendix

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

To Lesley

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my gratitude for the generosity of many people who have helped me while I was preparing this book.

John Waugh and John Cain have, independently of each other, given me the great benefit of their knowledge and experience in comments and suggestions upon successive drafts. Similar assistance in parts of the work has been given by Davis McCaughey, Richard W. McGarvie, David Kemp, Robert Nicholson, Peter Nixon, Daryl Dawson and Charles Curwen. The responsibility for content remains entirely mine, as I have not always acted on suggestions.

Information has been provided by Alan Bray, Keith Marks, Juliette Brodsky, Damien Farrell, Ian Sinclair, Philip Ruddock, Philip Gibson, Damien O’Shea, Bradley Selway, David Smith, William Bale, Greg Reinhardt, Loris Callander, the Registry of the High Court of Australia and the Canadian High Commissioner. The Governors supplied details of the occupational backgrounds of Governors of their states. I have been assisted by books and references from the library of the Governor of Victoria, the Parliamentary, Supreme Court and State libraries of Victoria, the Sandringham Library and Deakin University Library.

Drafts have been read and checked, and improvements suggested by Robyn and John McMahon, Lesley, Graham, Michael and Ann McGarvie, and Joan Bryant. Jane Blazey, Wendy Gleeson and Lorien Kaye skilfully typed the successive draft manuscripts. Secretarial work was done by Melinda Fell with her usual efficiency.

From the outset I have had support and good advice from John Meckan of Melbourne University Press. The skill, guidance and understanding of Sally Nicholls, as editor, has been invaluable.

Permission to reproduce material used in this book has been given by: John Cain, Michael Coper, Greg Craven, Malcolm Fraser, Sir Harry Gibbs, Nicholas Hasluck, John Hirst, Ian Holloway, John O’Hara, Kevin Ryan, Nancy Sawer, George Winterton, the Australian Government Publishing Service, the Commonwealth of Australia, the state of South Australia, and the state of Western Australia. Macmillan Ltd has given permission to reproduce extracts from David Butler and D. A. Low (eds), Sovereigns and Surrogates: Constitutional Heads of State in the Commonwealth (1991).

INTRODUCTION: THE REPUBLIC ISSUE

The present republic debate was started by people asking whether the time had come for Australia’s head of state to be an Australian residing in this country. The inquiry that led to the debate was not whether we should change our system or have it operate differently At issue was whether we had reached the stage at which we should make the alteration that would give us an Australian head of state while making as little change as practicable to our system of government and the way it operates. The debate developed because some answered ‘yes’ to that inquiry and some answered ‘no’.

The Republic Advisory Committee was set up in April 1993 to examine what were the minimum constitutional changes necessary to achieve a viable federal republic of Australia, while maintaining the effect of the current conventions and principles of government.¹ Proposals for change are now being considered which would alter the effect of current conventions and principles of government. Models replacing features that determine, control and influence the way a head of state operates have been proposed for a republic. Often they incorporate constitutional devices that seem to work well in the contexts of very different overseas systems. They appear to have been designed partly to give Australia the typical features of republics overseas and partly to attract the votes of groups at the Constitutional Convention or voters in a referendum. Those models have been advanced without much thought for the particular needs of our type of democracy, of how these models would actually work in the realities of Australian constitutional practice and political culture, or whether the transplants would be compatible. In this way proposals have drifted into areas that could prove dangerous for the future of our democracy, without much awareness of the perils involved.

McMillan, Evans and Storey explain what is involved in becoming a republic: ‘What the creation of an Australian republic would mean is no more and no less than the abolition of the monarchy, in both the Commonwealth and State spheres. A republic is simply a system of government that does not have a hereditary monarch as head of state’.² Decisions on the best republican model and whether to move to it would need to be made for the Commonwealth and for each state.

Of course, it is possible to use the occasion of becoming a republic to make further changes to our systems. Therefore, it is important to identify which changes are necessary for becoming a republic and to distinguish them from the proposals that go further. There are three distinct questions entwined in the republic debate—the easy, the hard and the technical question. They are questions each of a different nature and must be separated.

The easy question is whether, as a matter of general preference, one favours Australia being a monarchy or a republic. By describing the question as easy, I do not mean it is unimportant or that its answer is self-evident. It is easy in the sense that the process that leads an individual to a general preference is uncomplicated and turns largely on one’s own feelings, sentiments, attitudes and opinions. It depends on one’s views of history and the future, of what will be best for Australia and its place in the world, and on loyalties, aspirations and priorities. Most people who have given the question any thought have a general preference one way or the other.

Until 1998 most of the energy in the debate was directed to this easy question. It is a wholly hypothetical question which dwells in the world of theory rather than practical reality. Debating it in isolation does little more than provide emotional satisfaction for both sides. The attention lavished on it has been counterproductive because it has distracted the community from the other questions, which require serious investigation and thought.

The hard question is which of the models for head of state in a republic would best maintain the character, strengths and quality of our present democracy? The answer to it is reached by an examination of the available models and reliance on experience, expert opinion and ones knowledge and observation of the way Australians act individually and in groups. The question is of central importance because Australians are trustees of our democracy for future generations. The democracy which Australians have built is one of the oldest, most stable and most successful in the world. The retention of the quality, strengths and safeguards of our democracy must be our paramount objective. Whether it is a monarchy or a republic in which we retain them is an important question, but one of lesser importance. To resolve the issue of whether to move to a republic, the community should be given a simple referendum choice between the present monarchical system and the republican model which will best maintain our democracy.

The technical question is by what method should the choice be made? This question has several aspects. If Australia chooses to become a republic, the constitutional method of making the change must be constitutionally valid. Indeed it needs to go further than that. It should not only be valid but valid beyond credible argument. If, in a referendum campaign for a republican model, opponents advance credible arguments that if the referendum passes it will not provide a republican office of head of state that is constitutionally valid, many Australians would vote against the change merely to avoid that risk. Further, the method of making the choice must be one which would not unduly strain our federation.

A fair and effective resolution of the republic issue will occur only if the work and thought is put into answering both the hard and the technical questions. The community must be offered a model which will maintain our democracy as well as the present system does, the method of choice must be valid beyond credible argument and must not impose excessive strain on the federation. Otherwise there will not be an authentic expression of community preference. If any of those features were absent, many of the voters who at heart favour a republic would put their democracy and federation first and vote ‘no’. They would not have been given a genuine opportunity of expressing their preference for a republic and the issue would remain unresolved.

It is disappointing that, at this stage of history, Australia’s constitutional achievement has been regarded as worthy of so little attention in looking for a model for the head of state in a republic. Semantic distraction has clearly played a part. The debate took a course where semantics submerged substance. The words ‘republic’, ‘president’ and even ‘democracy’ produced that effect. Because Australia is not a republic, its constitutional achievements have been overlooked.

Becoming a republic requires the abolition of the monarchy from the Commonwealth and state systems of Australia and that occurs, whichever republic model is adopted, by the transferral of the office and the surviving powers and duties of the formal head of state of those systems from the monarch in London to Australian office-holders here. If the question posed at the commencement of the debate had been ‘How should we patriate to Australia the office and remaining powers and duties of the formal head of state?’, the search may have begun by seeking the best way of doing that while maintaining the strength of the democracy developed here. Instead, the question posed was ‘How do we become a republic?’ That was an accurate way of raising the issue, but has resulted in little attention being given to maintaining the democracy of our particular type of system. There has been a concentration on looking around the republics of the world to see how they provide themselves with heads of state. For years we have been conscious of the need to resist becoming an economic banana republic. It is timely for us to give attention to the need, if we make constitutional change, to make it in a way which will avoid our becoming a constitutional banana republic.

Another semantic twist has been introduced to the debate through a feeling that the title ‘Governor-General’ does not sound republican enough. It is proposed that the head of state of Australia have the title ‘President’. The president most prominent before Australian eyes is the most powerful political head in the world, the President of the republic of the United States. It is not surprising that many, unaware of the basic difference between the position of the US President and that of a prospective President of Australia, assume that as the US President is elected, an Australian president would need to be elected too, by the electorate, or at least by Parliament. The knowledge that democracy means government by the people has combined with a desire to enhance democracy, to contribute further to the general feeling that the head of state in a republic should be elected by the people or their representatives. The changes that such elections would bring to our kind of system have often been overlooked.

The early searchers for models had an unhesitating readiness to destroy the institutions of Governor-General and Governor which Australians have fashioned. It seems the aim of removing from Australia what many see as the last vestiges of colonialism, and identifying ourselves as a proud nation, is ironically still controlled by a lack of faith in ourselves.

In 1969, as Governor-General, Sir Paul Hasluck said:

We have a lust to destroy in Australia. It is not that Australians are cynical—they are just unaware of what they are doing. They really think they are engaged on work of national progress and are unconscious of being on work of national destruction. What we need to spread throughout this land is the idea that before you knock something down you take a second look at it. We need to decide whether you knock it down or whether it is valuable enough to keep.³

He may have been speaking of historic buildings but his comments are as applicable here.

The ultimate outcome of the search for the best republican model is likely to be similar to the final success of the search for a four-leaved clover by the Good Little Goblin in the Fourth Victorian Reader of my schooldays: it was when he returned home, after spending years in fruitless searching of the world, that he found a four-leaved clover—in his front lawn.⁴

It is not good in a federal democracy for disputes on basic constitutional issues to remain unresolved too long. They can cut deeper divisions than if merely on political issues. A constitution is a set of basic legal rules adopted virtually by consensus as the foundation of the system through which future political differences will be decided and the community governed. Unresolved constitutional dispute erodes the consensual acceptance of the constitutional system as the natural way of resolving political differences. Also, the longer the debate goes, the more things people want to change.

Pertinent warnings from Canada’s experience are given by Ian Holloway, Lecturer in Law at the Australian National University. Canada has had two decades of disputes on constitutional amendments. Commenting on the latest episode, the 1996 referendum in Quebec on separation, which lost by about 1 per cent of the vote, he explains:

The Canadian constitutional debacle actually began over an attempt to remove what was at the time widely accepted to be a constitutional ‘anachronism’—the fact that because of a disagreement over an amending formula in 1867, the British Parliament still had to make constitutional amendments on Canada’s behalf in the 1980s. In their attempt to ‘modernise’ the Constitution, the politicians helped change Canada forever—for the worse. Because of the constitutional quibbling, region has been pitted against region, and group against group. Canada at times resembles the Balkans without guns.

The business of considering changes to the Constitution is very distracting, notes Holloway, as it diverts attention from other matters, such as the health of the economy.⁵

The longer the republic issue is debated in Australia the more likely it is that further constitutional change will be proposed—inevitably further prolonging the debate and distracting attention from other issues of the day. The republic issue must reach early resolution in a way that is not harmful to our democracy or federation.

There is wide and international appreciation of the quality of Australian democracy. There would be general agreement with Paul Kelly’s claim that ‘It is one of the greatest democracies and it is one of the oldest democracies’.⁶ Most of the republic debaters recognise that our present constitutional arrangements are at least as good as any possible alternative and therefore should not be disturbed whether we remain a monarchy or become a republic.⁷ Australia has not achieved that quality of democracy by the chance of good fortune. It has been attained because Australians used a lot of constitutional wisdom and practical commonsense in developing from the British heritage a constitutional system that suits Australia.

The constitutional system, in essential respects, binds the holders of public office to exercise their powers so as to ensure the effective operation of the system and maintenance of its democratic character. In brief, the constitutional system consists of a set of legal rules and an operating organisation which is based on that set of rules and greatly influenced by it. Office-holders are bound by constitutional laws and constitutional conventions. Thus, a law of the constitution binds all concerned to hold elections every three years. A constitutional convention binds the Governor-General to exercise powers as Ministers advise. In Australia a constitutional convention is an obligation accepted by office-holders as binding them in the way they exercise their legal powers, because it is clearly necessary for the practical achievement of representative democracy and because it is backed by an effective practical penalty for breach. Constitutional conventions exist within the operating organisational part. The working of the constitutional system itself provides the practical penalty that gives a convention binding force.

The structure and operation of the constitutional system have a great effect on the way office-holders act. The structure of a particular office, especially the way the office-holder is chosen, the term of office given and the way the office-holder can be put out of it, is of the greatest importance. For example, liability to dismissal is the ultimate penalty which makes a number of vital conventions binding. Those features of an office also combine to impose influences on office-holders to act and exercise powers in the way most desirable for the needs of democracy, in many respects in which they are not actually bound to do so. The features do this by the setting in which they place the office-holder and the incentives, protections and penalties they build into the office. In designing a model for the central and sensitive office of head of state in a republic, it is crucial to give the most careful attention to the structure of the office and the effect that would have on the behaviour of the occupant.

Because our democracy requires the holders of different offices to serve in different ways, the features of the structures of their offices are different. This may be illustrated by the offices of those who constitute the four essential organs of government at the Commonwealth level, the Governor-General, Parliament, Government and High Court.⁸

We could not be a democracy unless the members of the Parliament and Government, the two political organs, were elected periodically by the community. They are the active, powerful, initiating organs which between them follow their policies in running the country. The Acts Parliament decides to pass and the actions the Government decides to take, can make immense changes and have great consequences for citizens and the country. Representative democracy requires that those who carry out their policies as representatives of the community must have the community’s authority or ‘mandate’ to do so and that comes from election. They must be responsive to the opinions and preferences of the community through having been elected and having to face periodical reelection. All Members of Parliament are directly elected. Members of the House of Representatives hold office for the life, of the Parliament and face another election within three years. Senators are elected for six years, with half the Senate up for re-election every three years. Usually, but not always, an election for half the Senators is held at the same time as the general election for the House of Representatives, with the elected Senators taking office at the end of the six-year period. The Members of Parliament who become Ministers and members of the Government headed by the Prime Minister are those able to obtain the support of a majority in the Lower House of Parliament, the House of Representatives. They continue as Ministers and as the Government only so long as they are able to obtain that support.

The non-political essential organs, the Governor-General and the High Court, have such fundamentally different constitutional responsibilities that their structures of office differ basically from those of the two political organs. These organs must not be politically partisan. They are not active, initiating organs of change. Their main roles are more passive, instrumental ones in which the Governor-General implements, and the Court applies or rules on the validity of, what others have decided. The Governor-General implements the decisions of electors in appointing a Government after an election, the decisions of both Houses of Parliament in assenting to Bills, and the decisions of Ministers in exercising powers as they advise. Only in the rarest of events does a Governor-General exercise a power on his or her own initiative. This must only occur when, to ensure the effective operation of the constitutional system or its essential safeguards of democracy, it is absolutely necessary to exercise a reserve power so as to refer a question to the Parliament or people for decision.

A court responds to an application to it for relief. From hearing evidence it finds what happened and applies to that finding the law from an Act made as Parliament decided or from regulations made as Ministers decided. In some cases where there is no Act or regulation, it applies the common law as decided earlier by judges. If there is a challenge to validity, it rules on that. It makes orders which are enforced. In a very small proportion of cases where an Act or regulation or its application is unclear or the common law does not fit the situation, a judge has to rely on what is already implicit in the law, in deciding the law to be applied in the case.

The Governor-General and the judges have a constitutional responsibility faithfully to implement or apply what others have decided. That is the only way in which the system can function efficiently and consistently. For this reason the offices of the Governor-General and judges share the common feature that the occupant is appointed and not elected by Parliament or people. Election inevitably confers an authority or mandate from the people. Election by the people or their representatives in Parliament would place the Governor-General or judges in a position where they, and the community, felt they were required to follow the mandate—the preference or best interest—of the people. That would place them under double, and often inconsistent, loyalties. It would subject them to undesirable pressure which on occasions would lead them to depart from their clear constitutional responsibility to implement or apply the decisions of the Government and the Parliament and instead to become their rivals. Clearly, election of a Governor-General by Parliament or the people would encourage rivalry with the Prime Minister and elected Government.

An example of the difficulties that arise when office-holders are chosen in a manner that diverts them from their constitutional responsibility comes from the United States. A simplistic view of democracy led the early American settlers to assume that their state courts required elected judges. The system of elected judges which most states still have, is one of the worst systems that could be devised. In states where judges are elected, instead of being impartial in finding the facts and applying the law, they are under great pressure to be influenced in deciding their cases by the policies on which they were elected, the need to secure re-election and the necessity of satisfying obligations to contributors to their election funds.⁹ Upon federation, the United States of America firmly rejected the notion of having elected federal judges. One of the Founding Fathers, George Cabot, warned: ‘There will be neither justice nor stability in any system, if some material parts of it are not independent of popular control’.¹⁰ Federal judges in the United States are all appointed, as are all judges in Australia. The procedure here is that the Attorney-General recommends a qualified person to the Government and, if the Government agrees, the Governor-General (or, in the case of state judges, the Governor) is advised to appoint and that is done.

While the needs of democracy lead both the office of the Governor-General and of a judge to be structured to provide for appointment, democracy’s needs lead their provisions for tenure and dismissal to be diametrically different. The Governor-General is appointed at pleasure, has no legal period of tenure at all and is liable at any time to prompt dismissal at the instance of the Prime Minister. ‘Prompt dismissal’ in this context means dismissal within a week or two. Prompt dismissal is necessary because democracy depends on the Governor-General exercising constitutional powers in the way elected Ministers advise. The Governor-General is bound to act in this way by the basic constitutional convention and by the existence of the penalty of prompt dismissal for breach. In fact, the constitutional system gives the Governor-General a secure period of tenure so long as the conventions are followed and expected standards are met.

People will have confidence in their democracy, where the rule of law prevails over all, only if they have confidence in the law. They cannot have that without confidence in the judges who apply it. Because their impartiality would otherwise be open to doubt, judges must work in a setting with the incentives and protections that make them obviously independent. Independence in this sense means being free of pressures which could influence them to make a decision in a case other than that which their intellect and conscience indicate to them after a genuine assessment of the evidence and an honest application of the law. A Government has an interest in many court cases and, if it could readily dismiss judges, or if they were appointed for a period and needed government approval for reappointment, the Government could place great pressure on a judge to reach a decision favourable to it—an unfavourable decision could bring loss of career. For this reason judges of the High Court are appointed to serve until they are seventy years old. They can be dismissed earlier, only if each House of Parliament decides they should be dismissed, for proved misbehaviour or incapacity. Thus, to ensure that they exercise their different powers in the way democracy needs, a Governor-General has no legal term of office and is readily dismissible, while a judge has a long term of office and is dismissible only with great difficulty.

The contrast has been drawn between the kind of service to democracy which the structure of the office of Governor-General should influence its occupant to provide, and the entirely different forms of service which offices in our other essential organs of government should be structured to provide. It is also necessary to distinguish sharply between the kind of service our system requires of its Governor-General and the very different nature of the service that other democracies require of their heads of state. In our system the Governor-General is a nominal chief executive and must be distinguished from heads of state such as the chief executive President of the United States and the non-executive President of Ireland.¹¹

The Governor-General is the one who, under Australia’s Constitution, can exercise a large number of legal powers of a chief executive which no Minister can exercise. They are powers central to our constitutional system. For example, it is the Governor-General who exercises the power to dissolve Parliament and bring about an election, summon it after the election, appoint the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Government, and who converts Bills passed by both Houses into Acts with the force of law by signing assent to them.¹² It is the Governor-General who, legally, has the discretion to decide whether or not to exercise these powers.

At first sight it would seem that we could hardly be a democracy with those vital powers being exercised by an unelected Governor-General. We are made a democracy because the Governor-General is bound by a convention to appoint the Prime Minister and Ministers able to obtain the support of the majority of the Lower House and because the Governor-General is then bound by the basic constitutional convention to exercise powers in accordance with the advice of those Ministers. This is what ties the exercise of the Governor-General’s powers to the decisions of voters in elections. Those conventions are the glue that binds the Governor-General to the democratic process.

Legally, the Governor-General is the chief executive but that is the nominal position only. In reality the basic constitutional convention operates to give elected Ministers the effective decisions on whether and how the powers of chief executive will be exercised. The convention ensures that government of the country is by the Ministers of the elected Government, led by the Prime Minister as head of government. They make the decisions and, in accordance with the convention, the Governor-General exercises powers so as to implement them.

The responsibilities of the President of the United States are entirely different. The President has the powers of a chief executive, decides how they will be exercised and exercises them. The President is and acts as head of state and head of government, combining the exercise of legal powers like those of the Australian Governor-General and political powers similar to those of the Prime Minister. For the system of the United States to be a democracy it is essential that the holder of the political, powerful, initiating position of head of government be elected. The US President is elected by voters throughout the United States through an electoral college mechanism.

With one person as head of both state and government, the head of state cannot become a rival of the head of government so there is no problem with a politician as the elected head of state: and there is no need for a basic constitutional convention to ensure the head of state implements the decisions of the head of government. In that system it is satisfactory for the President to be elected for four years and to be dismissible earlier only through the difficult process of impeachment by the House of Representatives for high crimes or misdemeanours, and removal by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

The Irish President, a non-executive head of state, does not have the powers of a chief executive, either actual or nominal. Most of the important powers which in Australia are exercised by the Governor-General are given directly to and are exercisable by the Government or the Parliament or its officers. With the President exercising few important constitutional powers, there is no real risk of the President becoming a rival of the’ Government, even though elected as the candidate of a political party. The Irish democracy does not need a basic constitutional convention to control the President’s exercise of power, so ready dismissibility of the President is not required. The President is elected for a term of seven years and may be dismissed by the Supreme Court for permanent incapacity, or impeached for misdemeanour by a two-thirds majority of one House of the Parliament and removed by a two-thirds majority of the other.

In Australia, the present arrangements for the office of Governor-General support the strength and quality of the system of democracy because the Governor-General:

•is chosen in a way which gives no mandate or power base to encourage rivalry with the elected Government;

•is liable to prompt dismissal for breach of the basic constitutional convention or the conventions which preclude him or her from speaking politically or collaborating politically with the Opposition;

•is chosen by a method and operates within a setting that has ensured that the office is occupied by a respected person who remains entirely above partisan politics and exerts a unifying influence within the community;

•has, in practice, the capacity to exercise a reserve power and refer a question to the Parliament or people for decision in rare, exceptional circumstances where that is absolutely necessary in order to ensure the effective operation of the constitutional system and its essential safeguards of democracy.

If, in becoming a republic, Australia is to retain the strength, stability and quality of its democracy, the republican model selected must reproduce these four essential features of our present system or substitute for them equally effective mechanisms. However effective the structures and built-in safeguards of the constitutional system, it will produce democracy only if fuelled by the democratic spirit of a people who understand the working of their democracy and are ready to give active support to its operation and preservation.

My involvement in the republic issue arose from the request made by the Republic Advisory Committee in 1993, to me and to other Governors, for views on the minimum constitutional changes necessary to achieve a viable federal republic that maintained the effect of our current conventions and principles of government. I gave thought to a suitable Australian substitute to perform the one remaining active duty of the Queen. After having the advantage of the helpful views of former Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen, I put my proposed model to the Committee and spent a day in discussions with its chairman and two members. Similar proposals were put to the Committee by a number of former Governors-General, by Governors and former Governors and by a number of heads of government.¹³ That type of model is the first option discussed by the Committee in its report.¹⁴

The Constitutional Convention in Canberra in February 1998 considered whether Australia should become a republic, which model should be put to voters, and within what time frame and circumstances.¹⁵ By its votes it expressed the view that Australia should become a republic. From many models placed before it, the Convention finally considered the four supported by ten or more delegates. These are identified by the names of the delegates who moved their adoption. In exhaustive balloting, the Turnbull model gained the most votes, the McGarvie model next, followed by the Gallop model, then the Hayden model. A referendum on whether to change the system at Commonwealth level to a republic patterned on the Turnbull model was proposed for late 1999. The referendum would not apply to the state systems, and would leave individual states to make their own decisions on whether and, if so, when to become republican.

This book looks forward from the Constitutional Convention to the ultimate resolution of the republic issue. I predict that the referendum in late 1999 will fail. A referendum contest is a very revealing process. The innate wisdom of voters will lead a large number, including many with a general preference for a republic, to vote ‘no’. The voters will have a deep and justified