Workers' Liberty

Since the Queen’s man in Australia sacked the Labor Government in 1975, there have been rumblings about the need for a Republic. Nearly 20 years later, when the rage had long since safely subsided, Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating suggested that Australia could be a Republic by the year 2000.

The idea had enough popularity that the conservative John Howard, when he became Prime Minister in 1996, felt obliged to promise to allow “the people to decide” despite his dogged support for the Monarchy and all things archaic. After much procrastination, Howard set up a Constitutional Convention with 76 Government appointed delegates, the majority of whom were monarchists, and 76 delegates elected by an optional postal ballot. Around 40% of those eligible cast a vote, and despite Howard’s best efforts Republicans had the big majority of elected delegates.

The Convention backed a hybrid formula: presidential candidates will be popularly nominated, and then chosen by a two-thirds vote of Parliament. This is what will be put to a referendum. The proposition needs to get a majority across Australia and majorities in four of the six states. And many — driven by suspicion and hostility towards politicians — reject the hybrid formula in favour of direct elections for a president. Nationalist momentum is strong for a change, focusing on the need for an Australian Head of State and rejecting the monarchy as British rather than as an elitist relic. But the process will open debate about the meaning of democracy and accountability, popular decision-making about the things that matter, and how the peculiar nature of parliamentary democracy under capitalism protects power and privilege while preventing the exercise of popular power in way that could really lead to equality, liberty and solidarity.

Janet Burstall