Yesterday’s long-awaited release of the Palace Letters could breathe some life into Australia’s dormant republican movement. More evidence of then-governor-general Sir John Kerr’s mendacity in the Whitlam government dismissal puts the role of the Queen’s representative back in the spotlight.
But what exactly do governors-general do — and how much does the nation spend on them?
Governors-general by the numbers
The governor-general’s work — managing official duties, maintaining “the official household and properties” and administering the honours system — is facilitated by the office of his or her official secretary.
With a staff of 76 largely Canberra-based employees, the office has about $24 million to play with in 2019-20, according to budget estimates.
It manages property assets of $154 million — largely accounted for by Government House and Admiralty House, but also made up of infrastructure, plants and equipment, and $1.85 million worth of medals.
The governor-general made four official overseas visits in the 2018-19 financial year, attending 51 official functions. All that travelling, both domestic and international, adds up. While the office’s annual reports don’t itemise how much is spent on travel, documents tabled in parliament paint a picture of how much is being spent — and it’s about $1 million a year on flights alone.
During the second half of 2019, Governor-General David Hurley took 87 flights costing more than $620,000.
In 2012 governor-general Quentin Bryce took $712,983 worth of flights in six months — most of which had no other passengers. In the first half of 2017 governor-general Sir Peter Cosgrove and his entourage spent nearly $600,000 on travel despite not taking an overseas trip further than the South Pacific.
How do you become a governor-general?
For most of the half-century after federation, governors-general were largely British aristocrats. Kerr was one of a string of former judges — most recently represented by former High Court justice William Deane. The current trend seems to be towards old army men: three of our past four have come from the military top brass.
And while both New Zealand and Canada have been picking more diverse governors-general for decades, Australia’s have all been white men aside from Quentin Bryce.
What do they do — and what can they do?
Sydney University constitutional reform unit director Professor Anne Twomey told Crikey there were three main roles the governor-general performed:
- A symbolic or ceremonial role, which involves visiting the heads of states, hosting events and attending funerals
- A community role, which involves opening halls, handing out awards and visiting bushfire-affected communities etc
- A constitutional role.
The constitutional role consists of attending executive council meetings, signing legislation and making proclamations.
“In nearly all circumstances the governor-general is advised to act on responsible ministers — which is usually the prime minister or executive council,” she says.
But in rare circumstances the governor-general can go rogue and exercise reserved powers, which includes dismissing governments, refusing dissolutions or appointing a government if there’s a hung parliament.
While rare, dismissing governments probably happens more often than we think. Twomey says: “There have been a number of effective dismissals covered with the description of resignation.”
Who do they report to?
Well — no one. While there is a formal relationship between leaders and ministers, there’s no boss-subordinate relationship. The prime minister doesn’t report to the governor-general and vice versa.
But what about the Queen?
A spokesperson for the official secretary to the governor-general said there was no requirement for the governor-general to report to the Queen.
But that isn’t entirely true, Twomey said.
“There is definitely an obligation to write to the Queen [during crises] and let her know, keep her informed … If exercising reserved power, the governor-general is obliged to report to justify why,” she says.
“They’re not exercising the Queen’s powers, but she’s always kept informed.”
In terms of the frequency of communications, that depends entirely on the governor-general’s personality.
“It doesn’t happen so frequently,” Twomey says. “There used to be a regular report every quarter and addition when anything of major political or constitutional significance happened. It depends these days on the personality of the governor-general. Some are quite chatty and like to write letters.”
“plants”??
I think it means plant (machinery) and equipment rather than plants (botanical).
To quote: there were three main roles the governor-general performed: Etc. A community role, which involves opening halls, handing out awards and visiting bushfire-affected communities etc
However, the community role appears to have been overlooked during the pandemic. It is completely understandable that the G.G. can’t go gallivanting through ICU wards, but I can’t recall any words of comfort, support for the PM and Premiers, let alone the people; or activities that indicate care or concern for Australia.
So just what should we expect from our faux head of state?
YUK!! REPUBLIC NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
If there is one official role of the GG where I would like to see them be more assertive, it is as the ceremonial head of our armed forces.
Please, please shoulder aside these photo-op PMs (and Opposition Leaders, and any other politician) who shamelessly try to drape themselves in the flag and the uniform. Please restore that part of The Constitution at least.
I spent a year organising the GG’s activities as his Army ADC (Hayden). His was an unusually eclectic tenure which made the gig extremely interesting: not just the usual military, legal, political and community org. guests and events, but also a constant parade of multi-denominational clergy, writers, painters, actors, journos, businessmen, old labour radicals, ratbags, indigenous and multicultural leaders, etc. It really is a good symbolic office – if the full flavour of Australia is allowed to breathe and breeze through it, which obviously depends on the incumbent. I think military choices are a profound waste if the office, no matter how admirable individual incumbents, and I hope we have an Infigrnous GG before I die. My own preference has always been for our (Republic’s) Head of State to be (permanently) an Indigenous Elder, and known formally as ‘HE the Mother/Father of the Commonwealth of Australia’.
I was most surprised by the improvisatory intimacy of the constitutional aspects of the GG’s role. (I remember being truly surprised – as a 27 year old army chopper pilot – to find myself drafting the letter that prorogued Parliament in ‘93.) I think even then there was still a huge amount of unwritten leeway for the GG, if not in actual power terms, then certainly in shaping (or flavouring) the political landscape, although that was possibly peculiar to ex-polly Hayden.
Many of the domestic staff at Yarralumla (where we ADC’s lived in 24-7 for a year) were veterans of ‘75. Many late night conversations with the butlers, footmen and drivers about those hectic weeks and the frenzied aftermath. Heaps of interesting internal archival stuff, too. I have never since entertained the idea that this was anything but an egregious soft coup, by born-to-rule forces affronted by Whitlam’s audacity and ambition for Australia. The Dismissal was born of a fear not that Gough would destroy our country, but that he would make it something democratically dazzling and globally unprecedented, and promptly hand it over to us all – never to be taken back by the privileged few.
And Pine Gap, lest we forget.
Gough and Australia were brought down by the hidden in plain sight back-room industrial financial complex “City of London” CIA operative and representative ER2 and cohorts and our own political class traitors.
Capitalism can always be the system of choice but only in conjunction with the under garments of socialism. With the demise of Gough we lost that opportunity.