Summer must be here, and there is birdsong over the culture war trenches because the Australian republic is back in the news.
Peter FitzSimons is bobbing up again — the, well, king of the Australian Republic Movement these many years past, and its public face. The bandana is gone, but the army marches on. What’s he on screen for now? To announce unconditional surrender? Turn up the volume and it’s “a list prepared from nominations by all Australian parliaments which the public vote on”.
And, well, noooo. The ARM has got together and come up with the worst designed program for major constitutional change since, god, since the Voice to Parliament, I guess. The ARM wants to get out of the trap that became visible in the 1990s, whereby the republican establishment wanted the president elected from Parliament, thus creating a mates’ shonks presidency, while the republican rank-and-file overwhelmingly wanted a directly elected president.
The ARM is now pointing at Donald Trump as a reason why a direct-election model may be difficult to sell, and look, it may be right. But it was always against a direct-election model, and that basic mistrust of the people poisoned republicanism as a popular movement from the start.
Having emerged top-down, spawned from Paul Keating’s Kokoda-kissing forehead like Athena from Zeus, the ’90s republican movement needed to jump up, widen the idea of what a republic could be. It didn’t — and all the public saw was a bunch of grandees and activists piloted into John Howard’s fish trap of a constitutional convention, where they were then filleted.
The attempt to revive the movement is mirabile dictu, even worse than anything on offer then. It’s what appears to be a proposal that looks great when you’ve been in a meeting forever. Under the “Australian Choice” model — a Mojo jingle waiting to happen — federal Parliament would nominate up to three candidates for president, each state and territory one, which groaning list would then be put to a grateful populace.
The president would have fewer powers than a US or French president, more than a governor-general — crucially the ability to sack a prime minister and dissolve Parliament if they’ve lost the confidence of the House.
But leaving aside the general politics for a moment, ARM’s proposal is a little light on detail about the selection of the (up to) 11 names. Are these selected by the lower houses? Both houses in joint session? Would this not require the amendment of each state and territory constitution, separate to a national change? In majority parliaments, the vote would be in the partyroom, rubber-stamped by Parliament. If joint sessions created an assembly with no overall control, how would the nominees for the single selection be handled? How would they be voted on — first past, preferential, two-stage run-off? Ditto with the three federal Parliament names.
This all-consuming bunfight would last for months, engendering cross-dealing and trading, consuming energies and making the dominance of the political class achingly visible. Then when three or four or eight or nine names get on the ballot, once again the pretty crucial question of preferential v first-past comes up again.
Then finally this whole smoking mess has to be taken to a referendum, either as a detailed specific scheme or a general proposal to be filled in by Parliament — or parliaments? — and sold on the doorstep, all its flywheels spinning.
The monarchists, meanwhile, have a simple story: presidential republics are coming apart, the US is crazy, the fascists are rising in France, constitutional monarchy is simple, works, anchors parliamentary democracy and allows people to get on with their private lives.
If you wanted to give monarchists a means by which to get around the falling Anglo-ishness of Australia, you couldn’t have designed it better.
How did the ARM come up with this disaster? Same way the Indigenous leadership came up with the hopeless Voice to Parliament. Their job involving sitting around all day talking and negotiating. They think everyone else wants to live and choose like that. They don’t. They want a say, which they’re not getting, but having said, they want simple and effective government.
This disaster of a proposal sells its opposition. Centre and right republicans will recoil from this political Heath Robinson machine; the left (a section at least) will reject anything but a direct-election model. The monarchists will be united.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but really, isn’t it obvious there is one huge opportunity for republicans coming up? That is when the Queen dies, or in the lead-up to. Because then, of course, the situation is reversed. It’s the monarchists who have to defend and try to talk away King Charles III of Australia, and republicans who can campaign for the simple alternative of getting a republic. The slogan? “King Charles III? No. It’s time. Vote for a republic.” Then just make poor old Charlie an object of ridicule and derision while the monarchists have to drivel out stuff about “Well, it’s actually the governor-general you see that … It’s the crown not the person under it. … (sigh) No, he doesn’t talk to plants … Yes, he did once express a desire to be a tampon … ” etc etc.
There’d be more to it. You may not have heard of those things, but hopefully the idea of being handed over to a 70-something boy-man like we were chattel would do the trick. The absurdity of monarchy is most exposed in the transfer of it. When a popular, loved and respected — even by those grudging such — is in place, and the monarchy is offering a stability it claims to ensure, the relationship of public and monarch is sutured pretty tight, and it takes a lot of (cultural) violence to make it visible.
Using the transfer, and making the monarchists do the work, would entail — should a Labor government eventuate — a straight monarchy v republic plebiscite, which we would probably win (or we may as well pack up) followed by an almighty stoush over the question for a referendum, basically parliamentary selection v direct election. We may well lose that referendum anyway as part of whichever group didn’t get the model it wanted on the ballot stayed away. But then the wood’s on the movement to get its vote out. No excuses left. And if centrist republicans would never support a direct-election model, you have to ask where their heart lies anyway.
The ARM say it’s got polling that shows 73% support for this. But as electoral analyst Kevin Bonham argues, that tells you nothing about what the 73% is saying. It’s the “pineapple milkshake” question: do you like pineapple milkshakes? Sure, yeah. Had one in the past 20 years? Well uh…
The task of a republican movement is not to reverse-engineer a republic from quantitative surveys. It’s to find the rational core of the republican proposal and put it in such a way that it appears as the imminent real, the that-which-must-happen. The “Australian Choice” model is distinguished by its utter contingency — it could have been 20 other things. It lacks the moral force of necessity that wins great campaigns like this.
FitzSimons is a decent man, and he’s kept this basically empty republican movement chugging along for a few years. Or maybe he and others have hobbled it by excluding direct electionists, as some allege. I don’t know. But on the evidence of this proposal one has to ask if that bandana was a bandage for a shrapnel wound.
The man has written a shelf of books on disastrous military campaigns, but can’t recognise the marks of them all in this one. The republic is his passion project. Sorry, but on the evidence of this proposal, it may be our Passchendaele.
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Can I make the obvious point that Donald Trump was not elected by “direct-election”; he could never have won such an election. Has no-one heard of the Electoral College?
Rundle has toured around the USA covering presidential elections in detail so it is remarkable this essential point seems to be unknown to him.
Grundle is not a details guy.
They do a nice line in redistricting and gerrymandering also……….and, like Britain, the freedom to not vote has consequences.
The gerrymander has no effect on the presidential vote as each state is a single electorate.
It is a state level abuse and does result in heavily skewed results, electing repug rule, courtesy of the 10th Amendment, in a majority of states, 35 at present.
The malign effect of repug state rule is well attested, even in the MSM, with a tsunami of voter nullification procedures.
“The ARM is now pointing at Donald Trump as a reason why a direct-election model may be difficult to sell” sounds like an issue with ARM, rather than the author. Yes, the Electoral College isn’t strictly “direct-election”, but it is more “direct-electiony” than ARM’s model.
Only the United States uses the “Electoral college”, AFAIK. Other presidencies directly elect their presidents, like France. However, I’d rather we use a preferential system rather than their two-round system; it feels more Australian numbering the ballot.
The Electoral College was put in, at the insistence of some of the more cynical Founders, to avoid the problem of democracy ‘getting it wrong‘ and electing someone who might not be sufficiently subservient to wealth & unearned privilege – works a treat.
…and also to reduce the influence of African Americans. The electoral college solved that problem.
There are several ways the influence of those voters is diminished or removed, but the electoral college really is not one of them.
Hardly – in 1804 when it was established slavery was the norm in the south and still common even in the north.
Oddly, it was only the plains Territories which prohibited slavery from their outset.
It’s a direct election if an electorate can choose a president that the legislative body would not choose. Which has happened many times in the US….
…but NOT necessarily by popular majority – many times, 2016 being the only that the mayfly attention span of the masses can recall.
If, as many fear/expect, the repugs in November retake both the House & the Senate the federal government will be dead-in-the-water.
Such a result would run alongside increased capture of the states and the associated electoral machinery which WILL ensure that the ”legislative bodies” choose the next Resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
It’s not about the details, it’s about the public perception. I hardly think Guy Rundle should have to explain the Presidential election system in the US for that to be understood. But, hey, what do I know. Maybe some people do need to be hit over the head with a hammer.
It’s hardly a mere detail when it trashes the argument being made.
Silly Millie clearly has a problem with the little things – correct facts, details, evidence, reality and comprehension, all of which are dismissed merely nitpicking – a fav. go-to for verbal paucity.
Nothing major.
It’s direct enough. It’s certainly direct compared to a system where members of Congress vote for the President. The voting public vote for President, and the candidate that gets the most votes then gets the votes of the members of the electoral college for that state. You’re splitting hairs and making no substantive point.
The Electoral College votes are neither held by nor voted for by members of Congress – they are formally allocated at state level to functionaries.
Being the Benighted States, there are a variety of methods for choosing the Electors, each subject to the particular venality, corruption and abuse of process at local level, not federally.
There are 33 states that choose electors by party convention, while seven states and the District of Columbia select electors by state party committees. The remaining 10 states use gubernatorial appointments, appointment by party nominees, state chair appointments, presidential nominee appointments, and hybrid methods for elector selection.
https://www.usa.gov/election
You must be having a laugh. Rundle cites Trump’s election as proof that direct election can have bad consequences. If the USA used direct election Trump would not have been elected, based on the votes cast in 2016. So if Trump’s example proves anything it shows that direct elections would keep Trump out of power. This is the opposite of Rundle’s contention. But you say that’s not a substantive point! Ha ha ha.
Rundle doesn’t cite Trump’s election as proof of anything, nor contend that he was directly elected, he writes of perceptions:
The ARM is now pointing at Donald Trump as a reason why a direct-election model may be difficult to sell, and look, it may be right.
You are confusing one vote one value with directness. The electoral college weights a vote in any given state – but it could do that without an electoral college. Its direct, if a legislature isnt involved.
So it’s direct because the Electoral College is elected directly. That’s fine for the Electoral College, but what does it have to do with Trump?
The Electors are appointed – by each state’s controlling party – not elected by voters.
See my outline above or go to https://www.usa.gov/election
Don’t be absurd. The US president is not selected by a parliament of people elected to legislate. The president is elected by a college elected to do nothing else, other than vote for the President that a vote for ‘X’ as President selects them to do. They then dissolve. Their role as independent electors has long since been surpassed by custom and law. The weighting of stats votes does not make the vote an ‘indirect’ one. Try and think before commenting and you won’t make obvious errors.
It would be a kindness were someone to take away Grundle’s shovel – he just cannot stop digging.
The ARM is going to fail again because they’re going to take Guy’s advice and conflate the two independent questions of republic or not, and election process or method.
I’m firmly in favour of following the example of Barbados: just turn off the monarchy with the absolute smallest change possible. Spook no horses.
Worry (and argue) about alternative nomination/election/jurisdiction questions later and (preferably) separately. There is no need to lump all of the issues together.
Is that Rundle’s advice? What he actually says is:
“… campaign for the simple alternative of getting a republic. The slogan? “King Charles III? No. It’s time. Vote for a republic.” Then just make poor old Charlie an object of ridicule and derision.”
In other words, don’t provide any detail at all. Say nothing about what follows. Just campaign to get rid of the monarchy, concentrating on nothing but Charles’s personal failings. This might well succeed, because the Brexit campaign was equally silent on what would replace EU membership and how it would work, and look how well that’s playing out.
Brexit has economic consequences much more complex than getting rid of the monarchy. They might be following the same playbook but I dont think it’s in the same league.
If we are not told in advance what ensues from getting rid of the monarchy we can only guess whether it’s in the same league as Brexit. You’re making my point for me by putting forward that assumption. Many who voted for Brexit might have thought that leaving the EU was just that and no more. They had no idea that Brexit would be extended to include leaving the customs union, for example, or that the Good Friday agreement would be seriously undermined. ‘Brexit means Brexit’ was the idiotic explanation offered. ‘Republic means Republic’ would serve us equally well. Of course it works because everyone who has any doubts about monarchy can imagine, in their pathetic naivety, that the republic that will follow will be the one they want.
Voting for a republic without a clear detailed explanation of what it is and how it works is crazy reckless optimistic.
The Miracle of May 2019 occurred despite (or because of?) providing no details, plans or vision.
Because of. That was my point. It’s also Rundle’s strategy for winning a referendum here.
Barbados’ Parliament elected its President (the Governor General) on 20 October last year, it became a Republic on 30 November, so I’m kind of guessing that they did actually lump all the issues together as they had a President and Constitution in place, and the whole process was done by a 10 member commission appointed by the Parliament in May 2021. So no democratically elected President, no approval of the new Constitution either by General Election or referendum, and a bastion of the establishment, a member of the Prime Minister’s party, as President. Wouldn’t it be less fuss just to call the GG President (after all s/he is appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister) and carry on from there; it’d be a heck of a lot cheaper if no more democratic?
Pity we can’t trust our dipsh*t politicians to nominate – or elect – a decent candidate for head of state.
I thought that Bill Hayden and Quentin Bryce were OK. It’s not as though they do much, when everything is working properly.
William Dean was well thought of.
With a few – very few – notable exceptions, that’s exactly what our “dipshit politicians” have done since Federation. Call John Kerr one of the exceptions. He was followed by Zelman Cowan, William Deane, Bill Hayden, Brian Murray, Quentin Bryce …. You have problems with them?
That’s more or less what I was suggesting: least change is just for the GG to not have any remaining ties to the monarchy. (Yes, details: all the states separately have governors tied to the monarchy: there would no doubt be a bunch of detail to be changed.) No, it’s not more democratic, it’s exactly the same. That’s not a terrible situation, IMO. Trying to make things more democratic can be done in subsequent steps, over time.
So will Gerry Harvey, Dick Smith or Alan Jones get the gig.
Living in Sydney is naturally a prerequisite for the direct election model.
The Father, the Son & the unHoly Ghost?
The advantage of parliament electing the president is it stays a largely meaningless role.
The so-called more democratic direct election will ensure one person can say they were voted in by all of Australia so they represent the people’s will … of course only those with access to lots of money and little shame will have the resources to stand for election and promote themselves ceaselessly. So, you’ll have a rich, shameless person saying they represent the essence of the people’s will more than the parliament.
Exactly. You don’t want the president to be a popular choice so much as “the best of us”. More of an Australian of the Year than the self-publicist who can convince the fewest people to actively dislike them.
Since it’s unlikely that “best of us” is really determinable, President by random ballot would at least pick a representative, so keep that option in there.
I’m also in favour of the position being for life, like the Doge of Venice, or the Pope. Elected by the elected/elect, but permanent-ish. Our own King or Queen. That should at least lead to nominations with some world-experience.
I misread your suggestion as “…President by random bullet…” but that’s just my preferred model of benevolent dictatorship tempered by frequent assassination.
Call me a dreamer…
I reckon Guy has got a bit to overheated about the proposal. Any system that elects an Aussie president has gotta be better that what we have now with than them over there in Engerland!