Republicans: Read the room
Those who think the ascendency of Charles will fuel more support for an Australian republic are misreading the public mood. By Nick Cater.
It would be unfair to label Adam Bandt as entirely bereft of dignity, but his stocks of decorum are running dangerously low, judging from his Twitter activity on Friday. Four hours and 57 minutes after the Queen’s death was announced, Bandt could restrain himself no longer. “Rest In Peace Queen Elizabeth II,” he touchingly began. “Now Australia must move forward. We need Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic.”
Bandt is the kind of ally the republican movement could do without. The republicans of the 1980s and 1990s were driven by a sense of pride in a nation overflowing with confidence. The new republican sentiment, on the other hand, is driven by shame. It aims not just to separate us from Britain but from our own history. Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi tweeted: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples. We are reminded of the urgency of Treaty with First Nations, justice & reparations for British colonies & becoming a republic.”
The chance of a referendum succeeding if the question was framed in those maximalist terms is zero. While the old republicans sought to compromise with the so-called minimalist model, the new ones demand complete capitulation to a set of ideological proposals that emerged from the twisted academic disciplines of critical race theory and post-colonial studies. They do not seek to reform our institutions but to tear them down. Mainstream republicans could do without this noise as they prepare to seize the moment for which they’ve been waiting with ghoulish impatience. Australian Republican Movement chairman Peter FitzSimons told The Australian five years ago that when King Charles “inherits his mum’s job, it’s on”. We shall see.
It is true that a monarch as skilled in her job as Queen Elizabeth has not assisted in the republican cause. Yet the republicans misread the public mood, not to mention the Australian Constitution, if they imagine the only thing standing in the way of their goal is a sentimental attachment to Her Majesty.
The lesson from the 1999 referendum is that Australians won’t vote for an arrangement that transfers power to the political class. They would prefer an a-political head of state with the power to keep politicians in their place. They want a system that works much like a constitutional monarchy, which Robert Menzies observed is the most democratic form of government yet devised.
Upon the death of the Queen, King Charles III assumed the authority to make Acts of Parliament. Yet the Constitution places strict limits on that power, noting that it can only be exercised “by and with the advice of the Senate and House of Representatives”. In the spirit of the Magna Carta, King Charles is both master of the Australian parliament and its servant.
Paradoxically, the presence of an unelected figure in such a powerful position at the centre of the Constitution offers firm protection against tyranny, guarantees parliamentary freedom and smooths the transfer of executive power. Which suggests the accession of King Charles is unlikely to give the republican cause the boost it expects. The smooth transition we are witnessing for the first time in most of our lifetimes reminds us that we owe our allegiance not to a particular monarch but the Crown. We went to bed on Thursday under the sovereign rule of Queen Elizabeth and woke on Friday owing fidelity to her son. There was no need to convene a meeting of cabinet, no partyroom debate, no unseemly scrambling for votes, no period of adjustment. The Crown transcends human frailties and earthly mortality. Some might be so bold as to regard it as a gift from God.
In his first televised speech as King, Charles appeared as a man transformed by office. He promised to spend less time on charities and issues, suggesting he will follow the example of his mother and keep his own counsel.
For the first time in 70 years, we are witnessing the rock of stability that comes from a fixed line of succession. It is not the historical anachronism that republicans claim but a reassurance of the future. We can only guess who the US president will be in 2025, but the tradition of inheritance gives us a reasonable idea who our head of state is likely to be in 2075.
Unless, of course, Australia’s republicans succeed, in which case all bets are off. We will have abandoned a system that has worked well for a few hundred years in favour of an uncertain future. Those who claim that change will be minimal need to take a better look at the Constitution. The Crown is not an attachment that can be easily removed but the centre of gravity that anchors the entire document.
If Anthony Albanese thinks the crowning of Charles will get a republic over the line, he badly underestimates our intelligence.
For better or worse, Albanese has placed responsibility for this profound alteration to the Constitution in the hands of Matt Thistlethwaite. The Assistant Minister for the Republic last week told The Sydney Morning Herald he was planning an “education campaign”. The first thing people must be taught is “that the Queen of England is our head of state”, which seemed strange since there is no such person. Before her death, Elizabeth II was Queen of Australia by right of the Australian Constitution, her Coronation oath and Acts of Parliament. In Britain, she is Queen of the United Kingdom, not “England” alone.
Next, Thistlethwaite wants to educate us about the importance of an Australian head of state. Someone like David Hurley, perhaps, our current Governor-General, born in Wollongong as the son of an Illawarra steelworker. Indeed 11 of the 12 governors-general who served during Thistlethwaite’s lifetime were born in Australia. If Australians are to be persuaded change is needed, Thistlethwaite has some homework. Before inviting us to change the Constitution, he must convince us he’s actually read it.