As Edmund Burke wrote in his famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, “Good order is the foundation of all things.” In my opinion, good order is the Constitutional Monarchy as it stands.
Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, my name is Verity Barton and I am proud to say: I am a Constitutional Monarchist. It is indeed a great pleasure to stand before you today, and I thank you all for taking the time to listen, and hopefully to learn. I don’t envisage that I will teach the room much, indeed, with a group as diverse as ACM; I know that I will take away much, much more from being here, than you will take away from hearing me speak. However, what I think is important about the panel today, is that there are young people; ready to stand and take the fight to this thing they call Republicanism.
There are many arguments against Republicanism and there are many arguments in favour of retaining the Constitutional Monarchy as it stands, and I hope that I can adequately address a few here today. However, at the core of any argument in favour of retaining the Constitutional Monarchy is the basic tenet: IT WORKS! I know it seems simple, and often, it’s the hardest argument to explain, but it rings true in my mind and I’m sure rings true in many of yours.
When I first told my mother that I had been approached to speak on this panel, her first two questions were:
- Why are you a Constitutional Monarchist, and
- What will you say?
The answer to the first question was easy! As I said earlier, the basic tenet of the argument is that the system works. The second question; however, was not so easy. As much as it might have been easy to stand here and repeat those two indomitable words, that’s not what you’ve come to listen to and that’s not all I was asked to say.
Let me first address some of the Republican arguments, and highlight what is wrong with them. The Hon Tony Abbott MP, former director of ACM, narrowed down the Republican movement’s arguments in favour of a Constitutional change in his 1997 publication, “How to win the Constitutional War and give both sides what they want”. He wrote, and I quote:
“Republicans typically claim that Australia must change its Constitution because:
a) We’re no longer British and the Crown is offensive to migrants;
b) We’ll never be truly independent and truly mature while the Queen of Australia is also Queen of the United Kingdom; and
c) Becoming a Republic is inevitable, so Australians might as well do it now.”
I shall address each argument in turn, with both my own criticism, and the criticism of other avowed Monarchists.
The thought that the Crown is offensive to migrants is simply ludicrous. I quite like Tony Abbott’s response to that argument, he claims it is a rhetorical question and is a debating trick dressed up as logic. From my perspective though – that argument is surely ridiculed by the fact that we have so many people wanting to come here! The number of people who have migrated to Australia since 2005 is approximately 620,000 with a prediction of 168,700 migrants in the 2009-2010 reporting period. That we have so many migrants willing to come to Australia, whose sovereign is the Queen of Australia and Queen of Great Britain is indicative surely of the absurdity of the argument.
I also find bizarre the notion that Australia will never be independent and truly mature whilst the Australian Monarch is also that of Great Britain. I seem to remember a little document from my second year of Law School called The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia! Sure, it’s an Act of the British Parliament, but it’s what that Act creates that signals our independence and maturity. Indeed, and I quote from the Preamble, it is an Act to Constitute the Commonwealth of Australia! In fact, there has even been subsequent legislation, the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act and the Australia Act, which further cement our independence and maturity. I challenge Kevin Rudd, a republican, to stand before the Australian people and say that Australia is not independent. He won’t, because he can’t. Australia is as independent as she needs and should be – we are a self-governing land where the highest court of appeal is our own High Court.
The final republican argument that Abbott cites is that it is inevitable, so it may as well just happen now. How ridiculous. That is akin to saying that death is inevitable so why live? I also reject the notion that it is inevitable. The Australian people have already been given the opportunity to vote on whether or not Australia should be a republic. Australians said NO! Australians kept saying no to Kim Beazley and look where he is! He was never Prime Minister; rather he is the future Australian Ambassador to the United States.
But it’s not just about arguments against republicanism, at its core, any discussion must have arguments in favour, indeed, if the debate is wholly negative, we run the risk that republicanism does become inevitable.
I like the idea of a non-partisan head of state, I mean, I really, really like it. In the Governor-General, we have a representative who is not beholden to a particular political party like an elected, partisan head of state would be. At its core, the role of the Governor-General is to exercise executive power in Australia. He or she acts merely on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day. Yes, convention states that they do act on that advice; however, that they have the right as evidenced in 1975, to act in what they consider the best interests of the Australian people, implies independence. It is this perceived availability of independence that fortifies our need to have a non-partisan head of state.
Aside from there being arguments in favour of an independent, non-partisan head of state, there are also arguments against an elected partisan head of state, similar to the President of the United States. For those in this room who don’t know the American electoral cycle, there are a Presidential Elections held every four years, and every two years, Congressional elections are held where a third of House Representatives and Senators are up for re-election; similar to the way Senate Elections are held here.
Due to the nature of the American electoral cycle, and their head of state being elected separately, it is conceivable that Americans could end up with a Republican President and a Democratic Congress or vice versa.
One of the roles of the President, similar to that of the Governor-General, is to sign legislation in order for the Bill to become Law; upon presentation of the Bill to the President, they have three options.
- Sign the Legislation, at which time the Bill becomes Law
- Take no action, or
- Veto the Legislation, whereby the President returns the Bill to Congress with objections
My major concern with having a partisan head of state is a possible veto power. It would be quite feasible for Australians to elect a Liberal majority in the House of Representatives and Senate, and then elect a Labor President. That a partisan Head of State could reject Legislation that has been determined by the majority party is abhorrent. We have democratic elections which provide a mandate for a reason. That former Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffrey assented to the Howard Government’s Work Choices Legislation in 2006 and then assented to the Rudd Government’s Fair Work Legislation in 2008, which essentially destroyed Work Choices, is not a sign that the Australian Head of State has no role, but that a key role of the Australian Head of State is to protect the mandate given by the Australian people.
And finally, I have just one more argument in favour of retaining the Constitutional Monarchy. I can live in the vain hope that my ultimate dream (other than sitting in the Australian Parliament) will come true. That Prince William will be walking down the streets of Brisbane, see me and declare that I, not Kate Middleton, must be his future bride. I can become Queen Verity of Australia – and truly knock one of the republican arguments for six.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to me tell you why I’m a Constitutional Monarchist. I wasn’t sure whether to end with a quote from the not so great Constitutional Lawyer, Dennis Denuto about the vibe of the Australian Constitution, or return to the ever great words of Edmund Burke. I’ll let you work out which conclusion I reached when I say: “A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it, but a good patriot and a true politician always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.”