Media Release for Address at Annual Dinner of Australian Stock Exchange,
Melbourne, 25 August, 1997
The republic debate badly needs the input of the practical organisational knowledge of business leaders, said Mr Richard McGarvie, former Governor of Victoria, addressing the Annual Stock Exchange Dinner in Melbourne on 25 August. Speaking to over 340 business leaders, he suggested they had not become involved because it had not been clear that the issues pose real risks to our greatest national asset — our system of democracy.Mr McGarvie contrasted the influential role of business leaders a century ago when we got our federation. Your democracy needs you now, to bring the debate down from the clouds of theory so it can soon be resolved in the world of practical Australian reality, he said.
He stressed that emotional and unresolved constitutional debate is not good for a federal democracy. The longer it goes, the more people want to change. Canada provides an example, he added.
A constitution is adopted by virtual consensus as the structure for resolving future political disputes. That is why such a high level of consensus is required to change Australia’s Constitution by referendum, he told the dinner.
He said the republic debate is now further away from resolution than when it started 5 years ago. It has moved people on both sides to support untenable positions that would not be marketable to the Australian electorate under the critical scrutiny of a referendum campaign.
Mr McGarvie said the two most popular models for a republican President, elected by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament or by the whole electorate, would ruin our democracy. The convention that now requires the many powers of the Governor-General to be exercised as advised by Ministers of the elected government would cease to bind a President with the same powers. It binds now because prompt dismissal of the Governor-General would follow breach. The sanction of dismissal would disappear for a President, because a two-thirds majority would be required for dismissal and that would need opposition support. Australian oppositions do not support governments. Our democracy depends on that convention continuing to bind, he said. He added that the idea of substituting a legal obligation for the convention would bring the courts into the political process and would not work in Australia.
He said that many of the monarchist side accepted that our democracy is safe in the present monarchial system, which is correct, but would not be safe under any republican model, which is not correct.
Mr McGarvie said that the model he proposed which would make the Governor-General Australia’s head of state, doing the same things in the same way and still subject to dismissal for breach of the convention, would safeguard our democracy as securely as the monarchial system does. Only the minimum change necessary to convert to a republic would be made. He said the Governor-General would still be chosen by the Prime Minister but appointed on the Prime Minister’s advice by a Constitutional Council of three eminent Australians instead of by the Queen.
He said that the system would continue to have a Governor-General who had no mandate from election by Parliament or people to encourage political rivalry with the Prime Minister. He added that to have a head of state competing in political power and influence with the head of government, the Prime Minister, would introduce chaos into our type of system. That would be bad for the community and bad for business, he added.
He told the business leaders that the Morgan Poll in 1996 showed the need for them to bring their knowledge of working organisations to the analysis of the way the various republican models would work. Asked the preferred model if we became a republic, the two models for an elected Republican President that would ruin our democracy shared 94% support: the one that would keep it safe drew only 3%.
Mr McGarvie said that business leaders could give leadership in working out the model for head of state which would best safeguard our democracy. The issue could then be resolved by the people choosing between that model and the present monarchial system. He said that in any event Australia should do work on its preferred model for a republic, in case at some future time the United Kingdom abolished its monarchy or for some other reason Australia decided to become a republic.