HERE IS A WAY OUT

Article published in the Herald Sun, 9 November 1999, p. 18

The republic campaign will not evaporate and there is a middle way out of the impasse.

The voters' rejection of the republic package offered on Saturday impels us to move without delay to resolve the republic issue.

The vote does not release, it builds up the head of steam for a republic, and government has no option but to respond. Since September, support for our colonial legacy of a head of state in another country has almost evaporated. Polls show overwhelming support for an Australian head of state. Republicans who put the democracy of future generations first and voted against the defective package were cheated of the chance to vote for a viable republic. Canada's experience warns that continuing constitutional disputes weaken a federation.

The flawed package from last year's Constitutional Convention shows that another convention is not the way to go. Design of a republic model requires as much experience as design of an passenger airliner. Members of parliament with necessary knowledge and experience are the obvious people. They designed our state and federal constitutions. An all-party committee of federal parliament, with representatives from states and territories, should report on the model safe for democracy and the method of deciding the republic issue which is safe for the federation.

In the referendum debate just ended, voters were often treated as stupid. Now they are treated as stupid for not voting as most of the media and an army of celebrities told them. People of the information age cut through spin and manipulation. They saw the package's flaws and risks for democracy.

Some now express fear that Saturday's decision means we will get directly elected presidents who would damage our democracy. They need more faith in ordinary Australian voters. There is no way they would vote for a system damaging to democracy.

While at first sight direct election seems democratic, people soon see that in our system it would undermine our democracy. A directly elected president would not be bound by the vital convention that constitutional powers must be exercised whenever ministers advise. He or she would inevitably have been a candidate chosen by a political party and would have a massive mandate encouraging rivalry with the government. They would be much less suited than our governors-general to act as constitutional umpire and a unifying symbol for the nation.

Australians know we have one of the world's best democracies. They would only vote for a republic based on a model that would keep it operating the same. The McGarvie model, which eliminated both direct election models at the Constitutional Convention and got the second highest vote, does that.

It only makes the changes necessary to convert to a republic and leaves the system operating as it has for years. The governor-general would continue under the same name, becoming actual instead of de facto, head of state. The PM would still choose a new governor-general. The remaining duty of the Queen, who is bound by convention to appoint or dismiss a governor-general as advised by the PM, would be done the same way by a constitutional council of three Australians. This importantly allows, them time to counsel the PM in turn. These three would have retired from non-political constitutional offices, would be determined by constitutional formula and would not be over 74.

I predict the republic issue will be resolved about the year 2005 in a second referendum on a safe model such as mine.

We must have faith in our democracy and the voters.