Return to top of page.SAFE CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM Paper presented to Comview 99, the annual conference of the Victorian Commercial Teachers Association, La Trobe University, 22 November 1999I use the republic issue to illustrate the realities of constitutional change at a time when Australia is much influenced by the mass media and post-modernism.Making major constitutional change without creating unnecessary risk to the democratic qualities we value in our constitutional system is quite possible but quite difficult. First we need to understand what our constitutional system is, how it actually works, and why it works that way. The constitution, the basic set of legal rules of our system of government, is complemented by the operative organisational part of the constitutional system, which is based on and greatly influenced by it. That part contains the constitutional conventions which actually bind office-holders because they are backed by effective penalties for breach, imposed by the operation of the system itself. It also contains other non-legal incentives and disincentives which exert great influence on the way office-holders exercise power. 1
Australians have been extraordinarily successful in building one of the world's best and most durable democracies within one of the harshest political and constitutional cultures of any democracy.2 The explanation is neither that we are the lucky country nor that Australians are inherently resistant to the temptations of power. Our constitutional system has been developed with a consciousness of Lord Acton's truism that 'Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Office-holders are bound by laws of the constitution or by effective constitutional conventions to exercise their powers in the way that keeps our system a democracy. The system also influences them in other ways to do that.
It is not enough that a changed system will provide democracy when people are behaving themselves, as is usually the case. Durable democracy requires that its safeguards will be effective in the exceptional situations when people are behaving badly.3
A book by Dr Evatt in 1936 has fostered the idea that the operation of the constitutional system is akin to that of the legal system, and that lawyers have great advantage in understanding it.4 That is wrong. What is needed mainly is an understanding of human behaviour in relation to power, individually and within organisations. Most people have this understanding from their experience of life. Any intelligent citizen who takes the trouble to find out can understand how the constitutional system works.5
Constitutional changes typically last for a century or centuries, but their full impact upon the operation of the system is usually not felt until there is a new generation in electorate and government.6
All that is necessary for Australia to become republican is to eliminate the monarchy from the Commonwealth and state systems.7 Most of the seven years' debate has been on the easy, symbolic question of whether an Australian should be head of state. By about September 1999 there was overwhelming support for that, so the question was for practical purposes resolved.8 Support for continuing the colonial legacy of a head of state in a country on the other side of the world has almost evaporated.
The two questions of vital importance in the last couple of months before the referendum were whether the proposed model would preserve the strengths and safeguards of our democracy in a republic, and whether confining the decision to the Commonwealth system posed substantial risk to the strength of our federation. The constitutional changes in the flawed referendum package would have introduced substantial risks to the strength and stability of our democracy and federation. The Prime Minister's power of instant dismissal of a President would have crippled the fail-safe mechanism that enables an exceptional constitutional malfunction to be referred in the last resort to the Parliament or people for resolution.9 The selection process would have given Presidents a great mandate encouraging rivalry with the elected Government, and produced celebrity Presidents of very different calibre from those who have been our Governors-General.10 Constitutional provisions relating to the reserve powers would have required a President to follow supposed conventions which are non-existent and unworkable, and have left it open to an activist High Court to shift great constitutional influence to itself by exercising jurisdiction in relation to the powers.11 Dissenting States would have been forced into a Commonwealth republic they did not trust with their democracy, and forced by circumstance and ridicule to change to republics at state level. This would have produced tensions and weakened the federation.12
Government and Opposition
Ordinarily a Government puts forward a referendum proposal and in the interests of its political future is careful to ensure that it is a sound one. The Opposition does not give the support essential for a successful referendum unless it has critically scrutinised it and found it free of major flaws. Neither of those quality assurances was available to voters in the recent referendum. The Government had undertaken to hold a convention and put to referendum a model which had clear support. The Coalition did not accept responsibility for the quality of the referendum model. For every Coalition member who said there were flaws in the model, another said there were none. Because the model was Paul Keating's original one with some alterations and extras, the Opposition was protective of it and not prepared to concede, much less expose its flaws.
Media
We have had a good example of the effects of the massive shift from the political power of government to the economic and information power of media organisations throughout the world in recent years.13 It raises concern for the future of democracy when, increasingly, its lifeblood, the flow of views and information, is held and controlled by fewer and more powerful media hands. We have been reminded that media power has the same tendency to corrupt as political power. With centuries of experience in tempering abuses of political power, democracies have hardly started to think about coping with abuses of media power.
Unlike the Government, the media took sides, almost unanimously giving support to the referendum package.14 Usually support went far beyond an objective reporting of the debate and an expression of editorial opinion. Some units acted as principal parties in the debate, using every means, save one, to persuade people to vote yes. The exception was that all gave access to supporters of a no vote to express their opinions.
Yes and No Cases
Those putting the yes and the no cases, with some justification accused each other of engaging in some misleading conduct.
The community was deprived of a real debate on the effect that the constitutional changes of the referendum would have on the actual operation of the constitutional system and upon the federation. The yes case supporters were strong on the symbolic question of an Australian for head of state and even after that question had resolved itself in their favour sought to confine the debate to that. When flaws of the referendum package were raised they normally avoided debate and thus avoided drawing attention to them. Instead, the person who had raised the flaws was usually ridiculed and called an alarmist running a scare campaign. Because most of the media were supporting the referendum there was seldom any pressure put on the yes campaigners to answer the argument that the package was flawed and would introduce unacceptable risks. The avoidance of debate, however, suggested to people that there was a desire to cover something up.
Intellectuals
Most Australian intellectuals either failed to give, or failed to report the result of adequate critical scrutiny of the model in any of the forms it took from the Report of the Republic Advisory Committee in 1993 to the referendum in 1999. That is illustrated by the events of the nine months before the Constitutional Convention of February 1998.
The preferred model of the Republic Advisory Committee, adopted by Paul Keating in 1995, provided for a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the federal Parliament to elect and dismiss a President.15 In a paper published prominently in the Australian, Age, and Herald Sun on 1 May 1997, a week after I ended as Governor of Victoria, I pointed out that the model in practice provided for an undismissible President which meant that the basic constitutional convention requiring the head of state to act as advised by Ministers would lose its binding quality. For the first time I put forward the McGarvie model for public consideration. 16
On the first day of the Constitutional Convention Malcolm Turnbull abandoned that dismissal mechanism and on the second-last day substituted instant dismissal of a President by the Prime Minister. Later he conceded the vice of dismissal by a two-thirds majority.17 It is now virtually common ground that the original provision for dismissal would have had a disastrous effect by rendering ineffective the basic constitutional convention on which the democracy of our system depends.
During the nine months there was an election for delegates to the Constitutional Convention in which the most successful ticket was that of the Australian Republican Movement whose preferred model was the one providing for dismissal by the two-thirds majority. Apart from Malcolm Fraser and George Winterton, few, if any, of the many intellectuals who later gave fulsome praise to the referendum model and assurances as to its safety, had publicly voiced the slightest concern about the disastrous model receiving strong media support during the nine months.18
There could be a number of explanations for the silence of the intellectuals on the successive flaws of the model. In the second half of the century it cannot be assumed as it could in the first, that educated people have a general understanding of the working of the constitutional system. For three and a half decades to the mid-1990s most people received no grounding in our system of democracy from their schooling.19 Also, many intellectuals have been influenced by post-modernism so as to lose the confidence in their own opinions that would enable them to say in public what is unpopular with the media. Deconstructing the office of Governor-General which Australians have built, has its attractions. The influence of the concerted media push for the referendum package cannot be discounted. Exposing its flaws courted media ridicule and being lumped with those described as alarmists running a scare campaign. By contrast, unqualified support for the package earned from the media instant fame and heroic status. Further, unlike most proposals for constitutional change, which have come from parliamentarians, this model at all stages received a hefty input from intellectuals. Other intellectuals tended to identify with it. Of course, there were others who looked at the package with knowledge and a readiness to reveal any significant flaws perceived, but concluded there were none.
The lesson is that if we are to resolve the republic issue in a way that will preserve the strengths of our democracy and federation for future generations, Government, Opposition, the media and intellectuals must do better.
Referendum Decision
It was no surprise that the referendum package was rejected by about 55 per cent of Australian voters. Before the model was even moved for adoption at the Constitutional Convention I warned that, 'Its fundamental flaws would see it confined to the wastepaper basket in a referendum'.20 The Newspoll on peoples' main reason for an intended no vote, taken in city and country areas the weekend before the referendum, indicated the thinking behind the rejection. Only 9 per cent indicated their main reason as a desire to retain the Queen as head of state. Considerations of the workability of the constitutional system activated 78 per cent: 45 per cent holding the view that the present system is fine and there is no need to change it, and 33 per cent indicating there was too much uncertainty about the proposed republic model. Only 16 per cent gave as their reason that they would only vote yes for a directly-elected President. Three per cent were uncommitted to a reason.21 The indication is that some 78 per cent of no voters were not primarily motivated by either a desire to retain the Queen or a desire for a directly-elected President but were not satisfied that overall there was advantage in voting for the referendum changes.
One factor in the referendum outcome was clearly the ordinary voters' assessment of the reliability of the information they were given. When attention started in about September to move from the symbolic issue to the effect of the package on democracy and federation, only the skills of the media were equal to providing people before the referendum with the balanced, concise and readily absorbable information necessary for voters to make an informed decision on that issue. Instead, much of the media was so blatantly one sided in supporting the referendum and so obviously treating the people as ignorant customers who would tamely do as they were told, that voters could place little reliance on what came from it. Life has taught them how to cope with salespersons using those techniques. Dick Morris in The New Prince, emphasises that people of the information age have developed capacities to see through slant and manipulation.22 After the vote many media people, resenting the failure of the majority of voters to do as they were told, made no attempt to conceal that they regard them as ignorant, apathetic, pessimistic and lacking confidence.
In the referendum the vote of the majority was contrary to what had strongly been urged by most of the media and most of the intellectuals. Andrew Bolt has warned that we risk being a nation that has lost its head.23 The reassuring feature is that without the assistance of most of the media and intellectuals the majority of the electorate voted down the flawed package.
I consider that Australians voted wisely. Anyone who proposes a reform such as a constitutional change accepts the responsibility of convincing a constitutional majority that it is desirable. Those who were satisfied the referendum package had deep flaws were wise to vote no. So were those who were not satisfied of the absence of such flaws. So were those who were not satisfied there was overall community advantage in a yes vote. I regard the political and constitutional wisdom and instinct of the ordinary practical Australian as the sheet anchor of our democracy. Over my lifetime I have always been interested in elections and referendums. Looking back, I consider Australians usually got it right, even when I voted on the losing side. My experience with juries has taught me that Australians almost always get it right there. Because it will involve Australians voting in a referendum, I am sure that no decision would be made to become a republic unless it preserves our democracy and federation intact and strong.
Promptly Resolving the Issue
Australians and Australian government have no realistic option but to resolve the republic issue as soon as practicable. The opinion polls indicate that there is now an overwhelming preference for an Australian head of state, or in other words, a republican form of government. A large number of Australians who strongly favour a republic but put the democracy and federation of future generations first and voted no at the referendum are entitled to resent that they have never been given the opportunity to express their preference by voting for a viable republic. Most importantly, we must learn from Canada's experience. It has had a series of running disputes on basic constitutional issues since the 1970s which has greatly weakened the bonds that unite that federation.24 We must not allow our differences on the republic issue to develop into a constitutional running sore. People and events determine what will be the issues in public life, more than politicians.
Method of Resolution
Holding a plebiscite on whether a republican or monarchic form of government is preferred would have the advantage of putting beyond doubt the preference the opinion polls indicate. That would slough off the symbolic question of an Australian for head of state with its high emotional content, and move concentration to the much more difficult questions of retaining the health and strength of our democracy and federation in a republic. It would have the disadvantage of introducing substantial delay into the process and leaving the nation, between the plebiscite and the conversion by constitutional amendment to a republic, with a constitutional system with which most had declared dissatisfaction. I consider that we should proceed without delay to determine the best model, and the best method of making the decision on becoming a republic. Then in a second referendum everyone has the advantage of knowing what sort of republic would be introduced if the referendum passed.
The suggestion of first having a plebiscite and, if it favours a republic, then voting on what kind of republic is preferred, would be of little advantage unless voters had before them the actual models proposed and the constitutional amendments designed to introduce them. Otherwise people would not have the information necessary to form an opinion on the actual effect the various models would have upon the operation of the constitutional system. That would involve the delay and expense of three future national votes, because there would finally be a referendum to make the necessary constitutional changes.
In deciding how we should proceed, we must remember that whether we should become a republic no longer remains a real issue and the task is to identify the best model and the best way of the nation making a decision on whether to do so. The adversarial contest between private organisations such as the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) and Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM) which largely resolved the former issue is not suitable for the present task.
The aim is to resolve the republic issue, not perennially to keep wrangling over it. In reality, passing a referendum does not involve one side beating the other. It involves building a consensus that will produce the almost-universal support necessary in practice to change Australia's constitution. Australia is likely to change to republican form within the forseeable future only if that is supported by most of those now republicans or monarchists and most supporters of the Coalition, Labor and other parties. So far the issue has been politicised, Paul Keating raising it as a partisan political issue and John Howard defusing political disadvantage by the offer of a constitutional convention and referendum. We have the unique advantage at present that the issue is not politicised. The only model that owed its origin to a political party has been decisively rejected. We must build firmly on that advantage while it lasts.
The choice is whether to rely for the initial work on another constitutional convention or a high-powered parliamentary committee. A rationale for having a constitutional convention in 1998 with half the delegates elected was that its first question was whether or not Australia should become a republic. Most of those elected in the republic interest devoted most of their speeches to that and the Convention decided in favour of becoming a republic.
A convention such as that is not well suited to making decisions on the best model or the best method of the nation making its decision. Those elected to the constitutional conventions that built our federation last century were almost all well-known parliamentarians with a great deal of knowledge and experience of the practical working of our constitutional system. In the election for the 1998 Constitutional Convention, where parliamentarians were ineligible and political parties did not run candidates, the organisations thought people most likely to vote for someone they knew of. So tickets were crowded with people who were well known, regardless of whether they had constitutional knowledge or experience. However worthy as persons, being well known is no more a qualification to design a republic model than a passenger airliner. The flawed package that emerged from the Convention is evidence of that. The average Australian is well qualified to pass judgment in a referendum on a designed model, but few without constitutional experience would claim the ability to design one.
It is best to adopt the approach that produced our good state and federal constitutions, and rely on experienced members of parliament to inquire and report upon the model which will best maintain our democracy, and the method of deciding the republic issue least likely to overstrain the federation. An all-party committee in the Commonwealth Parliament with representatives from state and territory parliaments is desirable.25 Beside having first hand knowledge and experience of the actual working of our constitutional system, such a committee would almost certainly be guided by the merits and not by partisan politics.
Direct Election
With the referendum's rejection of the parliamentary election model the choice is between a model such as the McGarvie model which leaves the constitutional system operating as it has for years, and a direct-election model which would fundamentally change the system and its operation.
Until the Constitutional Convention the option for having a directly-elected President had been stated in general terms along the lines of the description of that option in the Report of the Republic Advisory Committee.26 At the Convention, models had to be specified in some detail. The kind of provisions that would be included in such a model were demonstrated by the Gallop model and Hayden model which were two of the four models the Convention finally considered.27 That brought to public attention for the first time, that, unless our system of government were changed fundamentally so as to accommodate a directly-elected President, such a model would inject into the working of our constitutional system far greater risks to the strengths and safeguards of our democracy than the rejected referendum model.
A directly-elected President, as the only official elected by the whole of Australia, would have a greater electoral mandate than the Prime Minister or Government. A President would inevitably have been the candidate of one of the major political parties. When the President had been the candidate of the opposition party there would be the strongest tendency for the President to operate as a rival centre of political power opposed to the Government.28 Under our system of democracy the Governor-General is the only one who can exercise vital constitutional powers central to the system of government.29 It is essential to our democracy that in ordinary circumstances the Governor-General be bound by the basic constitutional convention to exercise those powers within a reasonable time whenever advised by Ministers of the Government to do so. The convention is binding because it is backed by the penalty that a Governor-General who refused to comply would be dismissed within a week or two.30 That convention would lose its binding quality under the direct-election models because the penalty of prompt dismissal for breach would in practice not be available. Dismissal would be by one or both Houses of Parliament on specific grounds and experience shows that the process would be politicised from the outset and even if dismissal resulted it would be inordinately slow.31 A President not bound by the basic constitutional convention would be able to veto actions of the Government. Unavailability of the penalty of prompt dismissal would also deprive of their binding quality the conventions that a President not make political statements and not collaborate politically with the Opposition. It would be impracticable to impose on the President legal obligations to the effect of the withered conventions.32
The fail-safe mechanism mentioned earlier consists of the reserve authority of the Governor-General to act independently of ministerial advice in respect of the exercise of the reserve powers of appointing or dismissing a Government or dissolving or declining to dissolve Parliament. It is to be used only as a last resort when it has become absolutely necessary in order to ensure the operation of the constitutional system and its safeguards of democracy. It has the effect of referring an exceptional constitutional malfunction to the Parliament or people for resolution.33 It would be open to an elected political President to abuse the reserve authority for political purposes, for example, to dissolve Parliament for a premature election at a time when the opinion polls indicate the Government would lose.34 Supporters of direct-election models accept that those models would have to include a codification of the reserve authority. Codification of the reserve authority was proposed by Dr Evatt in 1936 but is quite impractical.35
Introduction of a direct-election model in an Australian republic would lead to an inevitable drift towards the United States' system without that system's checks and balances.36 Theoretically we could change our system fundamentally to make it correspond to the American system where the elected President is head of state and head of government, or to the Irish system where the elected President has virtually no constitutional powers of consequence.37 In theory we could change our language to that of Finland or our law to that of Chile. In reality it is highly unlikely that in the absence of invasion or revolution we would see it as an advantage, or summon the will to make such a fundamental change to the constitutional system, language or law we are used to and which has served us well. The practical result of a serious attempt to convert to a republic with a directly-elected President would most likely be postponement of the resolution of the republic issue for a long time.
The prospect of Australia becoming a direct-election republic was exaggerated during the referendum campaign. For their own purposes leaders of the yes and no cases put it that voting their way would improve the prospects of ultimately obtaining a directly-elected President. Other leading proponents of the yes case put it that the referendum amounted to a choice between the referendum model and a direct-election model. Thus the three jurists, Sir Zelman Cowen, Sir Anthony Mason and Sir Gerard Brennan, described those models as 'the two models from which voters must choose at the referendum'.38 People who accepted that as the choice were open to persuasion that the yes case had more strength than it had. Some yes case supporters warned that unless the referendum passed we would get a direct-election model posing a threat to democracy. That shows a lamentable lack of faith in the commonsense of the Australian voter. It is saying to voters that unless you adopt our model you will later be so unwise as to adopt a model which degrades your democracy. Voters are too smart to do that. A lesson from the 1999 referendum is that even though the majority favour an Australian head of state they will not vote for a republic package unless satisfied it is safe for democracy and federation.
The referendum model was often presented in a better light than it deserved, through being compared only with the model which would be worst for democracy, direct election, and never with the McGarvie model that would preserve our democracy intact in a republic. One of the worst examples of that was the deliberative poll in Canberra, 22-4 October 1999. People were not reminded that the runner-up to the referendum model at the Constitutional Convention was not a direct-election model but the McGarvie model.
There is a present tendency for people to want to make decisions for themselves instead of leaving it to their elected representatives.39 However, once people are aware of the effect of a directly- elected President in our kind of democracy, they will no more favour that than they would favour electing the judges. That was illustrated at the Constitutional Convention. On 1 May 1997 when, as mentioned above, I first advanced the McGarvie model in public and compared its impact on our democracy with that of the models for a President elected by Parliament or by direct election, the prevailing preferences were indicated by the Morgan Poll of the year before. It showed 74 per cent support for direct election, 20 for parliamentary election, 3 for a model such as mine, and 3 per cent not stating a preference.40 After advancing my case over the nine months, without organisational or funding backing but relying on what I wrote and said, the McGarvie model attracted sufficient votes from delegates at the Convention uncommitted to vote as the ARM or ACM decided, to eliminate both direct-election models in the votes for preferred model, finishing second to the parliamentary-election model.41
McGarvie Model
The McGarvie model is as simple as it is safe. The Governor-General continues and becomes actual instead of de facto head of state. The Queen's one remaining active duty, appointing or dismissing the Governor-General as advised by the Prime Minister, would be performed in exactly the same way by a Constitutional Council of three Australians determined automatically by constitutional formula. The Prime Minister will still choose a new Governor-General. It is important to emphasise that a Constitutional Council will not propose, choose or select a new appointment, because there have been extensive misrepresentations that it would choose or select. The misrepresentations are made by those who do not understand the model, or opponents who fully understand it and its appeal to the ordinary Australian, and deliberately misstate its structure in order to ridicule it. A Constitutional Council will be bound by an effective constitutional convention to appoint or dismiss within two weeks of advice.42
The members of the Constitutional Council will be designated from those who have retired from non-political constitutional positions of Governor-General, Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, High Court or Federal Court judge and are not over 74. It accords with centuries of tradition throughout the world to have a high community responsibility, as important as appointing or dismissing the head of state on the advice of the Prime Minister, performed by a Council of Elders. It draws especially on the central principle of the oldest civilisation in this country - that of the Aboriginal people.
Governors will become heads of state of their state systems, appointed or dismissed on the advice of the Premier by a Constitutional Council under the state constitution. The monarchy will be entirely eliminated from our systems of government and Australia a republic.
The McGarvie model makes only the changes necessary to convert to a republic and leaves the constitutional system operating in the same way as has produced one of the world's best democracies. It is a myth that our constitutional conventions are only binding because we are a monarchy. They are made binding by the operation of the system. As the system will continue to operate in the same way, they will continue to bind.43
Australians with their instinctive constitutional wisdom would only be likely to vote for a republic based on a model such as the McGarvie model. It would keep our democracy as safe as the present system which they trust, and the more it is investigated and debated the clearer that would become.
Every referendum which has passed since 1910 has been supported by the overall majority of voters and a majority in every State. The obvious way of making a decision without risking the tensions created by forcing a dissenting State into a republic is to make a decision for the whole federation requiring the support of all States. This can be done by a referendum under which the systems of the Commonwealth and each State would together change to republican form if supported by an overall majority and the voting majority and Parliament of each State.44
I predict that the republic issue is likely to be resolved in a referendum of that type based on a model such as the McGarvie model, in about 2005.
Final Thoughts
I close with two thoughts, the first quoted from my book: 'No one has a contribution to the working and preservation of our democracy which is more important than that of our teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary education'.45 The second is that we should renew our faith in our democracy as a practical working system and our faith that Australian voters will only make referendum changes which preserve the strength and stability of our democracy and federation.
Endnotes
1 Richard E. McGarvie, Democracy: choosing Australia's republic, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1999, pp. 7-12, 46-8, 53-63, 79-80.4 Herbert V. Evatt, The King and His Dominion Governors: A Study of the Reserve Powers of the Crown in Great Britain and the Dominions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1936.
8 See for example the Newspoll survey conducted 6-12 September 1999 showing some 95 per cent agreeing (88 per cent strongly agreeing) that the head of state should be an Australian: The Weekend Australian, 9-10 October 1999, p. 8.
10 Ibid., pp. 124-135; R.E. McGarvie, 'The Timely Resolution of the Republic Issue', in Rick Brown (ed.), The NO Case Papers, Standard Publishing House, Sydney, 1999, pp. 82-5 and in Paper 20 on the Richard E. McGarvie http://www.chilli.net.au/~mcgarvie website; Richard McGarvie, 'A dangerous plan', The Age, 11 October 1999, p. 15 and website Paper 24; Speech of Author on Launch of Democracy, website Paper 30.
11 Democracy, pp. 145-7, 157-162, 189-190, 213-6: Constitutional Alteration (Establishment of Republic) 1999, Schedule 1, substituted s. 59; Schedule 3, Transitional provisions, ss. 7 and 8.
13 R.E. McGarvie, 'Courts and the Future: New Stump Jump Ploughs to Cultivate Old Paddocks' in The Australian Law Journal, vol. 73, 1999, pp. 418-420.
14 For example, only two major newspapers, The Australian Financial Review and The West Australian, editorially opposed the referendum proposal.
16 The paper was published substantially in the newspapers. The full paper, 'Our Democracy in Peril: The Safe Way to a Democratic Republic', is in (1997) 101 Victorian Bar News, p. 31 and in website Paper 1. See also Democracy, pp. 99-100.
18 Malcolm Fraser, 'A Republic with a Constitutional Council the Best Option', The Australian, 2 July 1997, p. 13; George Winterton, 'A reply to McGarvie', The Adelaide Review, November 1997, p. 16.
20 Australia, Constitutional Convention (1998), Report of the Constitutional Convention, Old Parliament House, Canberra, 2-13 February, 1998, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Barton ACT, 1998, vol. 4, p. 839.
21 Herald Sun, 4 November 1999, p. 4. The percentages are approximate. They total 106 because a small proportion interviewed were unable to give one main reason and gave more than one: information from Newspoll to the author.
22 Dick Morris, The New Prince, Renaissance Books, Los Angeles, 1999, ch. 20, 'The Myth of Media Manipulation'.
23 Andrew Bolt, 'We risk being a nation that has lost its head', Herald Sun, 8 November 1999, p. 10.
26 Republic Advisory Committee, An Australian Republic: The Options (Malcolm Turnbull, Chairman), Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1993, vol. 1, pp. 69-73, 81-2, 95-106.
27 Report of the Constitutional Convention 1998, vol. 1, pp. 123-130.
30 Ibid., pp. 10-11, 61-3, 88-91, 95.
37 Ibid., pp. 11-13, 92-5, 140-2, 143-4.
38 Open letter, 'Safe, workable and accountable', The Australian, 7 October 1999, p. 13.
39 Dick Morris, The New Prince, ch. 1, 'The Transition from Madisonian to Jeffersonian Democracy'.
40 Morgan Poll, Finding No. 2915, June 1996.
41 Report of the Constitutional Convention 1998, vol. 4, pp. 872-885.
42 Democracy, pp. 86-7, 217-224. The model is set out in the Report of the Constitutional Convention 1998, vol. 4, p. 838. Although the head of state retains the title, 'Governor-General' under the McGarvie model, the name 'President' had to be used in the description there, because of a decision of the Convention
43 Democracy, pp. 207-225, 232. 44 Ibid., ch. 9, 'Resolving the Republic Issue'. Ibid., p. 269.