FEDERATION'S LESSONS FOR RESTARTING THE STALLED MOVE TO RESOLVE THE REPUBLIC ISSUE

Speech made in launching John Lahey's book, The Faces of Federation: An Illustrated History, Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Melbourne, 29 August 2000. Published as a book review, 'The Birth of a Nation', in Tirra Lirra, vol. 11, No. 1, Spring 2000, p.26.

John Lahey's Faces of Federation gives us a splendid history of the people who made our federation and Australia a nation.  After a visit here Mark Twain wrote in 1897, "Australian history is almost always picturesque. It is full of surprises and adventures and incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened!" Alfred Deakin, who had been at the centre of things, tells us the actual accomplishment of federation "must always appear to have been secured by a series of miracles".  This book introduces us to the individuals who achieved that.  We meet them in their photographs and see the spectacles of the great federation occasions.  We absorb the atmosphere of the time and get to know our founding fathers.  John Lahey's story of the miracles would satisfy Mark Twain.  It is a great read.

The first part, "The Birth of a Nation", overviews the persuasions and processes that led to federation.  The second, "The A-Z of Federation", walks us along an alphabetical track to meet the main characters and visit the main events.

A great Australian, Sir Zelman Cowen, wrote the foreword.  He provides links with the federal constitution adopted a century ago.  He wrote the life of Sir Isaac Isaacs, one of the founding fathers and the first Australian to be Governor-General, who Lahey describes as "amongst the most scholarly, gifted and radical figures in Australian life".  Following the major malfunction of our constitutional system in 1975, produced by what I have called "a tragedy of errors" by all concerned, Sir Zelman and Lady Cowen, as Governor-General and wife, had a calming influence that healed many of the wounds.

The book shows that in constitutional change Australia a century ago was a clever country.  Lahey comments that sadly there is a modern tendency to regard the delegates to the constitutional conventions as hacks or opportunists but he reminds us that most were amongst the cleverest men of their day with minds as sharp as razors.  They "knew a great deal about the world, about books and about the fact that politics was the art of the possible".  Except for one, they were politicians.  They were cautious because they were knowledgeable.  Nobody in Australia knew the pitfalls better than they.

They used their talents in a variety of ways.  At the 1891 convention, Griffith "led it, drove it, taught it and inspired it.  He cleared a path through a jungle".  Barton, leader of the 1897-8 convention "was untiring in his work, day and night, of guiding his group of difficult men to eventual success".  On one of the main sticking points, the power of the Senate over money bills, Playford possibly saved the federation when he calmly explained the compact followed in South Australia.  It was adopted and became known as the 1891 compromise.  We learn that, "Deakin's contributions to convention debates were outstanding, but he saw his main value as a persuader and smoother of difficulties outside the convention chamber; he got on well with people and he used words in a way which compelled them to listen".  We have heard little about Peacock's contribution of encouragement, but Lahey tells us he was immensely popular with his colleagues and the public, and brilliant in getting on with everyone around him.  He mingled, cemented friendships and probably uttered more "hear hears" than anyone during the debates.  He had the most famous laugh in Victoria and was nicknamed Kookaburra.

Federation was achieved by a lot of hard work and careful thought over many, often frustrating, years.  There were many conflicting interests to be reconciled and many compromises.  No one got all they wanted.  But the compromises were always subject to the overriding consideration of the interest of future generations of Australians.  Deakin said, "We should seek to erect a constitutional edifice which shall be a guarantee of liberty and union for all time to come, to the whole people of this continent and the adjacent islands".  Those last words remind us that if things had gone differently the federation could have included states of New Zealand and Fiji.

Does this history of Australians' achievement of federation a century ago have lessons for Australians today?  It certainly does.

The first move towards federation stalled.  None of the colonial parliaments passed legislation that would enable the federal constitution drafted by the 1891 convention to be adopted.  Then a process was developed that demonstrated that in Australian democracy a basic constitutional issue has to be resolved in a constitutional way.  That requires the resources of parliaments, governments and people all to be used in working out the proposal ultimately put to referendum.

It began in 1893 at a conference in Corowa organised by federation supporters.  After much inconclusive talk a proposal for a practical process to resolve the federation issue was put and carried.  The conference decided each colonial parliament should pass an act providing for the election of representatives to a second constitutional convention to consider and adopt a bill for a federal constitution, to be put before the people by referendum.  That decision, made by a people's conference, would have brought the people into the process at the stage of electing delegates to the convention but it lacked the mechanisms to introduce the positive input from parliaments and governments that would give it political momentum.

That momentum came when the Premiers representing their governments met in conference at Hobart in 1895.  John Lahey emphasises that "there was an important change: politicians were brought into the process".  The premiers decided to bring in the parliaments.  When the convention had drafted its bill it was to go to each colonial parliament which could propose amendments.  Then the convention would reconvene, accept or reject those amendments and the resulting bill would go to referendum.  Lahey says, "The Hobart conference and its outcome were like the peak of a mountain.  Once the premiers had been there and seen the view - or the vision - there was no going back".  The enthusiasm of Kingston, the radical South Australian premier, one of the giants of the federation story, personifies that.  When the conference decided that uniform enabling referendum bills be passed in each colony, he worked all night drafting the bill and had it ready for next day's meeting.  That premiers conference was the activating agency that powered the move to federation.

The move to resolve the issue whether Australia become a republic has stalled, as federation had in 1893.  Many support and many oppose becoming a republic and I do not take sides.  However no one can deny that the constitutional health of this country demands an early resolution of the issue.  This basic constitutional issue will be resolved only by a referendum vote upon a proposal which can genuinely be presented so as to catch the public imagination and vision, and where people can vote free of partisan political impulse and secure in the knowledge that whichever way the vote goes our democracy and federation will be safe for future generations.  The package rejected in last year's referendum satisfied none of those requirements and resolved nothing but its own unsuitability.

We now have a unique opportunity to make a fresh start and must use it while it lasts.  For the time no political party is promoting a particular model in a partisan way that repels supporters of other parties and destines the model to referendum death.  Without needing to agree whether we should be a republic or a monarchy, all political parties share an interest in developing a practical process for the early resolution of the issue in a way that will leave our democracy and federation strong.

The most acceptable way for Australia to become a republic is also one which could catch public imagination and vision.  It could genuinely be presented as finally completing Australia's two centuries of evolution by ending the federation's reliance on whoever is monarch of the former colonial power to be its head of state and appoint or dismiss the governor-general and governors as advised by the prime minister or state premier.  That would be a highly symbolic change giving Australia for the first time complete constitutional self-sufficiency and a formal autonomy to match our long-existing independence as a nation.  It was a monumental mistake to forsake the spirit of a century-old federation, disregard the states and concentrate only on the commonwealth system.  Even if the referendum had passed, most of the federation - all of the states - would still have been monarchies.  Instead of being offered the symbolic final change that could have inspired support, Australians were offered a mixture of novel and doubtful constitutional devices changing only the commonwealth part to a republic.  Additionally, the referendum package carried high risk of weakening the federation by forcing on dissenting states a republican commonwealth system they did not trust with their democracy, and then compelling them by circumstance and ridicule to change resentfully to republics at state level.

A fresh start must initiate development of a process that will resolve the republic issue in a constitutional way.  So far the contribution of members of governments and parliaments with their experience and feel for the constitutional system, the realities of politics and the electorate, has been miniscule.  That has shown.

As in 1895, the obvious activating agency is a meeting of the heads of government, the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers.  Parliaments would best be brought in by an agreement to set up an all-party committee within the Commonwealth Parliament, including representatives from the state and territory parliaments.  It would investigate and report on two questions.  Which republic model would best preserve the strength of our democracy?  What method of deciding the republic issue would least strain the federation?

Probably the report would recommend a process leaving it to each parliament to legislate for the holding of a plebiscite upon the model for that system preferred by its voters.  While the same model would probably be preferred by the majority in each system there is no constitutional requirement for uniform models.

Then a bill would be drafted, passed by the Commonwealth Parliament and put to a referendum in which Australian voters would vote yes or no to whether the whole federation should change to a republic.  If the referendum proposal received the support of the overall majority of voters and of the voting majority and parliament of each state, the whole federation would become republican at the same time with each system changing to the republic model its voters had endorsed in the plebiscite.  If that support were not received nothing would change.  The vote, whichever way it went, would resolve the republic issue.  The detail of that process is given in my book, Democracy: choosing Australia's republic and on my website.

This practical way to resolve the republic issue seems complex until compared with the process that achieved federation.  We must remember Griffith's words, "It is no use for hon. members to want federation while they refuse to accept the means necessary to obtain it".

John Lahey's book, written in the clear, crisp and attractive words of an experienced journalist, brings us an important part of our history from which we can take guidance on a pressing current issue.  It reminds us that community understanding of constitutional change depends greatly on quality journalists.  They can discern and clearly explain the realities of changes, and they have the standing and integrity to say what they believe regardless of what is currently popular.

I congratulate John Lahey, and the publisher of this handsome book, The Royal Historical Society of Victoria.  I am honored to launch Faces of Federation: An Illustrated History.