Media Release, 16 May 1997, for Keith Jones Memorial OrationA woman should be a member of the Constitutional Council to appoint the Governor-General in the system I propose if we go to a republic, said Mr. Richard McGarvie, former Governor of Victoria.
He was outlining the McGarvie proposal that in a republic a Council of three eminent Australians should do the one thing the Queen now does — appoint or dismiss the Governor-General. Council members would be selected automatically by constitutional formula. No one will select them, he said. The Constitution will state in order the categories of retired Governors-General, State Governors, High Court Chief Justices, High Court Judges, Federal Court Chief Justices and Federal Court Judges. First places will go to retired Governors-General aged from 65 to 79 with priority to the most recently retired. Any place still vacant would go on the same basis to retired State Governors and so on down the line until all places are filled.
He said the formula at present is not likely to put a woman on the Council and there should be at least one from the female half of the community. He proposes that for thirty years, if the formula does not put a woman on the Council it go right down the line and make the woman with highest priority the third member. In thirty years there will be many women in the categories and the temporary provision will not be needed, he said.
He emphasised that his proposal for the republican equivalent of the present system does not add anything to our constitutional structures or processes. The Constitutional Council will exactly substitute for what the Queen does and do no more and no less than she does now. Like the Queen, it will have no decision-making power. It will always appoint or dismiss a Governor-General as advised by the Prime Minister.
His republican equivalent system will preserve and safeguard our democracy because it will continue to work in precisely the same way as our present system does, he said. It will continue the present sanction of dismissal for any Governor-General, who, in exercising the great powers of the position, failed to follow the convention of acting as elected Ministers advise. He said that under the models for a republican President elected by Parliament or the whole electorate and dismissible only by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament, it would usually be impossible to dismiss a President who was defying the convention. When the sanction disappeared so would the binding convention and so would our democracy, he added.
He said the Constitutional Council members will be bound by a separate convention stated in the Constitution, to appoint or dismiss as advised by the Prime Minister. The convention would not be enforceable by the courts. The Constitution would provide its own sanction. The Prime Minister could choose to give them written advice to appoint or dismiss within fourteen days. Unless they did so or the Prime Minister withdrew the advice they would automatically be dismissed from the Council. Mr. McGarvie explained that Council members would be anxious to avoid the humiliation and loss of reputation that would bring them.