by John Howard
It was also legitimate to argue, as I did, that the president in the proposed republic would have less security of tenure than does the Governor-General. Under the ARM’s proposal, the president could be summarily dismissed by the prime minister by written notice at any time without reason or appeal. The requirement that the House of Representatives approve the dismissal added little to the security of tenure of the putative president. No government party would repudiate their own prime minister’s actions. Even if it did, that would not reinstate the president. The removal would have been final and absolute.
No Australian Governor-General has been dismissed from office. Any such action by a future prime minister would almost certainly be for a political reason and therefore highly controversial. It would be seen to directly involve the monarch in a political dispute, which would act as a constraint on any prime minister because legally only the monarch can revoke a Governor-General’s appointment. Although the monarch would be bound to accept her prime minister’s advice, the very requirement of such advice, together with the formal consideration by her and the time taken, however short this might be, could act as a valuable additional check against completely arbitrary removal.
Malcolm Turnbull and his followers did the deal with the direct-election republicans because they needed their votes. After the event, however, some of them sought to shift the blame to me and other supporters of the status quo.
In the end, 89 out of 152 delegates voted for a republic in principle. An overwhelming majority of delegates voted in support of a recommendation to me, as Prime Minister, that I put the ARM’s hybrid model for a republic to a referendum.
There was much elation from republicans, such as Neville Wran, Janet Holmes à Court and Malcolm Turnbull, at the end of the convention when I committed the Government to holding a referendum on that hybrid republican model. They were ecstatic. They felt that they had been given the opportunity to win a republic from the Australian people. It was obvious from their reaction that they believed that I had been fair to them, and they had gained from the convention all that they might have expected.
I felt when the convention ended that I had come to terms with the republican issue. It was always going to be a difficult one for me because of the stance I had taken. It suited many agendas to typecast me as too conservative and out of touch. I was not going to opportunistically change my position. Yet I knew that there were growing numbers of republicans, at that stage, within the Liberal Party.
My embracing a course of action which enabled the Australian people to vote on the issue, notwithstanding my own personal opposition to a republic, had enabled me to secure some moral high ground. People knew that I was against a republic and would not through expediency change my position. They also recognised that, despite this, I had laid out a pathway for the public to vote for a republic.
I left the convention in very positive spirits. In my closing speech I said:
His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne said God had had a pretty good convention. Without in any way wishing to belittle the Almighty’s success, I think Australia has had an even better one. This convention has demonstrated the truth of a proposition that I have always held very dear, and that is that the things that unite us as Australians are greater than the things that divide us.
I hope that I captured the mood of all delegates by going on to say:
What has struck me more than anything else about this convention and the whole debate is the integrity of the Australianism that has been expressed by all the delegates. I will go away from the convention an even more idealistic Australian, one with an even greater passion to allow our democracy to flourish. We will have a vote next year. The Australian people will decide the outcome of that and we will all accept the verdict of the Australian people with grace and goodwill — all of us, whatever the result may be.
On reflection, I was being overly optimistic about the willingness of all participants to accept, with grace, the outcome of the referendum. Certainly the bitterness of many of the republicans at the result of the referendum did not match the expectations I had expressed of them in February 1998.
My good friend Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister of Canada, followed our republican debate intensely. A French Canadian from Quebec, Chrétien knew that if Australia went republican he would have to put the issue on the agenda in Canada. He had no wish to do this, because such a debate in Canada would also open up the secessionist issue for Quebec, and the whole relationship between the Central and Provincial governments in Canada. It was a can of worms for Chrétien. He was mightily relieved when the republic went down in Australia.
As it happened, the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) took place in Durban, South Africa, exactly one week after the republican vote in Australia. At the traditional Queen’s reception on the first night of the conference, Jean Chrétien warmly thanked me for the result of the referendum in Australia. With a well-executed bow, he informed the Queen, ‘Your loyal Australian Prime Minister has saved the monarchy in Australia. He has also done me a very good turn.’ The Queen of Canada, who had known Chrétien for a long time, understood precisely what he was alluding to and was amused by her Canadian Prime Minister’s gesture.
As well as resolving to support the compromise ARM republican model, the constitutional convention also recommended that a new preamble be inserted into the Constitution, in place of the very short one which has been there since Federation.
I did not make a specific reference to this, and therefore no government commitment was given when I closed the convention and undertook to present the issue of a republic to the people. A reason for this was that much of the debate about the proposed wording of a new preamble proceeded on the assumption that Australia would become a republic.
A new preamble would be a significant gesture towards reconciliation, and I warmed to the idea of having a preamble put to the Australian people at the same time as the republican question. The Labor Party and the republicans were quite divided on the issue of a preamble. They worried that it would add a layer of complexity to the republican question, despite the fact that the convention had come out strongly in favour of a new preamble.
In February 1999, the government joint party room endorsed proposals for a republican referendum in November of that year as well as a separate proposal in relation to a preamble. The principles to be embodied in the preamble included not only recognition of prior Indigenous occupancy of the Australian landmass, but also gender equality, references to God, democracy and also a stipulation that the preamble would not be in any way justiciable.
The poet Les Murray drafted the first rendition, which famously included a reference to mateship, and that was released for public comment on 23 March 1999. There was an avalanche of criticism of the first draft. The Labor Party came out wholeheartedly against the proposed preamble, as did Malcolm Turnbull on behalf of the ARM. They thought that a separate debate on a preamble would weaken support for a republic. At one stage it looked as if the preamble would not get through parliament.
After intense negotiation, I secured the support of the Australian Democrats for a revised preamble. Regrettably, a price I paid for their support was the exclusion of any reference to mateship. The Democrats thought that it was too blokey; I had to live with that burst of political correctness. The preamble contained a proper reference to the Indigenous peoples of our country: ‘Honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation’s first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for the ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country.’
The Labor Party opposed a new preamble including these words. This demonstrated yet again the arrogant proprietorial approach the Labor Party and many of its fellow travellers on Indigenous issues took towards matters concerning reconciliation. Unless one agreed with their version of reconciliation, one was not a believer in reconciliation.
During the referendum campaign, the republicans rel
ied heavily on a celebrity roll-out. At carefully managed intervals, prominent Australians would declare themselves as republicans. These included two former chief justices of the High Court, Sir Anthony Mason and Sir Gerard Brennan. A most important conversion was announced by Sir Zelman Cowen, a former Governor-General, who had previously declared himself against change.
Perhaps the most spectacular conversion was that of Malcolm Fraser. His joint appearance with Gough Whitlam, in which they both declared that ‘it’s time’ for a republic, turned votes away from the republican cause. A number of Liberals who might otherwise have been sympathetic to change found great objection in this joint appearance. In the cold light of day, and after the defeat of the referendum proposal, many republicans would probably have concluded that the celebrity roll-out was a big mistake. It had served to highlight the apparently elitist nature of their campaign. I am not sure that that is what some monarchists felt at the time. They themselves were anxious to find individuals who might declare in favour of the status quo.
Andrew Robb, later a minister in my Government, organised conservative academic and business figures, such as Charles Goode, Greg Craven and Donald McGauchie, into a group called Conservatives for an Australian Head of State. This group argued that Australians should vote in favour of the model proposed, because if the referendum were defeated, a republican alternative of the future would be more radical than that on offer at the referendum. They strongly opposed the direct-election option.
There was considerable debate about the precise form of the question to be put on the republic. The final wording decided upon by the Government was as follows: ‘An Act to alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a Republic with the Queen and Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed by two thirds majority of the Members of the Commonwealth Parliament.’
I was accused of pro-monarchist manipulation over this wording. Given that it reflected exactly what was being proposed, that was nonsensical. I thought that the prize for attempted manipulation was well and truly won by Andrew Robb, who had proposed the question read as follows: ‘A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution to provide for an Australian Citizen, chosen by a two thirds majority of a joint sitting of the Federal Parliament to replace the British monarch as Australia’s Head of State.’ The bill when first introduced had framed the question thus: ‘A Bill for an Act to alter The Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with a President chosen by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament.’ The only real change was to make it clear that the president would replace the Queen and Governor-General. That was fair enough. The final version largely echoed the recommendation of an all-party committee and, if anything, it was slightly more favourable to the republican cause than the first version.
As referendum day approached, many in the constitutional monarchy corner made common cause with the more strident direct-election republicans. Both groups wanted the referendum to go down. The latter group still wanted a republic, but a different and more radical kind of republic. This posed a dilemma for a number of my colleagues. They wanted to defeat the republic, but in the process were tempted to embrace arguments that were both trite and added to latent public contempt for politicians as a group. The slogan ‘Say no to the politicians’ republic’ carried with it a quite explicit claim that politicians should not be entrusted with the task of choosing Australia’s Head of State.
Some of my senior and pro-monarchist colleagues, such as Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott, either embraced this rhetoric or were prepared to tolerate its use by their comrades-in-arms, such was their determination to defeat the republic.
For my part I maintained an orthodox pro-monarchist position. From the outset I said I would not engage in regular commentary as I did not wish to exacerbate differences within the Coalition by too frequently joining the debate. I always knew that as the referendum approached I would become more vocal.
On 27 October 1999 I released my detailed statement. It outlined why I would vote no to the republic and also why I supported the proposed preamble. The statement took the form of a letter to my constituents. It was a full-blooded defence of the current constitutional arrangements.
In arguing for the status quo I asserted that although the monarch was the Queen of Australia under our current constitution, the Governor-General was effectively Australia’s Head of State and that the only constitutional duty performed by the Queen related to the appointment of the Governor-General, which must be done on the recommendation of the prime minister.
I referred to the circumstances of 1975 and drew attention to the response on behalf of the Queen to the speaker’s letter conveying the vote of no confidence in the caretaker Fraser Government. The private secretary said, inter alia, ‘… the Queen has no part in the decisions which the Governor-General must take in accordance with the Constitution … it would not be proper for her to intervene in person in matters which are so clearly placed within the jurisdiction of the Governor-General by the Constitution Act’.4
I also drew on work commissioned by the Hawke Government. A 1988 report of the Hawke Government’s Constitutional Commission, of which Gough Whitlam was a member, found that ‘Australia had achieved full independence as a sovereign state of the world’ sometime between 1926 and the end of World War II and was so recognised by the world community.5
I made it clear that I was even more strongly opposed to a directly elected president than the model to be decided upon at the referendum. My position was one of support for the current constitutional arrangement. I did not want a republic and I would vote against it. In my mind any form of republic was inferior to the current arrangement.
A directly elected president would inevitably open up an alternative power centre within the Australian political structure. The active and adversarial character of Australian politics would mean that if this nation was to have an elected president, that person would ‘ineluctably’ assume a political persona independent of that of the prime minister. He or she would claim a separate mandate, and the very character of our constitutional arrangements would be fundamentally altered.
In the week leading up to the vote there was extensive consultation between my office and Sir Robin Janvrin, the Queen’s private secretary. Janvrin and my chief of staff, Arthur Sinodinos, had to prepare for the various possible eventualities. The Queen was obviously following the debate and awaiting the outcome with great interest.
She understood the historic nature of what was occurring in Australia. I knew of her deep affection for this country and her anxiety always to do the right thing. She had been impeccable in her public comments and her demeanour, and had always made it plain that Australia’s constitutional future and, therefore, its association with the monarchy, was a matter exclusively for the Australian people. That had also been the consistent position of the British Government. This was a matter for Australia and something to be resolved by Australians. That did not mean that it was not being followed keenly in Britain, given the deep and abiding ties between the two nations.
There were three possible outcomes. The first, of course, was the reaction of Her Majesty if the Australian public voted for a republic. The second was the direct alternative, where the Australian people voted to retain the constitutional monarchy. The third possible outcome was an ambiguous result, whereby a majority of the Australian population voted for a republic, but it failed to secure a majority vote in four out of the six states. The Australian Constitution requires a so-called double majority in order to amend its provisions — a majority of votes and a majority of states.
Draft statements for Her Majesty to issue were prepared to cover all three eventualities. Arthur Sinodinos and the official secretary canvassed the possibility that in the event of the referendum resulting in the adoption of a republic, Her Majesty may wish to make a televised address to the Australian people, honouring the past association and wishing Australians well in
the years ahead.
Whatever the outcome, I knew, and so did Buckingham Palace, that this was an important moment in Australia’s history.
For several years opinion polls had shown a marked, if not overwhelming, majority for a republic. As the referendum date drew closer, this began to change. From a high approval rate for the republic, in February 1999, the gap began to narrow so that by October of 1999, only a few weeks before the vote, the yes vote fell behind in the published opinion polls. Inevitably this produced more frenetic campaigning from republicans.
On referendum day I was reasonably hopeful of the result that I wanted. Nonetheless, the avalanche of support from News Limited and, to only a slightly lesser degree, the Fairfax papers, meant that any outcome seemed feasible. I visited polling booths in my electorate, simply to put in an appearance and to say hello to a wide range of Liberals and their friends. There were plenty of my own campaign workers manning booths for the constitutional monarchy. There were also some handing out how-to-vote-yes leaflets. They were all treated in the same fashion. There was a lot of political life ahead of me after this referendum, and the last thing I wanted was any lasting animosity within the Liberal camp.
I spent referendum night at Kirribilli House. It was apparent very early in the evening, as the first votes came in, that the republic would not be successful. The result of the referendum was a national vote of 45.1 per cent in favour of a republic and 54.9 per cent against the proposition. It was the 13th-lowest yes vote in a referendum out of the 44 questions asked in referenda since Federation. No state yielded a majority in favour of a republic. Only the ACT produced a majority in favour of change.