CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIA
10. The Republic?
Chris Baker
From the Monash University National Centre for Australian Studies
course, developed with Open Learning Australia
In the tenth week of the course, Chris Baker examines opposition to the monarchy in
Australia. The republican nature of Australian life. 1975: a year of constitutional crisis.
The failure of the 1999 referendum and the future of the monarchy in Australia.
Chris Baker is a lecturer at the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia.
10.1 The first Australian republicans
10.2 20th Century republicans
10.3 The new republic and its enemies
10.4 The 1999 referendum
10.5 Further reading
10.1 The first Australian republicans
Republicanism has always been in the Australian background. Ever since the British
founded a convict colony in New South Wales in 1788 Australians had before them the
example of Britain's American colonies, who in 1776 declared their independence to
found the United States of America.
The most consistent republican in those years was the Presbyterian minister and veteran
trouble-maker John Dunmore Lang, who after returning from a visit to England gave a
well-attended series of lectures in 1850 entitled 'The Coming Event: or the United
Provinces of Australia'. In these talks, subsequently published as a pamphlet, he argued
for the federation of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), South Australia,
New Zealand, and the new colony of Victoria, together with two new provinces in what
later became Queensland. The new federation would flourish as a republic and, like the
Americans with their Monroe Doctrine, the Australians would extend their hegemony
over the neighbouring islands of the South-west Pacific: a dream of regional imperialism
which often formed part of nineteenth century republicanism. The response to Lang's
lectures emboldened him to form a society for promoting a federal republic, the
Australasian League. The league didn't last long, but Lang cherished his dream until his
death in 1878.
During the goldrushes of the 1850s republicanism surfaced from time to time in Victoria,
most notably in 1854 at Eureka Stockade, when the rebels raised the Southern Cross flag
and proclaimed the Republic of Victoria - surely the only republic to be named after the
reigning monarch. But although Peter Lalor called his goal 'independence' it was never
precisely defined, and in the upshot most of the Eureka rebels and their generation were
content to live out their lives in a self-governing colony with adult male suffrage and one
of the highest living standards in the world. Britain did not offer enough provocation to
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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stir strong reactions, and the British connection was too useful to the Australian colonies
as a source of migration, investment, and defence to discard in a hurry. Many of the
cartoons published in the Sydney Bulletin in the 1880s had a strong nationalistic
colouring, often with a republican tinge. With the wide-spread excitement at Australian
involvement in the Boer War at the turn of the century, many Australians came to see
their country as more directly linked to the fortunes of the British Empire, and earlier
republican sentiments were largely dissipated by the time of Federation.
10.2 Twentieth Century republicans
Not until the late 1950s would a Republican Party be formed to contest Australian
elections. That party gained little support from press or public during the 1960s, and
faded from view. In 1964 the eminent Australian writer Geoffrey Dutton stirred 'the
republican debate' with two articles published in Nation magazine. Apart from upsetting
a few conservatives and leading to a demand for his resignation from the exclusive
Adelaide Club, this literary foray had little long-term impact. The following year saw
another prominent Australian author, Donald Horne, take up the cudgels for an
Australian Republic in his widely read book, The Lucky Country.
Many traditions were challenged during the Vietnam War period and the era of the
Whitlam Labor Government, but for all the public protest and social ferment little was
heard of the 'Republic' issue. Many Australian eyes were focused on Asia, and on our
involvement with the 'American empire', rather than on our traditional British ties.
However, the spectacular sacking in 1975 of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the
Queen's Australian representative, Sir John Kerr, brought our British links back to centre
stage again. Read more about the events of November 11 1975. Many on the left of
Australian politics, and particularly those associated with the Trade Union movement,
were motivated to call for an Australian Republic so as to prevent future British Crown
'interference' in Australian parliamentary affairs. But when the conservative parties
responsible for Whitlam's dismissal were swept back to power it became obvious that the
traditional tie with the British Crown and the related republic question were still nonissues for most Australians. It was very difficult for older generations of Anglo-Celtic
Australians, who had grown up with the monarchy, to take republicanism seriously.
In the years following the Second World War, large numbers of non-British European
migrants had entered Australia, and they and their children would find it more difficult to
fit into the older, Anglo-Celtic thought-world. Initially, most of them were too involved
with battling for a living in a new and strange land, or too repulsed from political
involvement by the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or Eastern Europe, to enter into
public debate about the relevance of the British Crown. In so far as they desired to
become candidates for Australian citizenship, they would be required to swear allegiance
to the Queen.
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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10.3 The new republic and its enemies
By mid 1981 the Australian Labor Party had made the historic decision to incorporate the
word 'republic' into its official platform, and doubtless the dismissal of the Whitlam
Government by a representative of the Queen had contributed to that action. But there
were other important reasons to recommend such a fundamental change of position, and
particularly the ever-increasing importance of Asia and the declining role of Britain in
Australia's export and import trade; more especially since Britain was increasingly
locked into that exclusive trading club, the European Common Market. The change in
Labor's official attitude to an Australian republic, did not stop most Australians from
taking a keen interest in the television coverage of the marriage of Prince Charles to
Lady Diana Spencer a few days later. Some years before, Charles had come to know a
few Australians at first hand, while a student at Geelong Grammar School. Public
opinion polls, even in the late 1980s, did not indicate any real enthusiasm to cut
Australia's links with the Queen.
That situation changed dramatically during the early 1990s, with a 1992 poll indicating
that nearly three in five of the survey sample favoured a republican form of government.
The most significant aspect of this survey was that by 1992 almost half of the Liberal
voters polled supported the idea of an Australian Republic, suggesting that Australians
are no longer seriously divided on this issue along party political lines. From the middle
of 1991 the republican cause has been widely promoted through the Australian media by
members of the Australian Republican Movement, whose leadership is composed of
prominent intellectuals and professionals. This movement has not gone unchallenged by
representatives of an older constitutional order; Australian monarchists including Dame
Leonie Kramer replied to the challenge by forming Australians for Constitutional
Monarchy under the leadership of the former Chief Justice of Australia's High Court, Sir
Harry Gibbs.
The debate as to whether now is the time to cut our links with the monarchy and make
our independence obvious to all, is currently still alive. The main difference from earlier
eras is that although many conservative Australians still prefer to be citizens of a
constitutional monarchy, there are others on that side of politics who can no longer see
the point of maintaining traditional links with the British royal family, more particularly
given controversy over the lives of younger members of the House of Windsor.
Advocates of the republican cause also point out that with Britain's ever-greater
involvement in the European Community, the Queen can now at times be found
advocating causes that are directly contrary to Australia's national interests. At a political
level, the current advocacy of Australian republicanism has been closely tied to the
economic realities of our need to increase trade with Asia: an Asia that suspects our
European 'colonial' heritage.
Broader developments soon changed the context of discussion over Australia's form of
government. Britain's ever-greater involvement in the European community showed that
the Queen was obliged to advocate causes directly contrary to Australia's national
interest in matters of trade and defence planning. As Australia formed stronger links with
Asian nations, it became clear that some governments in the region tended to see the
country as retaining a colonial status in regard to Britain. The realities of Australia's need
to increase trade with Asian countries have stimulated the republican debate. Finally, by
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the early 1990s, opinion polls registered that a large proportion of Australian voters
favoured a change to a republican form of government. The Labor Party adopted the aim
of working towards a republic in 1981. A 1992 survey revealed that almost half of those
polled who described themselves as Liberal or non-Labor voters supported the idea of an
Australian Republic. In addition to the other factors influencing public opinion since
World War Two, the very structure of the population had changed. Immigrants who had
arrived in the post-war period from non-British countries, and their Australian-born
children, had begun to add their voices to the debate on the relevance of the British
Crown. Significantly, people about to reach voting age at the end of the century have no
memory of the heyday of Empire and the Australian adulation of the monarch which
persisted long after its decline.
10.4 The 1999 referendum
Almost one hundred years after Federation, a second Constitutional Convention was
convened. The 1998 convention utilised the procedures the advocates of federation had
adopted at a meeting in the border-town of Corowa in 1893 to overcome the last
objections of the various colonial governments to union. The 'Corowa Plan' was that each
colonial parliament should pass an Act allowing for a convention to devise an Australian
Federal Constitution, and that the delegates to the convention be elected directly by the
people, not appointed by the colonial legislatures. The new constitution, written by the
convention, would then be submitted to the voters by means of a nation-wide
referendum.
The delegates to the 1998 Constitutional Convention were selected in two ways. Half
were elected directly by the public, and half were appointed on the recommendation of
the government. As discussions proceeded, it became clear that the central question for
an Australian republican government concerned the manner in which the head of state
would be chosen, and the powers that office would command. The Convention resolved
that the head of state, to be known as the president, would be chosen by a two-thirds
majority of the Federal Parliament. The controversial 'reserve powers' of the head of state
were not to be altered according to this model. Following the precedent set 105 years
before, the question of whether Australia would become a republic or retain its links to
the British constitutional monarchy was to be put to the electorate in a referendum.
The referendum to allow the constitutional changes necessary for Australia to become a
republic was held on 6 November 1999. Australians voted against a republican form of
government. The model for the choice of the president was that decided by the 1998
Constitutional Convention. The wording of the referendum question to be answered 'Yes'
or 'No', was to allow for 'A PROPOSED LAW: 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 a two-thirds majority of the members of the
Commonwealth Parliament'. Read the Australian Electoral Commission's report on the
1999 referendumThe first constitutional referendum failed in 1898, but succeeded one year later. As we
have seen, government-initiated referendums have been a feature of Australian
democracy since Federation, and a widespread belief that the Australian electorate
invariably refuses to cast `Yes' votes in referendums is unfounded. Eight of the forty-four
referendums conducted this century have been carried. Australians voted against the
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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constitutional changes, but the government retains the power to put the issue to the
electorate again in the future, and to rework the wording of the question.
Some questions you might like to investigate are:
• What are the arguments for leaving the Constitution the same?
• What consequences would flow from the various ways suggested for the selection
of the president?
• How would the relations between Federal and State governments, the powers of the
Courts and Parliament, the purview of local government, be changed under the
various suggested amendments to the Constitution?
• Is gender a useful concept for the analysis of attitudes to constitutional change? Is
age group?
• How would a republican constitution affect questions such as recognition of native
title and redress of past wrongs for indigenous people?
The debate over whether Australia should become a republic brings together questions
not only about our relations with Britain and the Asian region, but the constitutional
arrangements that we have operated under since 1901. It also dovetails with the
increasing desire of Aboriginal Australians for recognition of their prior occupation of
this country. Land ownership, the role of State and Federal governments, the relative
power of the Courts and Parliament - these are just a few of the issues that will provoke
debate in the opening years of the twenty first century.
10.5 Further reading
The Australian Republican Movement
http://www.republic.org.au/
Australians for Constitutional Monarchy
http://www.norepublic.com.au/
The Australian Monarchist League
http://www.monarchist.org.au/
An Australian Republic Unplugged
http://www.statusquo.org/
1999 Referendum
Republic Debate Guide
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Online
http://www.abc.net.au/referendum99
The Constitutional Convention 1998
Australian Parliament, Hansard
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/conv/hancon.htm
Constitutional issues
WebLaw Constitutional Law Resources
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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Subject gateway to Australian Legal Resources
http://www.weblaw.edu.au/weblaw
Searchable Constitution Act
Scaleplus, Attorney-General’s Department, Commonwealth Government
http://scaletext.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/641/top.htm
Australia Act 1986
Scaleplus, Attorney-General’s Department, Commonwealth Government
http://scaletext.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/973/top.htm
Australian Federation Full Text Database
University of Sydney, New South Wales
http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/oztexts/fed.html
Republic Project
Gilbert & Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales
http://www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/republic-project.asp
Essays and commentary
Aspects of the Commonwealth Constitution by Chief Justice Murray Gleeson
ABC Radio National, Boyer Lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyers/stories/s219789.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyers/stories/s222137.htm
The Keystone of the Federal Arch, the High Court by Chief Justice Murray Gleeson
ABC Radio National, Boyer Lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyers/stories/s225028.htm
The Judiciary by Chief Justice Murray Gleeson
ABC Radio National, Boyer Lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyers/stories/s227020.htm
Australia’s constitutional identity: a conundrum for the 21st century? By Helen Irving
ABC Radio National, The Barton Lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/sunspec/stories/s277197.htm
Office of the Governor General
ABC Radio National, The Law Report
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s490364.htm
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