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A Super-Simple Proposal - and why it will never fly

Whenever republicans propose a specific method of selecting the Head of State, the "anti-republicans" attack it for being overly complex, for changing the power relationships, for giving too much power to politicians, for costing too much, and basically any other reason they can think of, whether or not it makes sense.

Why, then, don't we look at the obvious possibility - the simplest possible change, which simply removes the Queen from our Constitution and changes nothing else. We can do this because the monarch does absolutely nothing anyway; in fact the anti-republicans make a virtue of the fact that she has absolutely no power. Her only function is to appoint or dismiss the Governor-General on the Prime Minister's recommendation, and not even the most ardent monarchists can pretend that she will ever do more than this.

Some monarchists would have us believe there is a difference between the current arrangements and direct appointment by the Prime Minister, and that the presence of the monarch in the equation somehow diffuses political power. Such speculation belongs to the field of superstition rather than constitutional law. Decades ago, things may have been different, when many people sincerely believed that, in an extreme situation, the monarch may have acted to defend the people's freedoms. Nowadays such scenarios are out of the question.

Therefore it is possible to have a republic in which nothing has changed at all, except in the symbolic sense that we unambiguously have an Australian Head of State. The ARM and Tony Abbott should be happy. But thoughtful observers would surely wonder about the wisdom of a system that concentrates power in the hands of two people, each of whom can appoint or dismiss the other. The more we think about such an arrangement, the sillier and more dangerous it appears to be. It's not surprising that nobody has seriously suggested this obvious solution to the problem of choosing our Head of State.
(Stop press, 2 December: It now seems that Mike Evans - see below - is actually suggesting this solution, but dressing it up with his "Constitutional Council" which, he now says, would appoint or dismiss the Head of State on the advice of the Prime Minister. I, and many others, had assumed that this Council would actually have the power to appoint or dismiss.)

If it is ridiculous for the Prime Minister to appoint the Head of State in a republic, is it any less ridiculous for the Prime Minister to appoint the Head of State in a monarchy?

A "Second-best" Proposal - which is "best" in some ways.

There are essentially three methods for choosing a President: election by the people, selection by members of Parliament, and selection by another body such as the "Constitutional Council" proposed by Mike Evans and former Victorian Governor McGarvie. Although it is highly elitist in its current form - the President would be appointed by an appointed body - its effect would probably be to keep us closer to the way the existing system is supposed to operate, than either of the alternatives.

This proposal may contain the seeds of a sensible compromise. The essential elements would be

1. Make the Constitutional Council a democratically-elected body, with safeguards to try to prevent it being politicised by the parties.
2. Give the Council an important job as the overseers of the Constitution, with the responsibility to coordinate public-awareness programs and the power to put proposed amendments to the people by referendum. This is a task currently entrusted to the Parliament, which would seem to have failed dismally in formulating worthwhile proposals for constitutional reform.

Some specific possibilities:

• The Council to consist of six members, elected for six years in a similar manner to Senators, but from an Australia-wide electorate (three members elected every three years).
• A candidate for Council must not be a member of a political party, and must not have been a member of Parliament for at least 5 years.
• Nomination: A former Governor-General, Governor or President may nominate himself/herself; others may be nominated by 10% of MP's or 1% of electors.
• The President is appointed or, if necessary, dismissed by a majority vote of the Council, though one would expect that consensus would normally be achieved. The Council fills the role of the monarch in our existing system, but need not act on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

Such a system, while not as democratic as full popular election, would retain the best aspects of our present system while enhancing its checks and balances, with greater diffusion of political power.

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Published by Ross Garrad, 2 December 1997