AND THE CONSTITUTION

by Tony Abbott. M.P.

Two principles guide the Liberal Party's approach to Constitutional questions: We will support whatever is in Australia's interests and we will accept whatever the Australian people decide they want.

It's quite appropriate - as Australia's 100th birthday looms - to ponder our institutions and our sense of direction. Our Constitution has served us well but is showing a few signs of age. Our Constitutional Founders could hardly have anticipated the growth of Federal power nor the way United Nations committees now sit in judgment on Australian law thanks to the Federal Government's treaty making activities.

That's why the Liberal Party has proposed a democratic "Peoples' Convention" to be held in 1997, the centenary of the Adelaide Convention which all-but-finalised the drafting of our Constitution. Australia is one of the very few countries in the world whose Constitution was drafted by democratically-elected conventions and approved by the people voting in a series of plebiscites. In this respect, our Constitution is superior to the US Constitution and most of the Constitutions of the various French Republics (which were never voted upon by all the people).

It's important to preserve the democratic heart of our Constitution. If any changes are to be made, they must be made by the people - and not the Prime Minister.

So far, the big problem with the Constitutional debate is that it's driven entirely from the top. It was a group of Labor Party politicians who declared in June 1991 that a republic by 2001 was Government policy. It was the Prime Minister who first made republicanism a front page story with his attacks on the Flag and denunciations of the British early in 1992. Notwithstanding a great deal of media hype plus the involvement of high-profile glitteratti, the Australian Republican Movement still claims only 4000 members - while its rival, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, has nearly 15,000 signed-up supporters.

The Liberal Party is neither pro nor anti-republic - simply pro- Australia. If becoming a republic would be good for Australia, the Liberal Party would join the ARM immediately. The republicans' problem is not the Liberal Party's refusal to join the crusade - but their inability to offer any convincing reason why we should.

Of course, Australia is not "British" and hasn't been for many years. Although Britain remains a strong ally, important trading partner, major source of migrants and powerful cultural influence, the acceptability of sharing a Monarch can no longer be taken for granted. Questioning the Monarchy's relevance can be healthy. Leaping from dissatisfaction with what we have to support for a radically different system of Government is dangerous.

To justify change, supporters of a republic must do more than successfully question aspects of our existing system of Government - they must demonstrate that there is an alternative that works. It's not enough for supporters of a republic to convince themselves that the Monarchy is old hat - they must be satisfied that another system would work better. Not only do the advocates of change have to demonstrate that change would be an improvement - they must show that the improvement would justify the cost of change.

I am yet to be convinced that a republic is preferable to Australia's existing Constitutional arrangements. And I believe that changing to a republic at this time would be far more trouble than it's worth.

Becoming a republic would needlessly divide Australians at a time when we have quite enough dividing us already. The only poll which shows a large majority in favour of a republic is Saulwick - which gives respondents three options (rather than the two they'd face in any referendum) and which, in any event, has not shown significant growth in republican support over the past 18 months.

The other major polls all show support for a republic more-or- less matched by opposition. In 1988 - the last time Australians tried Constitutional change - 80 per cent support for some proposals three months before a vote changed to massive opposition in the course of a referendum campaign and there is no reason to think support for a republic would prove any more hardy.

Polls showing roughly 50 per cent support for a republic only measure backing for the republican idea - and won't necessarily translate into endorsement of any particular type of republic. For instance those who want to abolish the States may very well oppose a "minimalist" republic, while those who want very little change may oppose a US-style republic.

Even convinced republicans must be daunted by the sheer scale of the required change. Draft republican Constitutions prepared by prominent republicans Malcolm Turnbull and George Winterton (which go through our existing Constitution line-by-line making the least changes necessary to bring about a republic) show that more than half the clauses in our existing Constitution will need to change. Everyone knows the difficulty of persuading a majority of people in a majority of States to back referendum proposals - only eight proposals have succeeded from 40 attempts - and becoming a republic dwarfs all previous attempts at change.

Become a republic requires a referendum, a referendum requires the passage of legislation through Federal Parliament, and the passage of legislation requires the support of the Prime Minister. Right now, the only republic Australia can possibly have is Paul Keating's republic and a key obstacle to change is mistrust of its author.

As the Prime Minister recently boasted, his Government seeks to remodel Australia in the Labor Party's image. In the Prime Minister's eyes, republicanism is a weapon to bludgeon his enemies rather than a means of nation-building.

Non-stop smearing of Australia's history is perhaps the most objectionable aspect of his republican campaign. Even his most effective argument - that "there must be an Australian head of state" - is deceptive, because to-all-intents-and-purposes, that's precisely what we already have. As the Turnbull Report made clear, the Queen's only power over Australia is to appoint and (if needs be) dismiss the Australian Governor-General on the advice of the Australian Prime Minister. And as Buckingham Palace declared, when Labor asked the Queen to reverse the Whitlam dismissal, under the Australian Constitution, the Queen's powers are exercised entirely by the Australian Governor-General.

The argument that our Constitution must be wholly "made in Australia" (quite apart from being historically wrong - our Constitution was "made in Australia" at a series of popularly elected conventions and subsequently approved by the votes of the people) is as silly as denying that Holdens or Falcons are Australian cars just because a few bits are made in Japan.

The argument that we must become a republic to enhance our trade reveals both historical and logical ignorance. The logical absurdity of the claim that our Constitutional arrangements have any effect on trade with Asia is demonstrated by the fact that (notwithstanding the monarchy) more than 65 per cent of our trade was already with the Asia-Pacific basin fully 26 years ago in 1968!

The argument that we must become a republic in order to be "fully Australian" is a slander on our history and amounts to the smear that the Anzacs were really just Poms with funny accents.

So far, arguments for a republic appear to have much more to do with repudiating Australia's history than with making worthwhile improvements to our Constitution. But the arguments against a republic are not all negative. Our existing Constitution is not a "least worst option". In fact, Australia's existing Constitution is as good as Constitutions anywhere in the world and the Crown is an important part of that strength.

The Crown is the only way to guarantee a Head of State above partisan politics. Representing someone else (and not just him or herself) gives our Governor-General restraint. Representing the Queen (as opposed to a political party) gives the Governor- General dignity.

Moving to a republic would imperil this because any form of election means politics. In Germany, the main political parties try to win the Presidency for themselves (even though the successful candidate must secure a two thirds majority of MPs) and in Ireland, the political parties run candidates for the Presidency (even though it is an entirely ceremonial office). Even a nomination process (along the lines of the procedures used for Supreme Court judges in the US) would be politicised if Parliament was involved in the final approval of candidates. Yet allowing the Prime Minister to nominate a President - without the conventions and dignity applying to Vice-Regal office - would give the Head of State no more authority and independence than the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Under our system, the Governor-General is the ultimate guardian of the Constitution. The Governor-General is, as it were, the final proof-reader before legislation and other statutory instruments become law. Occasionally, exercising the Crown's traditional power to "be consulted, to encourage and to warn", Governors-General (and State Governors) refer bills and instruments back to the Government on legal or Constitutional grounds.

More importantly, the Governor-General is an impartial umpire when the political system is in deadlock. The Governor-General resolved the 1975 Supply Crisis in the most democratic way possible - with an election. Imagine a party-political President trying to resolve a future crisis - it would be like playing football without a referee.

Not only do our current Constitutional arrangements provide an important safety valve in an emergency, but they conform to our history, culture and traditions. Next to the Papacy, the Monarchy beginning in England and spreading to many other countries, is the oldest continuing institution in western civilisation and the idea that this should be swept away to suit the political convenience of a Prime Minister or the whim of a milieu is little short of cultural vandalism.

Constitutional reform won't happen until it becomes the property of the people rather than the Prime Minister. Plainly, millions of Australians are no longer comfortable with sharing a Head of State with New Zealand, Canada and PNG as well as with Britain. On the other hand, millions reject the way the Executive Government in Canberra has manipulated the Constitution to over- ride the autonomy of the States and allow United Nations Committees to sit in judgment over Australian law. And millions more want to preserve the Constitution out of respect for a system which has given us 100 years of freedom and stability.

In the end, however, neither Paul Keating's nor John Howard's views should prevail - what really matters are the views of a clear majority of Australians.

The real difference between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party on this issue is not that we are irrevocably opposed to a republic while they are completely committed - the difference is that we're ready to ask the people while Labor will only consult the Prime Minister. Paul Keating says: "you're getting a republic whether you like it or not". Alexander Downer says: "let's have a republic - but only if that's what Australians really want and it will clearly help to build a more prosperous and stable society".

On the arguments so far, Australia is likely to keep the Crown for many years to come.

TURNING DEFENCE INTO ATTACK

At the darkest moment of World War One, Marshall Foch is alleged to have said: my left is retreating, my right is disintegrating and my centre has ceased to exist - therefore I am attacking.

In rather the same way, the challenge for the Federal Coalition is to turn defence into attack - to stop agonising over whether it's worse to be anti-gay or anti-Tasmania by finding a way to support individual freedom and State Government autonomy at one and the same time.

As Christopher Pearson has pointed out, the Government has done the Coalition a favour by asserting a general right to privacy instead of directly overriding Tasmania's anti-sodomy laws. Michael Lavarch's Bill doesn't repeal the legislation. It does not interfere with Tasmania's ability to make law - it simply establishes a defence against "arbitrary" interference with privacy.

If the Lavarch Bill had sought to render Tasmania's criminal code null and void, there would be a strong case for resistance. But it doesn't - so opponents of the Government's Bill could end up defending an objectionable Tasmania law against an unobjectionable Federal Bill and fighting for a law which even its proponents admit will never be enforced.

No-one in the Coalition opposes the principle of personal privacy. Some Coalition MPs want to vote against the Lavarch Bill - not because they want to fill Tasmania's gaols with gays - but because they object to any Federal law over-riding State law on the basis of the Federal Government's foreign affairs power.

There is little point opposing the Privacy Bill itself, but there is every reason to fight its legal rationale - because, in the end, untrammeled Executive power in Canberra is far more dangerous than unenforced and unenforceable anachronisms like Tasmania's anti-sodomy laws. Hence, when Parliament resumes next week, Coalition MPs should worry less about the Privacy Bill and more about the real problem - which is the current reach of the foreign affairs power.

Section 51 (29) of the Constitution gives the Federal Government power to legislate "with respect...to external affairs". In the 1983 Tasmanian Dams Case, the High Court extended this power to entitle the Federal Government to do whatever was reasonably necessary to implement Australia's international treaty obligations.

The Constitution itself gives only a limited range of powers to the Federal Government and reserves all the rest to the States. By contrast, the Canadian Constitution gives a limited number of specific powers to the Provinces and reserves all the rest for the Centre. In both countries however, legal decisions have constantly extended the defined into the undefined - so Australia has seen a massive (and largely unintended) growth in Federal power, while Canada has seen a similar expansion in provincial power.

In Australia, this process began with the Boilermakers Case in 1920 and extended through the Uniform Tax cases of 1942 and 1958 to give pre-ponderant power to the Federal Government. However, prior to 1983, Federal power advanced indirectly and mostly by power of the purse.

The Tasmanian Dams Case gave the Federal Government virtually limitless potential to over-ride the States. Under the Constitution, and Westminster tradition, the Executive Government has complete freedom to enter into foreign treaties. Australia is now party to more than 2000 international treaties and agreements - while the United States (where treaties require Senate approval) is party to some 300. These treaties govern a huge range of everyday activities - from basic freedoms, to the rights of the child, to the conduct of the workplace and, under a soon-to-be-concluded decertification covenant, land management.

Under the foreign affairs power, as interpreted by the High Court, almost everything is within the Federal Government's potential legislative reach. Somewhere in the Federal Government's arsenal of treaties is the ability to over-ride virtually any State law it chooses to attack.

This should matter - even to those who support "human rights not States' rights" - because power divided is power controlled and the autonomy of the States is an important check on the pretensions of the Federal Government.

As Paul Keating himself has conceded, in a country as vast as Australia, if the States did not already exist it would be necessary to invent them. In North Queensland, even Brisbane seems remote and out-of-touch, let alone Canberra. The Education Department of just one State, NSW - with more than 50,000 teachers and 500,000 students under its sway - already dwarfs BHP as a human institution.

And as long as the States exist, they should have meaningful tasks to perform. What's the point of having State Parliaments and Ministries if their every act can be second-guessed by Canberra? It's quite right that the National Government should have grown in importance over the last 94 years, but why should hospitals, schools, police stations and urban buses all run to Canberra's timetable?

Rather than rail against a Bill which might actually do some good, the Coalition needs to tackle the misuses of the foreign affairs power - even though, on this occasion - it might actually have provided a bodgie rationale for an innocuous law.

It's utterly bizarre that a Government which objects to the Crown in our Constitution and demands that our political system be wholly made-in-Australia should accept the role that the United Nations now plays in our law.

If ending appeals to the Privy Council was such a great step towards Australian independence, how can appeals to the UN Human Rights Committee be anything other than a serious loss of sovereignty - especially when numerous countries, whose representatives on the Committee damned Tasmania's criminal code without giving Tasmania the right of reply, themselves criminalise homosexual conduct?

Why should Australia be obliged to conform - as it is under the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - with the human rights notions of countries such as Ecuador, Egypt, Senegal, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Jamaica, Mauritius and Cyprus (whose nationals sit on the UN Human Rights Committee) or even, for that matter, with the values of Britain, France and Italy who are also represented?

How can the Federal Government pass legislation to implement Article 17 of the International Covenant guaranteeing a right to privacy - and not pass legislation implementing Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "no-one may be compelled to belong to an association"?

The fact that the Keating Government invokes international treaties to over-ride the Tasmanian anti-sodomy laws now that a Liberal Government is in power there (but made no move while Labor was in power) yet ignores the same treaties where its own union-preference legislation is concerned - shows the cant and shabbiness in the Government's position.

Of course, a Coalition Government would not use the foreign affairs power to act in ways the Constitution did not otherwise permit. And a different High Court might decline to follow the current Court's radical conceptions of what the Federal Government can do. In fact, the best way to tackle the misuse of the foreign affairs power may be to amend the Constitution to make its meaning on this point perfectly clear.

At present, even though they can be a means of changing the Constitution without going to a referendum, international treaties don't even require Cabinet approval. Gareth Evans told a Senate Committee that he couldn't recall whether the First Optional Protocol went to Cabinet, saying that "you do not clutter the Cabinet agenda with matters about which the principles are clear". Certainly, beyond a couple of questions on notice, the First Optional Protocol - which is supposed to justify attacking the Tasmanian criminal code - never received any Parliamentary scrutiny nor was it subject to any Parliamentary debate prior to ratification.

The Coalition has already considered a proposal to make ratification of treaties subject to Parliamentary approval. This was an extension of the Menzies Government practice of allowing treaties to "lie on the table" in Parliament prior to ratification but was dropped because, some thought, it might restrict the legitimate power of the Executive in times of emergency.

Another possibility is to consult with the States before incurring treaty obligations. However, the Hawke Government's express rider to the International Covenant - that its implementation must take account of Australia's Federal nature - did not prevent the Government's ratification of the First Optional Protocol over the specific objection of several States - including the Western Australian Labor Government.

The drafters of our Constitution could hardly have foreseen all the tricks of late 20th century lawyers nor the deviousness of Labor politicians looking for yet another way to pander to special interests. The problem is not the Constitution itself - but the democratic deficit which has arisen thanks to the Federal Government's selective enthusiasm for United Nations rules.

It's time to consider a Constitutional amendment in these terms: that no foreign treaty should give the Federal Government power over the States that it would not otherwise have had under the Constitution. This doesn't interfere with the Executive's power to make treaties - it just stops the Government from changing the Constitution while no-one is watching.

Mr Keating might argue that any such proposal demolishes the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument against his own agenda for Constitutional change.

On the contrary, it would establish once and for all that the United Nations is a more potent threat to Australia's independence than the United Kingdom and that challenges to Australians' personal liberty are much more likely to come from the Lodge than from Buckingham Palace.

AUSTRALIA - WHERE TO NEXT?

A once-common scribbling on arts faculty walls was: "to be is to do: Plato; to do is to be: Aristotle; do-be-do-be-do: Bing Crosby". It was a pithy illustration of the futility of constant introspection, a robust two fingered salute to academic pretension and a typically Australian response to pompous and ultimately unanswerable questions.

"Who are we?", "why are we here?", and "how can we really tell?" are the philosophical equivalent of Rubik's cube. If we don't start asking them we're hardly human - yet if we don't know when to put them aside we can hardly stay sane. Nations - like people - occasionally need to take considered decisions but talking about ourselves is no substitute for getting on with life.

In an important article, historian Professor Patrick O'Farrell has noted the resemblance between the political creation of "national identity" and the tailoring of the Emperor's new clothes. O'Farrell's thesis is that the "political" has invaded the "sacred" and other realms of experience; that what was once taken for granted is now subject to relentless skepticism; and that public discourse has degenerated into a fight between "goodies" and "baddies".

Of course we have a national identity, says O'Farrell - which can only be obscured in the smoke and fury of political partisanship. Identity can be explained or developed - but aspects of "identity" which have become subject to partisan barracking, almost by definition, can no longer be part of the "essence" of what it means to be an Australian.

On this basis, neither support for the Monarchy nor Christian belief can currently form part of the Australian identity (although they continue to permeate our institutions and remain strongly supported by millions). By the same token, neither belief in multi-culturalism nor acceptance of an Asian destiny can presently form part of our identity - because these are still issues around which Australians divide rather than unite.

O'Farrell is not taking sides in the political debate. Rather, he is pleading for more respect for the results of cultural evolution and intellectual enquiry and less political and ideological flag waving. He points out that the politicisation of former areas of consensus - and the super-combative nature of politics in Keating's Australia - poses serious risks to our national cohesion.

It is still commonly observed that "there's no real difference between the two big parties - it's just a question of who can manage better". Not so. Politics may have focussed on management in the 80s, but in the 90s, politics is about vision. Yet, as O'Farrell alerts us, we are now fighting over competing visions of history and national destiny with the same partisan self- righteousness and dogmatic certainty that has always accompanied carving up the national economic cake.

Just a few years ago, politicians argued about competing measures to reduce inflation, boost employment and promote prosperity. Today, the Prime Minister has more important things on his mind than sorting out export woodchip licences. No-one could reasonably begrudge the Prime Minister's concern with symbolism - provided he doesn't really believe, for instance, that becoming a republic will make any difference at all to our trade with Japan.

In the 1980s, Mr Keating believed that economic re-structuring would improve Australians' way of life. The failures of the 80s were always going to produce a backlash - which should have been concentration on what actually worked in practice rather than theorising about the merits of different forms of financial engineering.

Instead, the Prime Minister has swapped his whiteboard and calculator for the psychologist's couch. A decade ago, he lectured Australia about how we needed to cut tariffs, change taxes and lift our economic game. Today, he counsels Australians about our treatment of aborigines, ignorance about Asia and superstition towards the monarchy.

Then, he was trying to change the way we work; now he is trying to change the way we feel about ourselves and others. Then, he disliked what we did; now, he dislikes what we are. Perhaps he has a point. But the harder the task, the less likely it is to succeed and a Prime Minister focussing on the unattainable is set to preside over a paralysed Government and divided nation.

In trying to paint his "big picture", the Prime Minister has Australians arguing over subjects that are too deep to trifle with and too subtle to translate easily into politician-speak.

It's one thing to argue that tariffs should be cut. That might cost peoples' jobs. But tamper with important national symbols and you risk undermining peoples' sense of themselves - unless, of course, you are the kind of prophet-prince who can replace one faith with another.

Professor O'Farrell understands what is happening to public discourse in our country. But there is little evidence that Paul Keating realises the magnitude of his task. The three issues he has set himself: aboriginal reconciliation, integration with Asia, and the full flowering of a distinct Australian-ness could hardly be more challenging. Yet he brings to them the same habitual partisanship and snarling aggression that he might bring to an unruly annual conference of the NSW ALP.

When Don Watson writes the words, he can pay generous tribute to the aspirations of our Constitutional Founders or moving homage to the boy-soldiers of the Kokoda Track (although he rarely resists, even in statesman-mode, celebrating his rather than their place in history). Off the leash, in Parliament, or occasionally in the TV studio, he can't help attacking everyone who doesn't agree with him in terms that bring all politicians into contempt.

Attacking his opponents as "lickspittles" or racists is no way to build support for his republic nor his Mabo legislation. Boasting of his desire to "drive a stake through the heart of Menzies creation" is no way to become Australia's Churchill, De Gaulle or Lincoln - especially as, at least on the statistics, the 50s can seem a lost golden age of low inflation, low interest rates, happy families, zero unemployment and crimes that always happened somewhere else.

Of course, they were also a time when aborigines were subject to pass laws, up-market cuisine was roast and two vegies, and the Prime Minister caught the boat to England for the cricket. Like every other era, the Menzies years were a mixed bag but if the political right should worry less about the future, the political left should tell fewer lies about the past.

If Australia is to avoid realising O'Farrell's fears, at the very least, the Prime Minister must realise that he is playing with fire. He has to understand the sweep of the changes he is pushing.

He needs to grasp, with his heart as well as his mind, that Mabo marks a break from 204 years of Australian land tenure and he needs to develop some empathy with all Australians who feel a spiritual bond with their land, white no less than black. If he is to broaden Australians' engagement with Asia he must stop pitting an Asian future against a European past because to be one or the other is a false choice. And he must see that he is never going to become the father of an Australian republic because a change of this magnitude can't be one person's property.

Paul Keating has already done enough, should his Prime Ministership end tomorrow, to have a big place in Australia's political history. He ranks with Whitlam for raising key issues and setting new agendas. Unfortunately, he also ranks with Whitlam as a leader whose support can be the kiss of death even for good ideas.

Meanwhile, conservatives need to use the past as an inspiration rather than a security blanket. John Howard's image of grafting multi-culturalism onto Dad and Dave is hardly elegant - but doesn't seem too far from the truth. Outside politics, Australians have no less laconic humour and sense of self-parody. Last week's Sydney Morning Herald, for instance, printed the sort of gloriously incorrect jokes that could ruin any career in public life - all told by ethnic comedians against themselves.

It's a moot point how long Australians' traditional "have-a-go" attitude and "she'll-be-right" optimism can co-exist with the opinion formers' bizarre orthodoxy that our country is almost irredeemably racist, sexist and xenophobic. That we "killed off the aborigines", "hated Asians" and "were run by the British" is on the verge of becoming conventional wisdom among millions who, so far at least, haven't let the implications of these charges upset their instinctive patriotism.

If Australian history boils down to this - which people are taught - let's hope political and Constitutional issues stay off the school curriculum.

ELECT THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL? NO WAY!

If Australia is currently a "crowned republic", electing the Governor-General would make the "crown" smaller and the "republic" bigger. Republicans think it's way of anaesthetising voters against the shock of Constitutional change. Some monarchists think it's way of conciliating their opponents by removing an "undemocratic" element from our existing system of Government.

The real issue, however, is not whether Australia should have a trial run for a republic, but whether Australians want a political or a non-political Head of State. The question of electing the Governor-General should turn on our conception of the fundamental nature of the top job - not on our judgment about the politics of change.

The advantage of electing the Governor-General is that it would take the choice of Head of State out of the potentially capricious hands of the Prime Minister and give the guardian of our system security of tenure. The disadvantage is that any form of election would profoundly change the nature of the office and the type of person who fills it.

As the embodiment of the Australian Crown, the Governor-General bears the same relationship to the Australian Government as the Queen bears to the British Government. The Governor-General must maintain the same detachment from partisan politics, devotion to duty and instinctive patriotism as the Queen herself.

However, the Australian Crown operates in a different legal and political environment from the British Crown. In particular, the existence of a Senate with the power to reject money bills is a significant check on executive Government's power and makes clashes between Parliament and the executive more likely and potentially more serious here than in modern Britain.

Hence, the Australian Governor-General must do more than represent the nation to itself. As guardian of the Constitution, it's not enough for the Governor-General to be a great Australian - he or she needs to be a practitioner of statecraft too. This explains why Australian Governors-General have invariably been well-versed in public life, as distinguished judges, ex- politicians or former soldiers. Although every Governor-General, on appointment, has commanded universal respect, none would have won a national popularity contest and few would have been the uncontested choice of the political establishment.

The strict words of the Constitution give the Governor-General power to summon and prorogue Parliament, command the armed forces, choose Ministers to serve at his or her pleasure and sign bills into law. The most important part of the Constitution - that the Governor-General normally acts on Ministerial advice - is not written down. The fact that the Governor-General represents the Crown lends dignity. The fact that he or she represents someone else lends restraint. And although the most distinguished and commanding figures have occupied the job, not one has tried to turn himself into the Prime Minister's political rival.

Taking the appointment of the Governor-General out of the Prime Minister's hands and placing it in the hands of Parliament would give the Head of State political authority to rival that of the Head of Government. The essential difficulty with Sir John's Kerr's actions in 1975 was that an appointed person had dismissed an elected person - but a Governor-General elected (say) by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament would have far more potential clout than a Prime Minister with a tiny majority in the Lower House.

It's a tribute to our existing system of appointment that two former Governors-General (Sir Zelman Cowen and Sir Ninian Stephen) regularly feature in lists of potential elected Heads of State. In fact, of the last three Governors-General, Cowen and Stephen would never have run for elected office and Hayden would never have won a two thirds majority.

In America, the fact that Supreme Court judges face a highly politicised Senate-approval procedure is now limiting the available pool of top judges. In Germany, electing the President is always a party-political struggle and always produces a party- political victor even though the President is subsequently expected to be above the political fray. In Australia, election of supposedly impartial figures by the Parliament - such as the Parliamentary Speaker and Senate President - is always done on a party political basis and office-holders invariably face accusations of political bias.

Requiring a two thirds majority of MPs is more likely to produce a nonentity than a great patriot and, in any event, the Fraser Government (as well as nearly one third of Governments elected under a different Senate voting system before 1949) commanded a majority of that size.

Electing the Governor-General would be like electing judges. It might make sense - but only in a radically different political system.

Perhaps Australians' partisan instincts could be suspended to elect the last Governor-General and the first President. But it's highly unlikely that the entrenched habits of politics would not creep back into the system. Certainly, the first time an elected Governor-General or President had to make a hard choice, the parties would seek to reclaim the position for their own advantage.

The strongest argument for preserving the current Constitutional arrangement is that it's the only way to secure a non-partisan Head of State and an impartial umpire at the apex of our political system. An elected Governor-General would mean that the only reason for preserving the Crown would be nostalgia for England. An elected Governor-General is not the final evolution of the Australian Crown but the sure stepping stone to its abolition.

An elected Governor-General is simply not on despite the apparent death wish of some leading monarchists. Sacking a Prime Minister is almost unthinkable for an appointed Governor-General. With an elected Governor-General, the Prime Minister would never really be safe.

BOOK REVIEW FOR ADELAIDE REVIEW

The received version of Australia's history runs something like this: The British arrived in 1788, to slaughter the Aborigines and persecute the convicts. Thousands of Chinese arrived to join a gold rush in eighteen fifty something - but some were killed by police and the rest sent home. In 1915, the British made Australian farm-boys go to Gallipoli where they were senselessly butchered. In 1942, thanks to Bob Menzies' forelock-tugging, thousands of Australians were killed when the British sacrificed Singapore to save themselves. In 1972, Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister and Australia finally stood on its own two feet. In 1992, Paul Keating became Prime Minister and tried to make Australia independent by packing off the Queen of England.

How many Australians have a picture of our country in the 60s - let alone before Federation itself? Even for quite sophisticated people, Australia's history has become a void or a blur. "The English made the laws, the Scots made the money, and the Irish made the songs", the Catholic historian Edmund Campion is accustomed to tell his students, and it's to qualify and develop these charming simplicities that this book is needed.

Dr Geoffrey Partington, the former Flinders University academic turned scholar-at-large, often combines meticulous scholarship with ferocious advocacy. In his latest work, however, The Australian Nation, Its British and Irish Roots, he lets the facts speak entirely for themselves and takes his readers through a journey of discovery akin to delving into the letters of a long dead, half-forgotten grandparent where the joy of kinship gradually displaces the sense of reading postcards from another planet.

Partington doesn't intrude into the text, yet he has carefully chosen his material so that modern debates such as Mabo and republicanism fit into a historical context and start to make more sense. This is much more than a potted history of 19th century Australia. With chapters on the English, Irish, Scottish and aborigines, a section on women, essays on all the leading political and cultural figures of the time, plus chapters on music and sport, it gives the general reader all that anyone could reasonably want.

A modern over-simplification, for instance, is that the Irish and the English never quite mixed and that white Australia was born with a broken heart. Republicanism, such thinking runs, is the pre-condition of Australia ever becoming whole. Partington helps us to see how this is half-wrong - and half-right.

Partington shows the contrast between "establishment" Catholics such as New South Wales' first Attorney-General, John Hubert Plunkett, who said that Australia mostly owed its civilisation to Britain; "outcast" Catholics such as Ned Kelly, who claimed that the British were a nation of murderers; and changeable Catholics, such as a former leader in the Irish Republican Brotherhood who joined the militia in Gympie saying: "I never was a disloyalist. If we had the Government in Ireland we have here, I would have been wearing the Queen's uniform all my life".

In exasperation at the Hibernian obsessions of the local clergy, the English Benedictine Archbishop of Sydney, Bede Polding, appealed: "Before anything else we are Catholics, and next, by a name swallowing up all distinctions of origin, we are Australians". Yet his most bitter opponent, Cardinal Moran, told a Dublin audience that although Australian Catholics were "one in heart with their brothers of the dear mother country...we are not the less loyal to the Empire of which we are proud to form part". Moran said that Australian Government under the Crown was actually "the most perfect form of republican Government" with "all the freedom which a republican Government imparts" without "the many unpleasant influences to which...an elected head of a republic is subject".

Partington often raises a chuckle, quoting, for instance, an American bishop's quip about Papal infallibility: "will the Cardinal of Dublin say that (he) believes Hadrian IV was infallible when he handed over Ireland to the King of England?".

With this book, Partington has done his adopted country an immense service and Australian Scholarly Publishing deserves congratulations for bringing modern readers a clear window on the past. It should become a standard text - and reprints will give the publishers time to fix the typographical errors which mar an otherwise splendid achievement.

Partington, The Australian Nation, Its British and Irish Roots, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne 1994, 347 pages

BOOK REVIEW FOR ABM

The "how" and "when" of Australia becoming a republic has been debated endlessly over the past two years - hardly any republicans want to argue "why".

The two latest books on the subject, Professor George Winterton's edited volume We, the People, and John Hirst's A Republican Manifesto, illustrate a problem first revealed by the Turnbull Report: that the republicans are much better at description than persuasion.

The Turnbull Report plus appendices constituted a 500 page discourse on the mechanics of how Australia is or might be governed - but failed to include any justification for changing a system of Government which has worked tolerably well for most of Australia's history.

Turnbull pleaded that this was excluded from his Committee's terms of reference but subsequent writers have no excuse. Hirst, whose monograph comes closest to a sustained argument in favour of change, eventually admits that republicanism "begins not with an argument but an assertion of national self-sufficiency" (emphasis added).

In fact, the republican argument boils down to the proposition that Australia must become a republic to be a truly "mature" and "independent" nation. The essential problem with this "argument" is the implication that Australia is not already independent and that Australians need to grow up.

Neither proposition is likely to appeal - which helps explain why support for a republic is stalled well below 50 per cent, let alone the majority of voters in a majority of States required for a successful referendum.

If the Queen is just a figurehead and becoming a republic is no more significant than changing the anthem from God Save the Queen to Advance Australia Fair, why bother? Especially when a mere formality requires re-writing so much of our Constitution? Yet if removing the Queen actually does involve a leap into the Constitutional dark, it should only be taken for substantial reasons.

Both Winterton and Hirst served on the Turnbull Committee and are extremely well-versed in the legalities of Constitutional change. Indeed, Winterton - who is Professor of Law at the University of NSW - has pursued republicanism for most of his career. Both include draft republican constitutions which illustrate the magnitude of proposed change and destroy the frequent republican assertion that change amounts to little more than replacing the letterhead at Yarralumla.

Hirst says: "When the Constitution gives power to the Governor- General we can make it read: 'President and Ministers' or 'President on the advice of the Prime Minister'. That is all it needs!". But "all it needs" to select a President, on Hirst's own account later in the book, is a Presidential Nominating Commission comprising judges, politicians and selected members of the Order of Australia, a secret meeting to provide three names, and finally a ballot requiring a two-thirds majority of all Federal MPs.

If the position of Head of State has such little power, why go to so much trouble? But if the nature and selection of our Head of State does have significant implications for the way we are governed, why not come clean and admit that the republican push is a cover for far-reaching, potentially revolutionary change?

Of the 137 clauses in the existing Australian Constitution Act, Winterton's draft Constitution adds, deletes or amends some 73 clauses. A few of these are anachronistic and others are mere consequential changes - nevertheless, the scope of these proposed "minimal" changes dwarfs all previous Constitutional change.

Another feature of Winterton's Constitution - that the powers of the Head of State will subsequently be amendable by Parliament - marks a sharp break from Australia's Constitutional tradition. Our Constitutional Founders enshrined the principle that the people alone should be sovereign over the Constitution. Although, in theory, the Crown was sovereign, in fact, the people were sovereign because the Crown acted through a Constitution that only the people could change.

The use of United Nations conventions to subvert the provisions of our Constitution already constitutes a far greater threat to Australia's sovereignty than a Monarch who mostly lives abroad. Winterton would add to this capacity for centralism by stealth by making Parliament potentially all-powerful over the Head of State who, at present, has considerable reserve powers to act as guardian of the Constitution.

Both Hirst and Winterton are determined not to allow discussion of republicanism to be contaminated by arguments about the Senate, the States, a Bill of Rights, or the size and intrusiveness of Government in society - Hirst, because he believes that, Crown aside, Australia's system works well; and Winterton, because he knows that the more complicated the proposal becomes the less likely it is to succeed.

Some of the other essays in Winterton's book, however, show how republicanism will almost inevitably become an argument about our whole Constitutional system rather than just the Royal Family.

Campbell Sharman, a University of WA political scientist, says that Australia's basic political problem is excessive executive power and asks whether changing from monarchy to republic would help:

"The answer is, not necessarily. If the change was no more than a change of name, all the existing procedures being left in place except the links with Buckingham Palace, then the outcome could be worse than at present. There would be an even greater concentration of power in the hands of the political executive since, once the Crown is removed without any popular source of legitimacy to replace it, the head of state loses whatever independent authority the office retains".

Similarly, in an essay claiming that minimalism doesn't go far enough, Monash University's Professor Hugh Emy argues that republicanism "must not collapse into a squabble over whether or not we keep the Queen or change the flag. It should provide an opportunity to re-think and clarify the values and principles which the Constitution is meant to uphold".

While republicanism was just a chance to tut-tut at philandering Royals, it had surging poll support. Since the republicans have been trying to come up with a Constitution of their own, however, they have fallen foul of the iron law of politics that it's much easier to oppose than to propose.

In an essay demolishing the notion of an "inevitable" republic, Macquarie University political scientist Murray Goot points out that even strong poll support would not guarantee success at a referendum. The republicans' best polls are hopelessly flawed because they test support for a republican ideal rather than any particular republican proposal - and, as everyone would know by the end of any referendum campaign, republics range from Switzerland to Iraq.

By including essays by staunch monarchists such as Sir David Smith and Edward O'Farrell within his book's covers, Winterton manages to illustrate how proposals for change have now become stalemated in a welter of argument. The deafening silence of Paul Keating - contemporary republicanism's chief advocate and instigator - suggests that the fight for change is not going well.

We, the People, edited George Winterton, Allen and Unwin 1994

A Republican Manifesto, John Hirst, Oxford University Press 1994

THE REAL ENEMY OF AN AUSTRALIAN REPUBLIC

The greatest obstacle to an Australian republic is not John Howard or Queen Elizabeth but Paul Keating himself. The difference between Howard and Keating on this issue is that Howard will give the Australian people the Constitution they want while Keating will give them the republic he wants.

Thoughtful republicans have long realised that their greatest ally was also their biggest liability. It's two years since Tom Keneally first publicly lamented the Prime Minister's "imperial" style and suggested that he butt out of the debate. Last week, Keneally urged the Prime Minister to adopt the Howard idea of a Peoples' Convention because this was the best way of transferring ownership of the debate from Paul Keating to the whole Australian people.

For republicans, the substance as well as the style of the Keating republic is an emerging problem. Even prior to the Government's statement last week, Malcolm Turnbull had labelled as "ludicrous" the Keating plan to give a president the Governor- General's existing powers (but without the G-G's liability to instant dismissal and without enforceable conventions of strict political impartiality). Donald Horne said that, without some attempt to specify the reserve powers, "even I would vote 'no' in a referendum".

From the beginning, the Keating strategy has been to make becoming a republic seem as simple and harmless as changing the letterhead at Yarralumla. But, as some republicans have been making clear since his statement last week, this is deception at least on the scale of the L-A-W tax cuts. Melbourne University's Professor Brian Galligan said that it's just not true that you can shift from Governor-General to president without changing the nature of the office. Professor Elaine Thompson from the University of NSW said: "There are many things wrong with the Keating position. First, it leaves a president appointed by politicians with the enormous reserve powers of the present Governor-General. Second, it does not involve the people".

Other republicans have clearly sold out their considered beliefs in order to join the Prime Minister's bandwagon. Gareth Evans once wrote that, untrammeled by the conventions governing the Crown, the Governor-General had the "powers of an Ottoman sultan". Gough Whitlam, in his book about the 1975 dismissal, said that a head of state who is "more than an ornament is a menace".

At one level, the Keating republic involves a great deal of risk and division just to change what is, at most, the minor problem of the address of our nominal Head of State. At another level, there is a strong suspicion that this is the first - and not the last step - on the Keating Constitutional agenda. Perhaps the man who reckons that the Senate is "unrepresentative swill" and who is too proud to fly the Australian Flag on his official car has Republic Mark One, Two, Three and so on in mind - just like the French whose clocks he buys and whose culture he often seems to prefer.

For a leader who tries hard to sound statesmanlike when reading prepared speeches, Keating's real feelings about Australia are ambivalent at best. He's attacked the quarter acre block, described Australia's image abroad as "yobs with cans in their hands", urged rugby league footballers to "kick more tries", and threatened to leave the "arse end of the world" if he didn't get what he wanted. At the same time, he's accepted a Thai knighthood and a Japanese doctorate for helping to change the Australian Constitution.

His basic problem is hatred of everything he can't control. He regards his accession to the Prime Ministership as a kind of Year Zero in Australia's history before which nothing really happened unless it prefigured his own agenda. As he boasted in his Placido Domingo speech to the Press Club, he thinks he has everyone "in his pocket" and his claim that Australia previously had no great leaders demonstrates his self-image as a giant standing on the shoulders of pygmies.

Why would anyone buy a republic from this man? Why should anyone think that his republican scheme will work any better than the J curve, the recession we had to have, and all the other "this is as good as it gets" hocus-pocus he has tried to sell us over the past decade? Especially now that John Howard has said that, if the Australian people want a republic, he won't stand in their way?

Howard hasn't abandoned his preference for the Constitution which has served Australia well. He still thinks that constitutional monarchy is the "least worst system of government" with its blend of strong executive, reserve powers exercisable in times of crisis, and head of state above partisan politics. But as the leader of a democratic political party, he accepts his duty to give the Australian people what they want as well as what they need.

If the Peoples' Convention produces a consensus in favour of a republic, a Howard Government will promote the change. It would be folly not to. But without a consensus, any referendum would be a divisive waste of time. Instead, if consensus can't be achieved, a Howard Government will hold a national plebiscite in an attempt to ascertain exactly what the Australian people want.

The question is not: "do you - or don't you - want an Australian head of state?" because Bill Hayden is as Australian as anyone. This is as silly and intrusive as asking "do you - or don't you - want to marry a Catholic?". The real question is: "should Paul Keating - or should the Australian people - be driving constitutional change?". On the evidence so far, John Howard wants to be a constitutional facilitator while Paul Keating is determined to be a constitutional dictator.

THE QUEBEC OPTION FOR AUSTRALIA

What carries more weight as a constitutional argument: the virtual dissolution of Canada as the result of drawn-out, bad- tempered constitutional navel-gazing; or the repetition of republican clichés by an Australian who no longer lives here and a Prime Minister fresh from conversation with Andrew Denton?

Last week, Australians glimpsed a constitutional future. Although Australia lacks Canada's linguistic minority, the similarities are a flashing amber light against ill-considered constitutional reform. Like Paul Keating, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau wanted to place his stamp on history. Like creating an Australian republic, repatriating the Canadian Constitution was supposed to signify a nation which had at last grown up. The authors of the new Canada, like the authors of the new Australia, wanted to change the symbols of nationhood - but not the substance of government.

Reform in Canada was going to turn French and English North Americans into Canadians - but has demonstrated how constitutional good intentions can cause no end of trouble. Canadian-style dissolution is almost inconceivable in Australia - yet last week's secession threat, if Western Australia doesn't get its fair share of tax revenue, hints at the dangers of opening a constitutional Pandora's Box.

If becoming a republic would help solve unemployment, ease the foreign debt crisis or reconcile black and white Australians, transition to a republic could be swift and painless. In fact, becoming a republic is not about fixing our problems - it's about fixing our identity - which is why it rouses demons best left undisturbed.

Both Robert Hughes and Paul Keating claim that Australia can never really be free and never really be herself while connected with the British Crown. Why the Crown, which has no power over Australia, should be a threat - while foreign banks to which we owe roughly half our Gross Domestic Product are not, has never been made clear.

In the absence of strong practical arguments for change, republicans have been forced to argue on symbolic grounds. But the harder they assert that Australia needs to change, the more they claim that something is seriously wrong with Australia now. To justify the shift, they have to de-value all the achievements of non-republican Australia - and sound as though they believe that Australia really is the arse end of the world.

Tom Keneally frequently describes becoming a republic as the national equivalent of leaving home. Certainly, some republicans' rage against the Crown has all the intensity and mindlessness of adolescents' rejection of their parents. It's the preference for new against old, change over stability, and chaos not order which indicates doubt rather than assurance. When the Prime Minister rails against the Australian Constitution, perhaps it's a variant of the Groucho Marx line: "a club that would accept me isn't worth joining".

If the Prime Minister wants republicanism to be an election issue he has little time to produce better arguments. His latest line: that Australia has to become a republic because the British won't back us on French nuclear testing, is actually demeaning to an independent nation. Suppose John Major announced tomorrow that Britain was suspending membership of the European Community until the French stopped - would that persuade Keating that we don't need to become a republic after all? It wouldn't - and it shouldn't - because it would reveal republicans as children wanting mummy rather than adults wanting independence.

Robert Hughes misses the point of his own story about American security and Bill Hayden at the UN. Australians know exactly who Bill Hayden is and precisely why he deserves official protection. The fact that Americans don't is a sign of their confusion - not ours. The claim that the Americans called the British for information about an Australian dignitary - if true - simply shows what an appalling job Don Russell did as Australian ambassador. State Department ignorance of our constitutional arrangements is no more reason to change than White House confusion about our Prime Ministers' names - and it's up to us to set them right rather than to act as an international sycophant.

In the wake of the Canadian secession poll, separatist leaders threatened to keep voting until they won. Les Murray has identified a similar authoritarian streak in Australian republicans. The difference between Paul Keating and John Howard is that one is a republican and the other is a democrat. Keating will give the Australian people the republic he wants. Howard will give the Australian people the constitution they want. Changing the Crown from an article of Liberal faith to a matter of individual Liberal conscience is a key achievement of the second Howard leadership and Howard's promise of a poll on a republic - regardless of the outcome of the people's convention - means that republicans have no reason to vote against the Coalition, but monarchists have every reason to vote against Paul Keating.

The Prime Minister keeps repeating the republican mantra: "do you or don't you want an Australian head of state?". By pointing out the dangers of a virtually unsackable president armed with all the Governor-General's existing powers, Bill Hayden has posed a different question: "do you or don't you want a politician as head of state?".

In fact, the Australian Constitution never refers to a head of state at all. We have a Queen of Australia, all of whose powers are exercised by a Governor-General, who is always a distinguished Australian. Perhaps the best way to give the republicans what they say they want is simply to declare that the Governor-General is Australia's head of state. This would not alter the Australian system of government and could be done by legislation alone. But it would not satisfy those who want to inflict Canadian style constitutional experimentation on the Australian body politic.

Tony Abbott is Federal Member for Warringah and author of "The Minimal Monarchy - and why it still makes sense for Australia".

HOWARD'S REPUBLIC

Paul Keating wants republicanism to be the main battleground of the coming election. We know because he told us - announcing to a pre-Christmas press conference that Asia had been the big issue of the current Parliament but that "the republic" would be main focus of the next.

The Prime Minister will try to make the coming election a referendum on the Royal Family just as he turned the last into a poll on Hewson's GST. Last time, every media whistle-stop boiled down to the assertion that "a vote for John Hewson means 15 per cent on everything you buy". This time, he will incessantly challenge John Howard with the question: "Do you - or don't you - want an Australian head of state?" and endlessly repeat the mantra: "If you want a republic, vote Labor".

For the past year, the Coalition has greeted the Prime Minister's constitutional forays with the retort: "there must be some bad economic news coming out - he's talking about a republic again", but Keating's persistence will be harder to ignore during an election campaign. Justifying the Queen's position in the Australian constitutional structure - in the heat of an election campaign before a media which demands slogans rather than explanations - may tax even a politician of Howard's skill.

Many Liberals have tried to avoid the "do you or don't you want an Australian head of state" question by posing one of their own: "do you or don't you want a politician in the top job?". "Let's deal with that issue in a moment", the Oakes, Lynehams and O'Briens are likely to respond in an election campaign, "but first give us a straight answer to the Prime Minister's challenge". Luckily, Howard need not give a complicated answer to a simple question. If he chooses, he could declare: "Of course I want an Australian head of state. We already have one - called the Governor-General".

So far, monarchists have mostly distinguished between the Queen as "symbolic" head of state and the Governor-General as "effective" head of state. In fact, the "head of state" concept actually belongs more to diplomacy than constitutional law, at least in an Australian context. At the Imperial Conference of 1926 it was recognised that the Monarch could not travel abroad representing any country other than the UK - so the Governor- General was henceforth entitled to make and receive State visits as the highest representative of Australia. Since 1971 Australian Governors-General have made 49 official visits to foreign countries during which they have been treated as Australian head of state.

The Australian Constitution refers to "the Queen", "the Crown" and "the Governor-General" but nowhere to a "head of state". Although section 61 of the Constitution vests the executive power of the Commonwealth in the Queen, it states that this is exercisable by the Governor-General - leading authorities such as Professors Colin Howard and Patrick Lane to declare that "the head of state in Australia is not the Queen but the Governor- General".

If all the powers associated with a head of state - to appoint ministers, command the armed forces, summon and prorogue Parliaments, and sign bills into law - are constitutionally given to the Governor-General, why not declare that if he looks, sounds and acts like a head of state, he is a head of state?

Some monarchists worry that this would make the Queen redundant. Not so. Because if the Governor-General did not formally represent the Queen, he would be less able to represent the Australian people. A head of state has to represent something and representing the Crown makes it easier for our head of state to be above the party political fray. A head of state who represented the Australian people in theory as well as practice (such as a popularly elected president or even a president appointed by the Parliament), might have trouble choosing between the people he's supposed to represent and the factions which put him into office.

It's important that the Coalition has an effective answer to the Australian head of state question because the latest Newspoll shows 56 per cent support for "an Australian to be head of state" but only 36 per cent for "the Queen to remain head of state". The fact that the gap has actually narrowed 3 per cent since last March shouldn't obscure the potency of the Keating formulation. Last March, for instance, when only 47 per cent were "personally in favour of Australia becoming a republic", 57 per cent wanted "an Australian to be head of state".

While the latest Newspoll has lessons for Howard, it also has lessons for republicans. Since March, support for "an Australian head of state" is up 2 per cent (to 72 per cent) among Labor voters but support for the Queen has increased 8 per cent (to 53 per cent) among Coalition voters. The Prime Minister's stridency, in other words, is making republicanism a party political issue and almost guaranteeing that the "Keating republic" will be overwhelmingly defeated if it's ever put to a vote.

It's interesting that support for the Queen has increased among Coalition voters at the same time Howard has dropped the Liberal Party's formal commitment to the Crown. The way Howard has detached his Party from what was always an article of faith and committed a Howard Government to introducing a republic - if that's what the people want - without repudiating his own monarchist convictions is the greatest political achievement of his leadership. Howard has not committed himself to a republican outcome but he is committed to a constitutional process which is more likely to produce a republic than all the Prime Minister's bullying.

A re-elected Keating Government will move swiftly to a referendum on the Prime Minister's preferred option of a president elected by the politicians and exercising all the Governor-General's existing powers - even though the polls' most consistent message is that, if Australia is to become a republic, voters want to elect a president themselves. In fact, the Keating republic has something to offend just about everyone. It doesn't give people the say they want in choosing a president. It can't guarantee the existing balance of power between head of state and head of government. It fails to address the 1975 "problem" of the head of state's ability to dismiss a prime minister. It is too radical for monarchists, too risky for conservatives and too timid for many republicans.

Serious republicans know that their goal is only attainable under a Coalition Government. Entrenched institutions are usually more vulnerable to mercy killing from their friends than execution from their enemies - it is a Labor Government, after all, which has managed to inflict the "accord" straitjacket on unions and engineered the biggest reduction in workers' real wages since the Depression. In government, the Coalition would be less inclined to dismiss republicanism as a "Keating distraction". Rejecting a "Howard republic" is unthinkable even for a Keating-led opposition.

As republicans such as Tom Keneally and Donald Horne have acknowledged, the best way to secure popular support is to convene a constitutional convention, unconstrained by party discipline, at which all points of view can be heard and weighed. This is precisely what Howard has promised. Moreover, his commitment to elect most delegates (except for those who are ex- officio) ensures that the convention won't be stacked by either side of the debate. If the convention reaches a consensus, a Howard Government will support a referendum. If not, it will hold a national vote on the various options to clarify what people really want.

Howard can't promise a republican future anymore than he can promise constitutional monarchy forever but he can establish a process which will resolve the issue one way or another. Both sides will have a fair go to argue their case. By the end of 1997, under a Howard Government, Australians will have decided that the present system is the least imperfect we are likely to achieve - or that, despite its strengths, it is inconsistent with the pride of a free people. Howard will never be father to an Australian republic but he may turn out to be its mid-wife - which is exactly what republicans should now be seeking.

Howard is not a republican but he is a democrat. If Australians really do want a republic, as republicans allege, they should vote for a leader who takes democracy seriously rather than a Prime Minister who has decided our future already.