Of Monarchs and Minimalism
The separation of pomp and power: How does Australia create a republic where the president is rarely seen?
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The death of Queen Elizabeth II has reignited discussion about Australia becoming a republic. After the defeat of the 1999 referendum on the subject, the general consensus was that any serious movement towards becoming a republic would be put on hold until there was a change of monarch, given Queen Elizabeth’s personal popularity. The current Labor Party government supports Australia becoming a republic, but prime minister Anthony Albanese has stated that the party will not pursue another referendum in its current term as a mark of respect to Queen Elizabeth.
The deferment gives the country some more time to consider the implications of becoming a republic, and in particular the model that would best suit the country’s current political structure and protect its stability. Although they’ve had two decades to consider this, the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) is mired in confusion about how to achieve its aims. The movement remains scarred by the way those advocating for a directly elected president spoiled the 1999 referendum, and now recklessly believe that placating this sentiment is the best path forward.
The current model offered by the ARM fundamentally misunderstands the problem with having a directly elected president within a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. For the ARM the problem with a direct election is not an issue of power and political stability, but the emergence of some kind of dipshit celebrity who has public popularity, but would be an embarrassment as head of state. The way they see getting around this is for candidates to be nominated by state, territory and federal parliaments, which the public would then vote on in a national election.
The belief is that these parliaments will nominate sensible candidates worthy of the role, not unsuitable or overtly political figures. Yet the latter would obviously rely on the make-up of each parliament at the time – the current Western Australian parliament, for example, being so overwhelmingly dominated by the Labor Party it may not be able to resist nominating a candidate sympathetic to the party. While the former relies on downplaying the lust politicians have for popularity over practicality – nominations may be seen as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves to the public.
While this process has problems, the primary issue with a direct-election is the potential rivalry of power it will create between what should be an apolitical president and the government. Campaigns create politicians. To win, each candidate would have to find something more substantial than just claiming they had the best hand-writing to sign legislation, or the best technique for cutting ribbons. The temptation to make political statements, or align themselves with political groups with organisational structures, would be great. Campaigning itself would create a constitutional dilemma, with candidates tempted to make claims that are outside the parameters of the office.
This constitutional dilemma would then be compounded by the winner taking office. Given that the prime minister is not directly elected by the public, with the holder of the position merely being one of the 151 members of the House of Representatives, a president elected by a nation-wide vote could feel entirely justified that they would hold a greater public mandate than the prime minister. Especially if that prime minister had weak support within their own party, as is common in Australia. Were the new president to be of a different political persuasion to the government of the day this would add additional tension between the two roles.
The creation of an Australian head of state would not only have to consider what kind of role the president would have – and what powers may be given to them by the model, not just the designated powers of the role – but also the culture that will be created by establishing a republic. As David Frum wrote in The Atlantic last week – “The British stumbled upon an unexpectedly powerful idea: Sever the symbolism of the state from the political power of the state, and bestow those two different governing roles on two different people.”
We can call this the separation of pomp and power. Unlike the United States and France where the two are concentrated in a single position, constitutional monarchies have provided a unique safeguard against the abuse of power, by making sure that the holders of power have only limited access to the ceremonial and romantic elements of the state.
Australia has the advantage of this pomp being both removed from power and across the other side of the world. The governor-general – the monarch’s representative in Australia – is an almost invisible figure, quietly performing the official duties of state without drawing much attention. Most Australians wouldn’t know the current office holder’s name. This might be a failure of civics, but it is counter-intuitively a positive that the role has only limited public exposure. It is unlikely that an Australian president would be so anonymous.
So how does Australia become a republic without making a fuss over doing so? To create a president who we rarely see and whose work is discrete. A role where only on rare occasions does the ceremony and symbolism of the state gain public prominence.
This may occur naturally. Australians are wholly unsuited to the pomp that surrounds both monarchies or powerful presidential systems like the United States and France. Australians possess what the historian John Hirst has described as “the equality of manners” – the way by which we interact with each other regardless of our wealth or position. Hierarchies of power exist within the country, but not hierarchies of social habits. Australians would speak to the prime minister in the same manner as they would a shop attendant, and a president is unlikely to be offered any great deference.
The equality of manners generally leads to a casual and friendly approach to interacting with those in power (in person, less so behind our keyboards). However, as Australians view being a member of parliament as merely a job like any other, when politicians fail to take the responsibilities of the position seriously the equality of manners can be blunt. You could see this during recent bushfires when people refused to shake then-prime minister Scott Morrison’s hand. This wasn’t a partisan political response, it was due to a perceived failure to do his job. There is no in-built respect for the office of prime minister, respect in Australia comes through action. A more amusing display of this cultural trait was a man interrupting Morrison at a press conference to tell people to get off his newly sown lawn, then apologising to the PM for the disruption with a casual “Sorry, mate.”
The casual nature of Australians' social habits is in tension with formality. Pomp is seen as ostentatious and unnecessary. Practicality is paramount. This national demeanour can have some negative ramifications – like Australians’ disinterest in design, especially architecture and urban planning – but in general it protects Australia from succumbing to romance and sentimentality, and the dangerous politics that can flow from these.
The equality of manners also leads to a general suspicion of charisma. This may be because you’d be hard pressed to find an Australian who possessed any, but also because anyone who tried would be quickly designated a dickhead. A directly elected president who may see themselves as having a greater public mandate than the government may struggle to create the charismatic authority to attack the country’s institutions in the way Donald Trump has in the United States.
Yet it seems risky to rely on cultural guardrails when creating a new public office. We exist in an era of rapid cultural change and Australia receives an immense influence from the United States. The presence of Trump flags at protests against public health measures due to the Covid-19 pandemic was an indication that personality-based political cults can gain traction in Australia. There is a global yearning at present for more forceful and charismatic forms of politics, and despite its cultural traits Australia cannot assume itself to be immune. Today's dickhead could easily be tomorrow's dictator.
The equality of manners may have broken down each time a member of the monarchy visited Australia, as some people grovelled before them and succumbed to grotesque displays of human hierarchy. But this happened rarely enough to not be of great consequence. The physical distance of the monarchy to Australia is one of its great advantages for Australia.
Yet there remains the core principles that Australia’s head of state should be an Australian, and that hereditary monarchies themselves are antiquated at best and repugnant at worst. For the Australian state to take its relationship with the country’s indigenous population seriously there also needs to be an acknowledgement of what the monarchy represents for them. There is no undoing of past wrongs, but there is an opportunity to give the Australian state a character that is symbolically less bound to these wrongs.
However, moral and ethical claims are never enough when making great constitutional changes. There needs to be a practical claim as well. The public needs to be confident that the new system is not just right, but will work in a manner that is suitable to the country. Powerful new institutions need immediate credibility, and this requires great care with their construction.
It may be in tension with the instincts of those who feel strongly that Australia should become a republic, but progress requires a certain conservatism – an ability to make change with stability in mind. To give weight to those who struggle with change, protect what works, and to be wary of unintended consequences. Righteous indignation rarely creates converts, and politics is always about persuasion. The minimal change model of an Australian republic is its most viable path.
Of course, there is the paradox of minimalism that it is both necessary for change to be successful, but doesn’t actually inspire change with a sense of purpose. An appeal to national pride may create the impetus for a successful republican referendum, but it may also unleash the forces that make the role of president a dangerous one. I reluctantly agree that liberalism needs a nation, but this nationalism is best kept within civil society, not within a country’s political offices. This is the difference between a positive force for trust and cooperation, against a negative tool for division and in-group supremacy.
We are currently in an era of heightened and often chaotic emotion, with a suspicion of political institutions and traditional sources of quality information. The recent Australian election may have proved that the country has a greater resilience to these political forces than some of its contemporaries. Yet there are great risks in providing the country with an additional outlet for radical political sentiment. Protecting stability doesn’t mean preventing change. But it does mean having a clear understanding of the implications of change.