transcripts of proceedings constitutional convention 13 february...

CONSTITUTIONALCONVENTION

[2nd to 13th FEBRUARY 1998]

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

Friday, 13 February 1998

Old Parliament House, Canberra

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CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Old Parliament House, Canberra

2nd to 13th February 1998

Chairman—The Rt Hon. Ian McCahon Sinclair MP

The Deputy Chairman—The Hon. Barry Owen Jones AO, MP

ELECTED DELEGATES

New South Wales

Mr Malcolm Turnbull (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Doug Sutherland AM (No Republic—ACM)Mr Ted Mack (Ted Mack)Ms Wendy Machin (Australian Republican Movement)Mrs Kerry Jones (No Republic—ACM)Mr Ed Haber (Ted Mack)The Hon Neville Wran AC QC (Australian Republican Movement)Cr Julian Leeser (No Republic—ACM)Ms Karin Sowada (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Peter Grogan (Australian Republican Movement)Ms Jennie George (Australian Republican Movement)Ms Christine Ferguson (No Republic—ACM)Mr Alasdair P Webster (Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)Ms Glenda Hewitt (ungrouped—I Care About Australia’s Future)Dr Pat O’Shane AM (A Just Republic)Brigadier Alf Garland AM (Australian Monarchist League)Mr Andrew Gunter (Ethos—Elect the Head of State)Ms Hazel Hawke (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Jason Yat-Sen Li (ungrouped—A Multi-Cultural Voice)Ms Catherine Moore (Greens, Bill of Rights, Indigenous Peoples)

Victoria

Mr Eddie McGuire (Australian Republican Movement)The Hon Don Chipp AO (No Republic—ACM)The Reverend Tim Costello (Real Republic)Mr Bruce Ruxton AM OBE (Safeguard the People)Ms Mary Delahunty (Australian Republican Movement)

Ms Sophie Panopoulos (No Republic—ACM)Mr Steve Vizard AM (Australian Republican Movement)Ms Poppy King (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Lindsay Fox AO (Australian Republican Movement)The Hon Vernon Wilcox CBE QC (Safeguard the People)Ms Moira Rayner (Real Republic)Ms Misha Schubert (Republic4U—The Youth Ticket)The Hon Jim Ramsay (No Republic—ACM)Mr Kenneth Gifford QC (Australian Monarchist League)Mr Phil Cleary (ungrouped—Phil Cleary—Independent Australia)Mr Eric G Bullmore (Shooters Party)

Queensland

The Hon Sir James Killen KCMG (No Republic—ACM)Dr Clem Jones AO (Clem Jones Queensland Constitutional Republic Team)The Hon Michael Lavarch (Australian Republican Movement)Dr Glen Sheil (Constitutional Monarchists)Mr Neville Thomas Bonner AO (No Republic—ACM)Mr David Alexander Muir (Clem Jones Queensland Constitutional Republic Team)Ms Sallyanne Atkinson AO (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Thomas Bradley (No Republic—ACM)Lady Florence Isabel Bjelke-Petersen (Constitutional Monarchists)Ms Mary Kelly (Women for a Just Republic)Ms Sarina Russo (Australian Republican Movement)Cr Paul Gregory Tully (Queenslanders for a Republic)Cr Ann Bunnell (Clem Jones Queensland Constitutional Republic Team)

Western Australia

Ms Janet Holmes a Court AO (Australian Republican Movement)The Rt Hon Reg Withers (No Republic—ACM)Professor Peter Tannock (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Geoff Hourn (No Republic—ACM)Mr Graham Edwards (Australian Republican Movement)Ms Clare Thompson (Australian Republican Movement)Ms Marylyn Rodgers (No Republic—ACM)Mr Liam Bartlett (ungrouped—An Open Mind for the Future)Professor Patrick O’Brien (Elect the President)

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South Australia

Mr Kym Bonython (No Republic—ACM)Dr Baden Teague (Australian Republican Movement)The Right Reverend John Hepworth (No Republic—ACM)Ms Linda Kirk (Australian Republican Movement)Ms Victoria Manetta (No Republic—ACM)Dr Tony Cocchiaro (Australian Republican Movement)Father John Fleming (No Republic—ACM)Ms Kirsten Andrews (Australian Republican Movement)

Tasmania

Mr Edward O’Farrell CVO CBE (No Republic—ACM)Mr Julian Ormond Green (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Michael Anthony Castle (No Republic—ACM)Ms Marguerite Scott (Australian Republican Movement)Dr David Charles Mitchell (The Australian Monarchist League)Mr Eric Lockett (ungrouped—Voice of Ordinary, Fair-Minded, Thinking Citizens)

Australian Capital Territory

Ms Anne Witheford (Australian Republican Movement)Mr Frank Cassidy (Australian Republican Movement)

Northern Territory

Mr David Curtis (A Just Republic)Mr Michael John Kilgariff (ungrouped—Territory Republican)

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APPOINTED DELEGATES—NON-PARLIAMENTARY

Ms Andrea Ang (Western Australia)Ms Stella Axarlis (Victoria)Ms Dannalee Bell (Victoria)Ms Julie Bishop (Western Australia)Professor Geoffrey Blainey AO (Victoria)Professor Greg Craven (Western Australia)Ms Miranda Devine (New South Wales)Mr Gatjil Djerrkura OAM (Northern Territory)Ms Mia Handshin (South Australia)The Hon Bill Hayden AC (Queensland)The Most Reverend Peter Hollingworth AO, OBE (Queensland)Ms Mary Imlach (Tasmania)Major General James AC, MBE (Queensland)Mr Adam Johnston (New South Wales)Mrs Annette Knight AM (Western Australia)Dame Leonie Kramer AC (New South Wales)Ms Helen Lynch AM (New South Wales)The Hon Richard McGarvie AC (Victoria)Mr Donald McGauchie (Victoria)The Hon Dame Roma Mitchell AC (South Australia)Mr Carl Moller (Tasmania)Councillor Joan Moloney (Queensland)Mr George Mye MBE, AM (Queensland/TSI)Mr Ben Myers (Queensland)Ms Moira O’Brien (Northern Territory)Dr Lois O’Donoghue CBE, AM (South Australia)Sir Arvi Parbo AC (Victoria)The Most Reverend George Pell (Victoria)Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone OAM (Northern Territory/Western Australia)Mr Peter Sams (New South Wales)Professor Judith Sloan (South Australia)Sir David Smith KCVO, AO (Australian Capital Territory)Professor Trang Thomas AM (Victoria)Mr Lloyd Waddy RFD, QC (New South Wales)Professor George Winterton (New South Wales)Ms Heidi Zwar (Australian Capital Territory)

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APPOINTED DELEGATES—PARLIAMENTARY

Commonwealth

Government

The Hon John Howard MP (Prime Minister)The Hon Peter Costello MP (Treasurer)The Hon Daryl Williams AM QC MP (Attorney-General)Senator the Hon Robert Hill (Minister for the Environment)Senator the Hon Jocelyn Newman (Minister for Social Security)Mr Neil Andrew MPMrs Chris Gallus MPMr Kevin Andrews MPSenator Alan FergusonThe Hon Tim Fischer MP (Deputy Prime Minister)The Hon John Anderson MP (Minister for Primary Industries and Energy)Senator Ron Boswell (Leader of the National Party of Australia in the Senate)

Australian Labor Party

The Hon Kim Beazley MP (Leader of the Opposition)The Hon Gareth Evans QC MPSenator the Hon John Faulkner (Leader of the Opposition in the Senate)Senator Sue West (Deputy President of the Senate)Senator the Hon Nick BolkusSenator Kate Lundy

Australian Democrats

Senator Natasha Stott Despoja

Independent/Green

Mr Allan Rocher MP

State/Territory

New South Wales

The Hon Bob Carr MP (Premier)The Hon Peter Collins QC MP (Leader of the Opposition)The Hon Jeff Shaw QC MLC (Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations)

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Victoria

The Hon Jeff Kennett MLA (Premier)Mr John Brumby MLA (Leader of the Opposition)The Hon Pat McNamara MLA (Deputy Premier and Minister for Agriculture)

Queensland

The Hon Rob Borbridge MLA (Premier)Mr Peter Beattie MLA (Leader of the Opposition)The Hon Denver Beanland MLA (Attorney-General and Minister for Justice)

Western Australia

The Hon Richard Court MLA (Premier)Dr Geoffrey Gallop MLA (Leader of the Opposition)The Hon Hendy Cowan MLA (Deputy Premier)

South Australia

The Hon John Olsen FNIA MP (Premier)The Hon Michael Rann MP (Leader of the Opposition)Mr Mike Elliott MLC (Leader of the Australian Democrats)

Tasmania

The Hon Tony Rundle MHA (Premier)Mr Jim Bacon MHA (Leader of the Opposition)Mrs Christine Milne MHA (Leader of the Tasmanian Greens)

Territories

Mrs Kate Carnell MLA (Chief Minister, Australian Capital Territory)The Hon Shane Stone QC MLA (Chief Minister, Northern Territory)

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PROXIES TABLED BY THE CHAIRMAN

PRINCIPAL PROXY

Mr Howard Senator Minchin

Mr Carr Mr Iemma

Mr Borbidge Mr FitzGerald

Mr Olsen Mr Griffin (6 and 11 February)

Mr Rundle Mr Hodgman

Mrs Carnell Ms Webb

Mr Stone Mr Burke

Mr Bacon Mrs Jackson (4, 5 and 6 February)

Mr Collins Mr Hannaford (3-6 and 9-10 February)

Senator Alan Ferguson Mr Abbott (2-6 February)

Mr Kennett Dr Dean (All, except 11 February)

Mr Beattie Mr Foley (4-6 February)Mr Milliner (9-10 February)

Mr Court Mr Barnett

Sir David Smith Professor Flint (5 February)

Mr Fox Mr McGuire (5-6 February)

Mr Beazley Mr McLeay (from 3pm, 5 February,6, 9 and 11 February)Mr McMullan (10 February, 9.00 am to 2.00 pm)

Mr Martin (10 February, 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm)

Ms George Ms Doran

Mr Kilgariff Mr McCallum (6 February from 4 pm)

Sir James Killen Mr Paul (6 February from 3.30 pm)

Ms Imlach Mr Nockles (6 February, afternoon)

Senator Faulkner Mr Melham (9 February)

Reverend Costello Mr Castan (6 February)

Mr O’Farrell Professor Flint

Mrs Rodgers Mr Mackerras

Mr Withers Mr Paul (9 February)

Mr Green Mrs Jackson (9 February)

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Proxies continued—

PRINCIPAL PROXY

Senator Bolkus Mr McClelland (9-10 February)

Mr McGauchie Dr Craik (9 February)

Mr Anderson Mr Abbott (as necessary)

Senator Minchin (13 February)

Mr Costello Senator Campbell (9 February, from 3 pm)

Mr Pyne (10 February, 9.00 am to 3 pm)

Senator Hill Senator Payne (10 February)

Dame Kramer Professor Flint (11 February)

Mr Bonner Mr Longstaff (11 February)

Professor Flint (12-13 February)

Mr Paul (13 February, from 2 pm)

Reverend Hepworth Mr Pearson (11 February)

Mr Beanland Mr Carroll (13 February)

Ms Ferguson Dr Howard (12 February, morning)

Major General James Mr Freeman (11 February, from 6 pm)

Mr Chipp Mr Fitzgerald (11 February, from 6 pm)

Mr Castle Professor Flint (11 February)

Mr Andrew Mr Slipper (10 February, 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm)

Professor Sloan Professor Flint (13 February, from 3 pm)

Ms Schubert Ms Markham (13 February, 2-4 pm)

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COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Hansard

1998

OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

2nd to 13th FEBRUARY 1998

Friday, 13 February 1998

The CHAIRMAN (Rt Hon I. McC.Sinclair) took the chair at 9.00 a.m., and readprayers.

CHAIRMAN —To give delegates someidea of the program for today, I thought thatwe would endeavour to allow about an houron the first question; on the second question,from about 10 o’clock to 11.30; then, on thethird question, from about 11.30. As alldelegates would be aware, the Prime Ministeris to open Constitutional Place, which is atthe rear of the House of Representatives, at 1o’clock. In order that we can get there, Ipropose that we suspend the proceedings at12.45. It may well be that we come back at2 p.m. to vote on the question—the adoptionof a republican system of government.

The question of a bipartisan appointment ofa president model will then be voted on after2 p.m. instead of prior to the luncheon ad-journment. At 4 o’clock, we will come backto debate putting the question to the people ina constitutional referendum, of which I havehad notice of an amendment for a plebiscite,which will be considered at that time. Thatwill be taken from about 2.15 to about 3.15,allowing for a vote on the third question.Then we will endeavour to conclude all theother matters—the presentation of the com-munique, which is going to be merely afactual record of the resolutions passed andreference to the recommendations that thisConvention has approved, which the Deputy

Chairman and I will present to the PrimeMinister at about quarter past three. We hopethat all proceedings could be concluded by4.30.

I know many delegates wish to leaveCanberra. To those who are not leavingCanberra, I understand the members bar is tobe opened at the conclusion of proceedings.So, if you wish to say, ‘Hello’ or anythingelse to your colleagues, you may do so therethis afternoon.

Mr BEATTIE —Is that wise, Mr Chair-man?

CHAIRMAN —It may not be wise, but itwas decided that it was appropriate. As youwould be aware, all ballots that were heldyesterday and the names of how people votedwill be in the Hansardrecord. Those of youwho question the accuracy of the count cando their own tallies, but the names will bethere. I thank you for your cooperation onthat issue.

Again today, because of the difficulties ofhaving a division and ensuring the accuracyof the count, we would propose to use ballotpapers so that the record of votes can beensured. There being no other matter of whichI have notice, are there any issues anyone elsewants to raise?

Mr WADDY —This is purely procedural.I wonder if a copy of the bipartisan appoint-ment of president model has been preparedand circulated. Perhaps I have just missed it.I am advised that it has been circulated. I willseek my copy.

934 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION Friday, 13 February 1998

CHAIRMAN —Are there any other pro-cedural matters before we go on with thedebate? If not, it would be my intention,subject to the will of the Convention, to allowthree-minute speeches. We have covered theprincipal subject to such a degree that I thinkwe can accommodate so many more. So wewill have a general debate on the first ques-tion, and for the mover of the question per-haps we had better allow a little more time,say five minutes. But yesterday, allowing fiveminutes per speaker, I found there were somany speakers that we did not get everybodyin. Unless people really feel strongly about it,I think we will allow three minutes perspeaker.RESOLUTIONThat this Convention supports, in principle,Australia becoming a republic.

Reverend TIM COSTELLO —I move:That this Convention supports, in principle, Austral-ia becoming a republic.

To allow others to have their full time, I willnot take five minutes. I am very pleased tomove this motion. As prison psychologists tellsome of us, when you have been institutional-ised for a while inmates like us start to havequite bizarre behaviour—we actually lose themainframe, start enjoying the prison food,even start wearing the same clothes—as Ihave been doing for the last week—and allsorts of other strange traits emerge. I think itwould be terribly bizarre and strange if in thistwo weeks of prison we actually lost those ofus who are republicans. The mainframe, thebig picture, is that we are republicans andwhen this question is put we must resounding-ly vote yes.

I simply want to say that when people areasked about what has gone on this week,before they are asked whether we shouldappoint or elect a president, they should beasked the question: do you want a republic?Their overwhelming response is still: yes,they want a republic. I think that is the realvote they are looking for. In terms of modelsthat emerge, as we have seen already, it is abit like asking bike riders whether they likeriding only if it is a Malvern Star bike, andyou will get them dividing around particulartypes. But in this question I would urge all

republicans to clearly let their vote and theirvoice be heard.

Finally, let me say that I have acknow-ledged that the Crown is a very dominantsymbol and story of Australia. But the emer-ging story around the threshold questions thathave been debated very eloquently these lasttwo weeks; the emerging story that resonateswith vitality, that resonates with vibrancy, thatflies in the face of fragmentation in our worldand globalisation that declares we cannotfunction any more as interdependent nationstates; is the story of a republic, of interde-pendence, of equality, of mateship; a storythat honours the past and says very clearly weare regathering as a nation and declaring thatwe, as a nation of Australians, have a com-mon future where sovereignty resides in thepeople.

Ms DELAHUNTY —I second the motion.I concur with Tim’s view. I feel as though Ihave been living a life of a nun for the lasttwo weeks, emerging at dawn from our cellfor prayers for the republic, all day on thefloor and in the corridors of this place fight-ing the spiritual battle with the gentleweapons of words, and as twilight comes weall break bread and again sing for the repub-lic. Why have we done this? We have donethis because we all love our country, wehonour its achievements and we are thrilledabout the prospect of its future. Its future, Ibelieve, if you have listened to the words ofthis convention, is with an Australian head ofstate.

Delegates, the people of Australia arewatching us. No-one ever imagined just howmuch this constitutional reform, this Conven-tion would engage the public of Australia.Everyone from the janitor to the generalmanager has now got a model. We have amodel. Even the monarchists, may I ask youto embrace the winds of change. To republi-cans, remind yourselves how and why youwere voted here. Australians want a result.Australians want a clear majority. They wanta loud signal that this convention wants anAustralian head of state and will support it atreferendum next year. Delegates, put aside thepositions and the posturing of the last twoweeks. All of us are a little bruised and our

Friday, 13 February 1998 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 935

sense of possibility has been a little battered,but only a little battered. I urge you to voteresoundingly for this resolution so that thesignal can go out to the Australian people thatwe want a republic.

Dr DAVID MITCHELL —Well may wesay God save the Queen, for nothing will savethe republic. At the beginning of the debate,on the first day, I drew the attention of thedelegates of this Convention to the principlesof government found in the coronation oath,the principles of government that underlie ourconstitution. Every delegate here is wellaware of those principles, principles that haveexisted since at least the year 888, and en-trenched in legislation in the year 1688, thatgovernment will be lawful, just, merciful, thatGod’s law will be maintained and theBiblewill be regarded as the only rule for thewhole of life and government. Every delegateis well aware of this. Every delegate hasobviously accepted this principle, first of allbecause it is right, but the people of Australiawill note that not one delegate has attemptedto contradict or controvert the principles thatI presented then.

This Convention will be held to account,every delegate will be held to account, by thepages of history, by the people of Australiaand by the judgment of Almighty God. Thereis an opportunity now to demonstrate ourwish to maintain these historic principles. Theidea of a republic will fall to dust. Throughthe grace of Almighty God we will see Hisprinciples maintained in this land. I now callupon every delegate—republican, monarchistand uncommitted alike—to adhere to thoseancient principles. I am reminded of the novelAnimal Farm. George Orwell was far seeing.We have forgotten our constitutional princi-ples. This is an opportunity this day to re-member them. This is an opportunity toproclaim to the people of Australia that thereis not a hidden agenda, that we really do wantto maintain the historic principles of govern-ment.

Mr LOCKETT —I listened to Tim Costelloand Mary Delahunty, and I was impressed bythe conviction with which they spoke. But Idraw your attention to Mary Delahunty’sclosing words, where she implored us to tell

the people of Australia that we want a repub-lic. I would suggest we should do the reverse.We should ask the people of Australia if theywant a republic. We are 152 people in anation of 18 million or so. It is not for us totell them what they want. As I said on Tues-day, we should not get carried away with ourown sense of self-importance.

Some people may have wondered whyyesterday I moved that a particular motion notbe put. It is because I believe it is highlyimproper and arrogant of us to tell the peoplehow they should vote in a referendum. It istheir decision, not ours. Therefore, I give younotice again that in any further motion whichhas the effect of telling people how theyshould vote in a referendum to decide whetheror not we should become a republic, I willagain seek that that motion not be put. It isthe people’s decision, not ours.

CHAIRMAN —Before I call on Sir JamesKillen, the question we are debating is thatthis Convention supports, in principle, Aus-tralia becoming a republic.

Sir JAMES KILLEN —When MaryDelahunty said, ‘Let us embrace,’ I was readyto respond—until she added the words ‘thewinds of change’. You will find at all timesthat I will respond to the injunction of StPaul—seeing we are starting on an ecclesiasti-cal note—and greet one another with a holykiss and, if you want some practice, I amavailable.

At the beginning of this Convention, I madethe observation that the Crown is of no partyand the country is divided by party and bypolitics. Our experience during the course ofthe last 10 days has confirmed that. We haveseen the republic supporters divided by theirown cause. From that they cannot excusethemselves. But I do not seek to complainabout their division; I seek to identify it.

I want in the minute available to me toidentify what I regard as one of the greatpolitical curiosities of this century—that is,the use of the term ‘bipartisan’. If my friendsin the Labor Party—and there are those onmy side of politics who take the view that Ihave more friends there than I have in myown home—are genuine in their desire toidentify this as completely free of political


involvement, then I invite them to amend thefederal Constitution of the Australian LaborParty to ensure that every Labor member ofthe federal parliament will be given a freevote. That is a very simple test. I do notaccept, but I do not complain about thehistoric reason why the Labor Party adoptsthe caucus system of voting. I identify it; I donot support it, but that is their business. Ifyou want to genuinely convince the people ofAustralia that this is bipartisan, take thepolitics out of it and you can do it by that onemeans.

I ask my friend the Leader of Her Majesty’sOpposition, please use your great influence inyour party and you will find support acrossthe other way. In the meantime, sir, I servenotice that, as far as the cause of the republicis concerned, it will be defeated in the coun-try when the people have the opportunity tohave their say. But in the meantime I willseek the opportunity to ensure that the legisla-tion that puts the referendum before thepeople meets with as much difficulty aspossible.

Mr WRAN —I am delighted to see mylong-time and distinguished friend DelegateKillen taking such an interest in Labor Partyaffairs. Delegate Killen, I will provide youwith a membership form after we adjourn forlunch! That is that only way within ourdemocratic party that you can participate.

I have risen to make one point which hasnot yet been made at this Convention. We arenot so much concerned with the past as weare with the present and the future. Imaginefor a moment that we have been called uponnow to draw up an Australian constitution asif it were the very beginning. Would theQueen, the United Kingdom and Ireland haveany role in that constitution? Obviously, theanswer would be resoundingly no. Whywould it be no? The answer is: because,however distinguished that lady is and how-ever great a role she may play in England andEurope, she is totally irrelevant to our presentand even more irrelevant—if you can be moreirrelevant than totally irrelevant—to ourfuture.

It is not a case of being anti-British; it is acase of being pro-Australian. We have an

opportunity today to reinforce our Australianidentity and, as Delegate Lockett said—andI agree with him—to take the question to theAustralian people. They will decide, in atypically Australian way, by a referendum inwhich each and every Australian can partici-pate in Australia’s future by signifying wheth-er or not they want one of their own to be ourhead of state.

Mr McGARVIE —This is the first of myspeeches at the Convention in which I willnot have to rely on the generosity of theChairman and Deputy Chairman to give metime to get to the final full stop. It is not anoccasion for a long speech. I start by con-gratulating Mr Turnbull and his supporters ontheir success yesterday.

I would like to explain why it is that I willnot be voting on the first two resolutions. Ihave from the outset, and I continue to do so,taken the position of not siding with themonarchists or the republicans. I would notlike it to be interpreted as a conversion whichhas occurred overnight. I said some thingsyesterday which reflect my present view. Inthe voting yesterday I did not speak. I votedfor the alternative which I thought leastdisadvantageous to future democracy. I mayhave things to say in future, but not today. Atthat point—and I hope I do not frustrate youby finishing too early, Mr Chairman—Iconclude my speech.

Mr BEAZLEY —I will start by reiteratinga point I made yesterday: this is the thresholdquestion and this is the overwhelminglyimportant question to be before the Australianpeople. This is the decision which they willtake, no matter what model is presented tothem, which will be a permanent one shouldthey take it for a republic. It is overwhelming-ly prior. If we get the model on the presiden-cy wrong in the public mind and they never-theless pass that model, there will be plentyof opportunities as time goes by to fix up thatissue. It will become part of the ongoingdebate in Australian politics.

That leads to a second point that I verybriefly want to make about it: this is an issuethat will not go away until it is resolved infavour of a republic. There is no questionabout that. It may not be resolved next time,


but it will be persistently on the Australianagenda because the Australian people want itthere. Overwhelmingly, the Australian peoplesay either that they want a republic now orthat they believe a republic is inevitable. Ihave not seen a vote with those two proposi-tions added together that has had less than 85per cent of Australians aligned with it. Oneway or another, our people believe either thatthey want a republic or that a republic isinevitable. That means it will not leave thepolitical agenda until it is complete.

There has been some talk around the Con-vention—it has been the delight of the monar-chists—that the republicans here have beendivided. Anybody who reads the history ofthe Federation will remember there werepeople opposed to Federation at the time—alot, I might say, of those in the Labor Partyor the then nascent Labor parties were op-posed to Federation. The people who went tothose conferences were not united on anythingexcept the fact they wanted an Australiannation created. That was the only point onwhich they were united. They had diverseviews on everything else. Those who nowwant an Australian republic have diverseviews on the modality of it. All that means isthat history repeats itself: people of goodwillwho believe in a bit of progress and whobelieve in the nation going forward are notnecessarily likely to find themselves in accordwith where they go.

I would ask all those here at this Conven-tion today to recollect, both on this resolutionand the subsequent ones, that we are dealingwith an issue the most preponderant and mostsignificant element of which is the point onwhich we agree. To get that through to theAustralian people in a united way means thata 10-year process can end in two.

Mr TIM FISCHER —Kim Beazley is right.In fact it was at Corowa that the then broken-down process of Federation was re-railed ata people’s convention in 1893. It is at thisConvention in this year of 1998 that I thinka rich vein of talent has been encounteredacross the spectrum, across all ages, in thedelegates who have come from beyond theparliaments to join with parliamentarians toexamine this case for constitutional change.

It has been a great privilege to be one ofthose delegates for this last fortnight.

I know there is a great deal of hurt and painright across Australia at this time. Let menominate just four areas: Katherine, Towns-ville, Lockhart and Wagga all are the victimsof disasters in recent weeks. There is anattitude that somehow this Convention has notdelivered the goods and that it has been awaste of money. I disagree very strongly withthat. I would say to those people right acrossAustralia who have been engaged throughtelevision and radio in following some of theproceedings: your money has been well spent.The delegates have been more engaged at thisconference than at any other conference Ihave ever attended either in my capacity asMinister for Trade or in any other capacityover the decades. Full marks to your engage-ment and your commitment to the cause.

That then leaves the issue which we havesought to test. The test has been whetherAustralia and Australians will be better off interms of what is being proffered in makingthis change into, to some extent, unknownconstitutional waters, or whether we would bebetter off staying with the model which hasworked so well over 100 years, which hasgiven a great deal of cohesion for the govern-ance of this country and which has delivereda great deal of positive outcome to the peopleof Australia, right across Australia.

As federal leader of the National Party Ihave reached a reaffirmed conclusion from thedeliberations of the Convention that the casefor change has not yet been proven and I willvote accordingly. Therefore, I will oppose themotion before the chair that this Constitutionsupports, in principle, Australia becoming arepublic. That is the firm position of myparty. The case for change has been tested; itshould now be rested.

The Most Reverend PETER HOLLING-WORTH —I was pleased, indeed honoured,to do what I could to help yesterday and onprevious days in the preparing of an alterna-tive model for a potential republic of Austral-ia, a model which on the one hand for somewould be the least unsatisfactory and forothers the most satisfactory.


I believe that that was a responsibility thatall of us had, because at the end of the dayour final responsibility is to the Australianpeople. The primary thing that I believe wehad to do—and which we have almost done—is provide the terms of reference for a referen-dum that will state the two options as clearlyand simply as possible so that people canmake up their own minds and cast a vote.

I have a great problem with motions thatrefer to the words ‘in principle’. I have aneven bigger problem having to vote against orabstain from questions of principle, obviously.But I do want to say to the movers of themotion that the use of the term ‘in principle’is going to pose a major difficulty for anumber of delegates in this chamber, includ-ing me. There are many people here—and Ihear many Australians as I go around thecountry—saying, ‘Yes, we can accept the ideaof a republic, but we want to know what sortof republic, we want to know when, we wantto know the terms under which it mighthappen, and we want to be satisfied that theend result is better than what we have now.’

I know that that is one of the primarycommitments of the Australian RepublicanMovement and I commend you for it. Theacid test really is that we propose somethingwhich is better than what we have now. Ibelieve that to ask this Convention first off tovote on a series of motions on this questionin principle is very burdensome indeed. Iwould ask whether there is any possibility ofthat phrase being removed.

I think we have to determine a lot of otherquestions. I began on the first day by sayingthat the devil and the solution is in the detailactually, not the principle. I believe we are arepublic, virtually. We have behaved like onefor a very long time. It is probably correct tocall us a Crown republic. When we aretalking about principle I think it is proper toask the question: principle as to what kind ofrepublic?

Ms HOLMES a COURT —I had the greatpleasure yesterday of sitting with Kerry Jonesfor lunch. We had a bit of a joke becauseKerry said she can understand my need, orpropensity, to leap up and act like a teacher.Once a teacher, always a teacher. We cannot

help ourselves. That sums up for me so muchof what has happened this week. I have somuch in common with the people who seemto be sitting in the main in the constitutionalmonarchy block. Last night I spoke to HendyCowan. I have so much in common withHendy Cowan, but somehow we come to adifferent answer.

Mr COWAN —You’re destroying mypolitical future.

Ms HOLMES a COURT —Hendy said heloves our present system of government.Ladies and gentlemen, I went away from theAustralian Republican Movement because Ithought we wanted to change too much. Icame back when I realised that basically wewanted to change so little. We wanted anAustralian head of state, but we love the samesystem.

Bruce Ruxton has spoken often about howthis is anti-British. I am not anti-British. Howcan I be? I employ 650 wonderful Britishpeople in London and in Australia possibly500 people who are now Australian citizens,but who came here from Britain. I would loveto think that one of those great engineers,carpenters or whoever who work for mearound the country had the potential to be ourhead of state.

Lady Bjelke-Petersen and I had a wonderfultalk about how her background was Englishand that, therefore, she had a commitment tothe monarchy. My background is English. Mygrandfather started work at seven years of agein a rope factory in Britain. He came toAustralia because he did not want his childrento have to do that. Another grandfather cameand was a surveyor at the beginning of thecolony in Western Australia. I love it. Wehave each come to a different answer: LadyBjelke-Petersen wants that model and I,because my roots are so embedded here now,want an Australian to be a head of state.

Mr Lockett has said, ‘Let Australiansdecide.’ That is why we have all been lockedup in this room for two weeks. I want toexpress my deep admiration for the peoplewho sit in these places normally—or at theother place—for their remarkable stamina. Ithink some of us displayed yesterday that wewere just about at the end. Mr Lockett, that


is what we are here for. We are here to comeup with a model to put to the Australianpeople so they can decide.

Lastly, my fellow West Australian, MarylynRodgers, has asked the question: who are thepeople in this room who love Australia? Herfeeling was that they are the people over therewith the British flag on the corner of theAustralian flag. Who are the people who loveAustralia? We all love Australia. Everyone inthis room is passionate about Australia. Theanswer for me is: I want an Australian to behead of state and I have great pleasure inendorsing this motion.

Mr HAYDEN —I was very much impressedby Mrs Holmes a Court’s address to thisassembly a few seconds ago. One of thepoints she made in fact goes to the very heartof my concerns about the so-called bipartisanmodel, which got the most votes but did notget a majority yesterday. She said that shewould love to think that the people sheemploys—from an engineer to a carpenter—would have the opportunity of becoming headof state. Therein is the heart of my concernabout all of the models except the one Ipresented yesterday and the model which wasfinally carried.

The chances of the carpenter getting upthrough that quality control council, as somany of the republicans are keen to imposeon the community, are about zilch. It maywell be that the carpenter will not do anybetter in a nationwide election where every-body is allowed to vote for anyone whohappens to nominate themselves as a candi-date. Maybe not; they may do no better at all.But the fact is that that person would have aright to nominate themselves, and that shouldbe the right of every person in this country.I cannot understand why there is this elitist,exclusionary attitude of putting up committeesto vet, to monitor and to filter who is asuitable person—perhaps a politically correctperson—or not.

Mary Delahunty, in a well-crafted speech—as one would expect from a top professionalcommunicator—presumed that the battle forhearts and minds was won and we should allgo along with the model put up yesterday.But the battle for hearts and minds here has

not been won with the republicans, let alonewith the broader number of delegates or withthe broader community. I suggest that that isa concern that the republicans will have toaddress. Republicans have been speaking thismorning as though they are speaking for ‘thepeople’. They are talking for some people;they are not talking for all of the people inthe Republican Movement. Good Lord, this isfar from resolved.

One of the worries I have is that, if we votefor this resolution, the effect de facto will bethat the republicans—the ARM people—willgo out and say that the Convention today—if,for instance, there were to be a unanimousvote or an overwhelming majority vote—voted for their model. Nothing is further fromthe truth. I have a fear that we will go outwith less than a 50 per cent vote for whatevermodel comes up in the course of today.Therefore, it would be a very sad thing if thepublic did not have an opportunity to de-cide—not to be told what they have to havebut to indicate what they want.

I suggest that the government should seri-ously consider a plebiscite to allow the publicto indicate of all of the proposals which onethey want. Your Grace, ArchbishopHollingworth, that is why I stopped short ofsupporting your proposition for two optionsfor a referendum. There should not be areferendum at this point. There should be aplebiscite, and the public should be askedwhat they want. You will find that none ofthe models that the republicans put up hereare acceptable to the Australian public, be-cause they want to determine their owndestiny.

Senator STOTT DESPOJA—I rise onbehalf of my party today to support theresolution before us. I am proud to haverepresented a party that has balloted all itsmembers on this question as to whether or notwe should move to an Australian head ofstate. Overwhelmingly we support that. We donot support change for change’s sake. In fact,we have seen this Convention as a wonderfulopportunity to update our Constitution, whichdoes not work for us as well as it did. It doesnot matter how many conservatives choose tothink that it still works for us wonderfully. It


needs updating, but tradition and progress arenot incompatible.

This republican debate and discourse giveus the opportunity to look at things likeconsolidating our uniquely multiculturalsociety, to look at the issue of reconciliationand the role of indigenous Australians and tomake sure that we implement parliamentaryand structural reform. That may not happenout of this Convention, but it is a first posi-tive and wonderful start.

When US President Ronald Reagan waswheeled into an operating theatre after theassassination attempt on his life, he said tothe surgeons—no doubt more nervous than hewas—please assure me that you are all repub-licans. Major changes to our nation’s futureand to our Constitution should not be in thehands of others. We should grasp this won-derful opportunity that we have before us. Weshould take advantage of it. Fellow delegates,please assure me that a clear majority of youare republicans.

Senator FAULKNER—I believe this is athreshold question for this Convention. I alsobelieve that we face a situation in this countrywhere our current constitutional arrangementsare anachronistic and obsolete. I find it verydifficult to believe that the majority of Aus-tralians can accept the fact that their head ofstate comes about as a result of a monarchybased on succession by birth right.

I find it very hard in modern Australia tobelieve that a majority of Australians wouldaccept a situation where there is absolutepreference for men over women—absolutepreference for male heirs. I find it verydifficult in modern Australia to accept the factthat there is a limitation on our head of stateto being a member of the Anglican faith. But,most of all, I find it very hard to accept thefact that in this country at this time Austral-ians can accept they have a situation wheretheir head of state is not an Australian.

Delegates, even though I have had concernsabout the representativeness of the Conven-tion, its appointment procedures and electionprocesses, I think this resolution gives us anopportunity to give an overwhelming endorse-ment to the principle that we should have anAustralian as Australia’s head of state.

Ms RODGERS—After 10 days of debate,the republicans have clearly come up with abipartisan model to put to the people ofAustralia. This model has a clear mandateamongst those who wish Australia to becomea republic. Mr Turnbull must now recognisethat we have honourably allowed the republi-cans to come to their own conclusion. Wehave not interfered with that decision. I thinkthe people of Australia will see that we didnot try to manipulate the debate in any way.Mr Turnbull, I think you owe us an apologyon that one.

We have been told the republic is inevi-table. Clearly, this is only in the minds ofrepublicans. I respect that, and I ask them torespect our rights too. I would ask them toconsider that when they keep saying that allAustralians want a republic. You have notheard that from the monarchist debate at all.We have consistently said that we want to goto the people; we want the people to decide.The way Australia is governed at this stage,because the republicans have not come upwith a better model, we still believe thesystem we have though not perfect is by farbetter than anything presented here over thelast 10 days.

There is now a clear contest. The people ofAustralia will see that from the vote takenyesterday. I say: let us endorse the findinghere and get behind giving the people ofAustralia their rightful say. We welcome areferendum.

Mr FOX —For the last 10 days 152 peoplehave been committed to what we think is inthe best interests of Australia. I do not thinkthere is a great deal of variation between anyone group or any one individual compared tothe other. I have likened, on so many occa-sions, the two people sitting parallel to oneanother, Arvi Parbo and Professor GeoffreyBlainey, to being on probably exactly thesame railway track. The only variation iswhen the train tilts slightly to one side or theother.

The commitment of each and everybody foran outcome I think is paramount. We havenever had such an opportunity in our lifetimeto go to the Australian people and give them10 complete days of pushing, shoving and


negotiating with a tremendous amount ofemotion. The commitment and love of eachand everybody that is here is very special.That cannot be lost. The aspects of change arealways a problem, no matter how simple. Ifyou do not believe me, when you go hometonight try to get in your spouse’s side of thebed and see how long you last. That has to bethe simplest of changes. I can assure you, youcan get caught up in territorial rights andcustom and practice.

This is a chance to do something. You oweit to each and everybody to look forward towhere Australia is going from 2000 forward.The republican movement, I guess, cuts thathistoric tie with England. But the ideas fromthe words I spoke on the first day, about howI love God and my country, and how I willhonour the flag, serve the king and cheerfullyobey my parents, teachers and the laws, aregone. The kids no longer say that at school.We stood up and sangGod save the Queen.That is gone. Let us go forward. Let us seethe republic come. But, in your own heart,think of what is best for our kids and theirs.

Ms AXARLIS —This is a momentousmoment in the history of Australia. As aperson from a small enterprise who has tomeet the challenges of a global economy, whohas to meet the continuous struggle to becompetitive in the world today, who has toup-skill her employees, who has to maintainan understanding of what constitutes bestpractice in the world today and who under-stands perhaps more than some that the onlyconstant in the world today is change, I knowwe cannot allow ourselves to be afraid ofchange. We have the word democracy—‘demokratia’—the rule of the people. Wehave a leader in this nation—our PrimeMinister. We have our representative body—our parliament. We chose them. Equally, wehave the ability to elect them out of office ifthey do not perform. We do not want and Ihave never wanted a power struggle betweena president and a Prime Minister. I urge thosewho have always committed themselves to thepeople to think of the fact that we do have aconstitutional democracy—a wonderful bodywhich has served us over the whole periodsince 1900.

But above all, let us not be divisive. Wehave the issues of multiskilling and socialjustice. We have acknowledged, finally—andI came here to make sure that we did this—our indigenous people and our cultural di-versity. We have gone a long way and I amproud of the achievements of the whole body.I have come to respect far more people whomI really knew only as names in the pastbecause of the way they have given input intothis Constitutional Convention. But above allwe must be very wary. We cannot afford ata time which is so critical in the world todayto leave this Convention with a divisive vote.It is too important and we must think verycarefully about how we progress.

I think Australia is a republic. I agree; it isa republic in every sense of the word, butwith a de facto head. Those of you who arestruggling and continue to struggle and toabstain because the model does not allow fora direct vote of the people, please be assuredthat a person with a name like mine or anindigenous person or a woman would havevery little chance. The only time women havebeen properly represented has been ongovernment appointments. So I urge you tounite, to give the Australian public a clearvote. I do not mind how it goes; I will acceptthe umpire’s call. Let us together moveforward to what Australia really needs—aunited front in the global economy that willcontinue to challenge us beyond words.

Father JOHN FLEMING —Certain themeshave recurred in this debate. The Hon. KimBeazley has brought back some of the themeswhich we addressed a little earlier. MrBeazley is a man for whom I have greatrespect and I always listen with interest towhat he has to say. But on the matter of therepublic he has it tragically wrong. He saysthat the republic is an idea that will not goaway until we resolve to agree with him. Inotice that the Australian Labor Party had anidea of socialisation. That is an idea thatlasted for about 70 years but it has certainlygone away. The idea that there is an idea andthat it has to therefore be resolved in thefavour of those who have this idea is non-sense. It is the same thing with federation. Itis all very well to talk about federation but in


the end the Australian people needed to knowwhat the word meant—what the implicationsof it were. The difficulty with the word‘republic’ and voting ‘in principle’ for some-thing called ‘a republic’ is that you are votingfor something which does not exist. You needto know what colour the money is.

Mr Beazley invites us to embrace the idea,‘Don’t worry about the detail; we’ll fix it uplater.’ As we have said on our side when wehave been critical of this line, the last thingthis country needs is Republic Mark 1, Mark2, Mark 3, Mark 4, Mark 5, Mark 6 and Mark25 until the year 3000. It undermines thestability of the nation to embrace an ideawhich is not codified in a way which givesthe word specific meaning. I would inviteArchbishop Hollingworth to think about thatbecause that goes to the point that he wasraising. ‘In principle’ Australia should becomea republic—we are being asked to vote for anonsense.

It is dangerous, moreover, to use words thatare not defined. It is dangerous. What we arereally being asked to do here in voting ‘inprinciple’ for a republic is to vote for theARM model, because that is the only thingthat has survived—if you could call it surviv-al—the process. So I invite you not to votefor a nonsensical notion, which is what it is.I invite you to see that what we are reallybeing asked to do is to give some impetus toa pathetic, cobbled together model whichreally has no great command of the Australianpeople.

Finally, let me say this: talking of theAustralian people, the divisions among Aus-tralians are obvious. I do not speak for Aus-tralians, and I put it to you that nobody elsedoes. All we can say about Australians is thatwe are very diverse, we are very individualand we have very different ideas about whatthese things mean. I want, and my colleagueswant, the matter to go to the people for thepeople to decide, and it is not for us to lecturethem that ‘in principle’ Australia shouldbecome a republic—‘in principle’ which hasno sense content. I urge you to see that thisis a meaningless resolution and to throw it outaccordingly.

Ms BISHOP—I came here as an appointeddelegate. At no time prior to the invitationbeing extended to me was I asked if I had aview about Australia becoming a republic or,if I had a view, what it was. Subsequently,the terms of reference were drafted, includingthe question: should Australia be a republic?To me that was unfortunate. The questionnow has reference to ‘in principle’ Australiabecoming a republic. I struggle enormouslywith that phrase.

I do not believe that this question shouldhave been put to the Convention. I believe itis the question for the Australian people. Ihave been consistent in working groups andin the Resolutions Group in saying that I didnot want to answer this question at thisConvention. It is not ours to answer.

I came to listen and to learn and I applaudthe contribution of every delegate. I mustmention the Resolutions Group because it hashad quite a deal of publicity. It was an extra-ordinarily diverse group that struggled veryhard to come up with the right sort of resolu-tions to put to the Convention. But I believedthat we, the appointed delegates, were here tocraft a model for change should the Australianpublic decide that they wished Australia tobecome a republic. I was pleased to contributein whatever way I could in the drafting of amodel, should the Australian people determinethey wished to become a republic. I do notbelieve we should answer their question.However, I fully support that this question beput to the Australian people at a referendumas soon as possible.

Ms MOIRA O’BRIEN —Last Thursday,when I had the honour of visiting GovernmentHouse and I stood there and looked at thegrand, old eucalypt tree standing majesticallyin the backyard, I thought how symbolic itwas of this entire debate. Approximately 300years old we are told it is. We all agree thatthe eucalypt is fundamentally Australian—thegood, old gum tree. It has been here sincebefore white settlement. It symbolises theAboriginal people. It also symbolises current.It has grown up with the Australian people,with the Australian nation as it is today.

The republic is just another stage of thegum tree’s growth—the new leaves in spring.


Nobody is suggesting that we chop the treedown and start again; it is just continuing togrow. I fundamentally support Australiabecoming a republic. The model suggested isa fair way to go.

CHAIRMAN —I suggest that we have ourvote at a quarter past. There still are about 30names on this list, so I propose we cut thetime to two minutes. By doing that, I can givea few more people a guernsey. I will ring thebells for three minutes before a quarter pastso everyone will know to be in the chamber.

Mr COLLINS —We are asked to state theobvious with this motion. Any republican,anyone who has ever harboured any sentimentthat we must become a republic, must supportthis motion. We are not asked in this Conven-tion to reinvent Australia. I keep repeatingthat. We are asked to recognise our proudhistory, to build on it, to take the next step.It will be a shameful result if Australia, aftera dazzling first century, cannot take this step.

Look at what the founding fathers of Feder-ation achieved a century ago; they nearly gotthe whole package right. This is the step theydid not take. If we go away from this Con-vention saying, ‘Near enough is good en-ough,’ it does not stand us well for the future.It does not build on our proud constitutionalheritage, built during this century.

It would be arrogant in the extreme for usto assume that this is the last word on theconstitutional evolution of Australia. It is not.Future generations of Australians will be backhere determining what direction we shouldtake for further changes to our constitution.

We are asked to address a simple issue:whether or not, after a whole century offederation, Australia is capable of producinga citizen who can be the head of state. If wecannot make that decision after such a centuryof achievement, a century of sacrifice, acentury of international involvement—a proudhistory—then I believe we have failed. ThisConvention, if it cannot pass this resolution,has failed the Australian people. We are notsimply a debating chamber; we are expectedto provide a lead. We are expected to showguidance. Anything less is a waste of timeand money. I commend the resolution.

Mr BEATTIE —There have been somedifferences of view between the variousmodels advanced by the republicans at thisConvention. I see that as a healthy part of theprocess. Delegates should congratulate them-selves for the vigour, the commitment and thepassion with which they have representedtheir different views. All delegates here havecommitted themselves to the task and havedone it well. Those Australians who havelistened to the young delegates who havespoken here know that this country has abright future because of the contributions theyhave made.

One thing we all agree on—all republicans,regardless of our different models—is that wewant an Australian republic. It is that simple.I know all republicans, all genuine republi-cans who support an Australian republic, willvote in favour of this resolution when it is putshortly.

That does not mean that some of us will notregard this as an incremental stage. It doesnot mean that we will not pursue issues likeongoing constitutional reform, perhaps evenother considerations, to advance our argu-ment. But we know this: there has to be aclear message from this Convention to theAustralian people that we want a republic. Iurge all republicans to unanimously supportthis resolution.

Mr RANN —One hundred years ago, ourpredecessors at Australian ConstitutionalConventions showed great courage in embrac-ing history and embracing the future. TheConstitutional Conventions in the 1890s werecertainly not smooth sailing—far from it.Delegates compromised, compromised andcompromised. Delegates changed their mindsand changed their votes. They took on boardother people’s ideas and other people’sopinions. They voted in ways that often weredamaging to their own short-term immediatepolitical needs and self-interest. It was pain-ful. It was painstaking.

They made their choices not with an eye topress coverage the next day or even to votesat the next election. Instead, they voted,finally, for the common good of Australianswith a commitment to Australia’s future. Atthe end of all that bargaining, all that discord


and all that, finally, goodwill and compro-mise, no delegate 100 years ago pretendedthat they had come up with the perfect model.Instead, it was best endeavours by big peo-ple—by big and great Australians. We, 100years later, have to have the same eye tohistory and show the same fundamentalcommitment to the future of our nation andthe long-term interests of our people. But,most of all, we, like the founders of ourConstitution, must show that same courage tomove forward and embrace change.

One hundred years ago, the founders of ourConstitution laid down a document which, atthe turn of the last century, was a statementabout what Australia stood for. None of thosefounders in the 1890s who compromised andembraced change would have pretended thatthey had all the answers for a different Aus-tralia in the 21st century. I am asking allrepublicans today to vote for their children’sfuture and their grandchildren’s future becauseit is very hard to explain to my kids whyAustralia should not have its own head ofstate.

Mr WADDY —This is a trick question.There are three questions today. Yesterday,the Convention resolved—the republicanshaving designed their model amongst them-selves—that, if Australia was to become arepublic, the Convention would recommendthat the model should be put forward today.You settled the model yesterday. This morn-ing the trick comes in that this Conventionsupports, in principle, Australia becoming arepublic—everyone in this room knowing thatthe only possible way to become a republic isto alter the Constitution.

Mr Beazley said on the opening day, ‘Weare a republic in all but name.’ Stella Axarlishas just said again, ‘We live in a democracyand a republic.’ The question is: do we or dowe not keep the present mechanism forappointing the Governor-General or do wechange it? That is the only question to be dis-cussed all the time. No-one, no model, hasever suggested changing the powers of theGovernor-General. The whole argument fornine days has been how to appoint the Gover-nor-General. Our present system, as I pointedout at the beginning, separates the organs of

government from politics. It does not intro-duce a political element. The republicans havestruggled all week to try to find some mecha-nism which will deliver a non-political headof state. They will not discuss mandate. Thatis what we have been discussing, and that iswhere the trick is.

Before Australia was founded, Great Britainwas called a Crown republic. Bagehot de-scribed it as a crowned republic. There is noquestion that the Queen’s powers are going tobe given to the new head of state. The newhead of state is going to have the Governor-General’s powers and the politicians are goingto take the Queen’s powers of appointment.

Dr CLEM JONES —When I spoke yester-day I said that that would probably be my lastspeech. But I wanted to rise again todaybecause I think it is very important that weshould be quite clear on what we are doingthis morning. I disagree with His Grace inrelation to the wording of the motion. I thinkit is very important that the words ‘inprinciple’ are in the motion. I would not likeanybody to go away from here thinking thatbecause we have given a majority vote to aparticular type of republic, a particular model,it is that which is constraining us to vote fora republic. It certainly is not with me. Thatmodel is not the model that I want to see inthe eventual republic.

I would like to make reference to a coupleof things that I think are important and thathave not been discussed in much detail heretoday or in the last eight days. In making thisdecision, we are making a decision whichleaves us with an enormous job to do. Thepeople, I believe, have already said that weare going to have a republic so I have nohesitation in talking about what has to happenwhen we do decide on that matter.

We have discussed a great number of issueshere. In the first words I wrote in the paperwe had to fill in for the nomination forelection I said that this is a matter whichcannot be considered in isolation—and itcannot be. We have discussed over the lastnine days a number of issues. Some peoplehave said that they are peripheral issues. Ibelieve that all of them are important. Theywould not have been brought up here if they


were not. That fact means that in the big jobahead there is a great deal of responsibilitythat has to be taken not only by the people ofAustralia but also by the government. It isessential that we go away from here knowingthat everybody is committed to making surethat when we do have the republic it will bethe republic we want.

Brigadier GARLAND —At present wehave a Constitution which entrenches theWestminster system of government. I remindyou again that that Westminster system ofgovernment gives us checks and balances andis based on three areas: the Crown, the legis-lature and the judiciary. We have been askedto pass a motion suggesting Australia shouldbecome a republic. If we pass that motion, ifwe vote for that proposal, we are voting forthe death knell of the Australian Constitutionand our Westminster system. I do not believeanybody in Australia is prepared to throw outthe baby with the bathwater. I appeal to you:if you wish to retain our Westminster systemvote against this motion.

Professor CRAVEN—I will be brief. Icame to this chamber firmly intending to votefor this motion, as I had strongly supportedone version of a republic. I listened to Arch-bishop Hollingworth’s speech with consider-able pain, and I find that he is right. I cannotvote for a principle of a republic without amodel. If there is a model it is the ARMmodel, and that is a model that I cannotsupport. I intend to abstain from voting onthat model in the next vote. Therefore, I ampersuaded by Archbishop Hollingworth’sspeech that I must abstain from voting in thisvote. I say that with considerable sadness butthe logic, to me, seems compelling.

Mrs GALLUS —Since I was 15 I havewanted to see Australia as a truly independentnation and not with a head of an anothercountry as its head of state. Today we cameto this Convention in two broad camps: thoseof us who wanted a republic and those of uswho did not. There have been accusations thatthe republicans were divided. But how couldit have been otherwise? We all came with agoal but with different ways of getting to thatgoal. We have reached a solution. To some ofus it is not our preferred solution; we would

have preferred another. But to all of you whowant a republic, do not let that stand in yourway. Politics is the art of the possible. Welost our model, so let us get behind the modelthat did get up and make sure that Australiadoes become a republic.

Senator BOSWELL—Today, the questionthat we are invited to answer is, in principle:do we want to become a republic? But, ineffect, if we answer that in the affirmative, weare clearly voting for the Australian ARMmodel. I want to point out to the people thatwe have already heard from the Leader of theOpposition, Mr Kim Beazley, that he can fixit up if it is not quite right.

We are going to be asked to vote for amodel that 71 people at this Convention didnot want and 74 people did want, so there ishardly conclusive evidence that there is agreat majority for it. We are going to beasked to vote for a model that both the Leaderof the Opposition and his former Attorney-General have told us has to be codified. Wehave also been told by the former Attorney-General, who is a prominent constitutionallawyer, that codification cannot really beachieved. He said that it would take 30 yearsand we would not even make a dent in it.But, somehow, since the former Attorney-General came to this Convention, he has hada road to Damascus conversion; he nowthinks that we can codify, but he has not toldus how we can do it.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we vote for thisresolution, we are signing a blank cheque onbehalf of Australia. I think we all ought tolisten very carefully to His Grace, ArchbishopHollingworth. We should realise that what weare voting for is in principle. I ask people notto be fooled by the symbols of this, but tohave a hard-hearted look at the realities.

Ms PERIS-KNEEBONE—Fellow Austral-ians, I want to introduce my brief talk withthe word ‘luck’. What does the word ‘luck’mean? Luck is when you have two dice andyou roll the dice. This country was not creat-ed by luck. All Australians created thismagnificent country which we are fortunateto live in. In the last five years of my life inrepresenting our country I have been to 29


countries around the world; there is no greatercountry in the world than Australia.

Father Fleming said that becoming a repub-lic is outright dangerous. A lot of people toldme when I was eight years old that playinghockey was dangerous; I now have an Olym-pic gold medal. What are we afraid of? Dowe tell our child, ‘Do not walk because youcould fall over’? Let us let go of our mothers’hands. I urge all Australians to vote for arepublic this afternoon. The way I am votingis for the way I would like to see my great-great-grandchildren live in this country—under one republic, under one country, whereall Australians can get up at any time and sayhow they feel.

I thought to myself yesterday afternoon,‘Where the hell in the world would you seesuch a diverse group of Australians as thosewho have come here today to foresee how ourcountry should be run?’ I support this modelwhich is being put forward to us this after-noon because it gives Australians of alldiversities a fair say. There is nothing wrongwith our political system—I have been to 29countries—and the way that our governmentis run. I have nothing else to say except thatI am a proud Australian.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The time hascome for the question to be put:

That this Convention supports, in principle,Australia becoming a republic.

We will adopt precisely the same method thatwe did yesterday. You have your envelopes.You are invited to indicate with a tick or across whether you support the question, andthen sign the voting slip.

Mr LOCKETT —I move:That the motion not now be put.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —I secondthe motion.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Two minds of alike thought. I put the question:

That the motion not now be put.

It is narrowly lost!Brigadier GARLAND —Have the bellsstopped ringing yet?

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The bells havestopped ringing. Steve Vizard is here. We all

welcome Patrick McNamara, the DeputyPremier of Victoria. The question then is thatthe Convention supports, in principle, Austral-ia becoming a republic. Would those infavour of the motion please rise or otherwiseindicate so that the tellers can collect theirballot papers.

AN INTERJECTOR —Up the republic!AN INTERJECTOR —Right up!DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Interjections

during the voting procedure are highly disor-derly.

Delegates submitted their ballot papers.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Would all those

against the proposition please indicate.Delegates submitted their ballot papers.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Would all those

who want to abstain please indicate.Delegates submitted their ballot papers.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The result of the

vote is yes 89; no 52; abstentions 11.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Order! It will be

noted that that is 152 voting. Yesterday wehad 151. The detailed results are as follows:Motion: That this Convention supports, inprinciple, Australia becoming a republic.Moved: The Reverend Tim CostelloSeconded: Ms Mary DelahuntyMotion put.

Delegates (89) who voted "yes":

Andrews, KirstenAng, AndreaAtkinson, SallyanneAxarlis, StellaBacon, JimBeattie, PeterBeazley, KimBell, DannaleeBolkus, NickBrumby, JohnBullmore, EricBunnell, AnnCarnell, Kate

(proxy—Webb, Linda)Carr, Bob


Cassidy, FrankCleary, PhilCocchiaro, TonyCollins, PeterCostello, PeterCostello, TimCurtis, DavidDelahunty, MaryDevine, MirandaDjerrkura, GatjilEdwards, GrahamElliot, MikeEvans, GarethFaulkner, JohnFox, LindsayGallop, GeoffreyGallus, ChrisGeorge, JennieGreen, JulianGrogan, PeterGunter, AndrewHaber, EdHandshin, MiaHawke, HazelHewitt, GlendaHill, RobertHolmes a Court, JanetJones, ClemKelly, MaryKennett, Jeff

(proxy—Dean, Robert)Kilgariff, MichaelKing, PoppyKirk, LindaLavarch, MichaelLi, Jason Yat-SenLundy, KateLynch, HelenMack, TedMachin, WendyMcGuire, EddieMcNamara, PatMilne, ChristineMoller, CarlMoore, CatherineMuir, David

O’Brien, MoiraO’Brien, PatrickO’Donoghue, LoisOlsen, JohnO’Shane, PatPell, GeorgePeris-Kneebone, NovaRann, MichaelRayner, MoiraRundle, TonyRusso, SarinaSams, PeterSchubert, MishaScott, MargueriteShaw, JeffSowada, KarinStone, ShaneStott Despoja, NatashaTannock, PeterTeague, BadenThomas, TrangThompson, ClareTully, PaulTurnbull, MalcolmVizard, SteveWest, SueWilliams, DarylWinterton, GeorgeWitheford, AnneWran, Neville

Delegates (52) who voted "no":

Anderson, JohnAndrew, NeilAndrews, KevinBeanland, Denver

(proxy—Carroll, F E)Bjelke-Petersen, FlorenceBlainey, GeoffreyBonner, NevilleBonython, KymBorbidge, Rob

(proxy—FitzGerald, Tony)

Boswell, Ron

Bradley, ThomasCastle, Michael


Chipp, DonCourt, RichardCowan, HendyFerguson, AlanFerguson, ChristineFischer, TimFleming, JohnGarland, AlfGifford, KennethHayden, BillHepworth, JohnHourn, GeoffHoward, JohnJames, William (Digger)Johnston, AdamJones, KerryKillen, JimKramer, LeonieLeeser, JulianManetta, VictoriaMcGauchie, DonaldMitchell, DavidMitchell, RomaMoloney, JoanMye, GeorgeNewman, JocelynO’Farrell, EdwardPanopoulos, SophieRamsay, JimRocher, AllanRodgers, MarylynRuxton, BruceSheil, GlenSmith, DavidSutherland, DougWaddy, LloydWebster, AlasdairWilcox, VernonWithers, RegZwar, Heidi

Delegates (11) who abstained from voting:

Bartlett, Liam

Bishop, Julie

Craven, GregHollingworth, Peter

Imlach, MaryKnight, AnnetteLockett, EricMcGarvie, RichardMyers, BenjaminParbo, ArviSloan, Judith

Resolution agreed to.RESOLUTIONS GROUP

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The next matteris the determination of transitional and conse-quential issues. The document is headed‘Resolutions Group: Resolutions on Conse-quential Matters’, and has been circulatedseparately. It begins with headings on Timingand Circumstances of any Change, Title, andMembership of the Commonwealth ofNations. I make the point that a number ofthese issues have been discussed together.Whether it will prove to be necessary for usto deal with the issues absolutely independ-ently is in the hands of the conference. Theywill be introduced by the Attorney-General,the Hon. Daryl Williams.

Mr WILLIAMS —On behalf of my jointrapporteur and me, I move:That this Convention notes its earlier provisionaland indicative votes and resolves as follows:(1) Timing and Circumstances of Any ChangeA. That a referendum for change to a republic or

for the maintenance of the status quo be heldin 1999. If the referendum is in favour of arepublic, that the new republic come intoeffect by 1 January 2001.

B. That prior to the referendum being put to thepeople the Government undertake a publiceducation program directed to the constitution-al ant other issues relevant to the referendum.

(2) TitleThat in the event of Australia becoming a republic,the name "Commonwealth of Australia" be re-tained.(3) Membership of the Commonwealth ofNationsThat in the event of Australia becoming a republic,Australia remain a member of the Commonwealthof Nations in accordance with the rules of theCommonwealth.(4) The PreambleIn the event of Australia becoming a republic:


A. That the Constitution itself (as distinct fromthe Constitution Act) include a Preamble.

B. That any provisions of the Constitution Actwhich have continuing force should be movedinto the Constitution itself and those which donot should be repealed.

C. That the Preamble to the Constitution shouldcontain the following elements:

C1. Introductory language in the form "We thepeople of Australia";

C2. Reference to "Almighty God";C3. Reference to the origins of the Constitution,

and acknowledgment that the Common-wealth has evolved into an independent,democratic and sovereign nation under theCrown;

C4. Recognition of our federal system of repre-sentative democracy and responsible govern-ment;

C5. Affirmation of the rule of law;C6. Acknowledgment of the original occupancy

and custodianship of Australia by Aboriginalpeoples and Torres Strait Islanders;

C7. Recognition of Australia’s cultural diversity;C8. Affirmation of respect for our unique land

and the environment;C9. Reference to the people of Australia having

agreed to re-constitute our system ofgovernment as a republic;

C10. Concluding language to the effect that"[We the people of Australia] assertingour sovereignty, commit ourselves to thisConstitution";

C11. A provision allowing ongoing consider-ation of constitutional change.

D. That the following matters be considered forinclusion in the Preamble:

D1. Affirmation of the equality of all peoplebefore the law;

D2. Recognition of gender equality; andD3. Recognition that Aboriginal people and

Torres Strait Islanders have continuingrights by virtue of their status as Australia’sindigenous peoples.

E. That care should be taken to draft the Pre-amble in such a way that it does not haveimplications for the interpretation of theConstitution.

F. That Chapter 3 of the Constitution should statethat the Preamble not be used to interpret theother provision of the Constitution.

(5) Oaths and AffirmationsThat in the event of Australia becoming a republic:

A. The Head of State should swear or affirm anoath of allegiance and an oath of office.

B. The Convention notes that the oath [or affir-mation] of allegiance might appropriately bemodelled on that provided by the AustralianCitizenship Act as follows:[Under God] I pledge my loyalty to Australiaand its people, whose democratic beliefs Ishare, whose rights and liberties I respect andwhose laws I will uphold and obey.

C. The Convention notes that the oath [or affir-mation] of office might appropriately bemodelled on the following words:I swear, humbly relying on the blessing ofAlmighty God, [or, I do solemnly and sincere-ly affirm and declare] that I will give myundivided loyalty to and will well and trulyserve the Commonwealth of Australia and allits people according to law in the office of thePresident of the Commonwealth of Australia,and I will do right to all manner of peopleafter the laws and usages of the Common-wealth of Australia without fear or favour,affection or ill willorI swear [or affirm] that I will be loyal to andserve Australia and all its people according tolaw without fear or favour.

(6) Miscellaneous Transitional and Consequen-tial IssuesThat in the event of Australia becoming a republic:A. The Commonwealth Government and Com-

monwealth Parliament give consideration tothe transitional and consequential matterswhich will need to be addressed, by way ofconstitutional amendment or other legislativeor executive action, including:

A1. The date of commencement of the newprovisions;

A2. The commencement in office of the head ofstate upon oath or affirmation;

A3. Provision for an acting head of state incertain circumstances;

A4. Provision for continuation of prerogativepowers, privileges and immunities untilotherwise provided;

A5. Provision for salary and pension;A6. Provision for voluntary resignation;A7. Provision for the continued use, if and

where appropriate, of the term Royal,Crown or other related terms, and use of theroyal insignia, by the Defence Forces or anyother government body;

A8. Provision for the continued use of the termRoyal, Crown or other related term, and use


of royal insignia, by non-government or-ganisations;

A9. Provision for notes and coins bearing theQueen’s image to be progressively with-drawn from circulation; and

A10. Provision to ensure that any change to theterm Crown land, Crown lease or otherrelated term does not affect existing rightsand entitlements to land.

B. Spent or transitory provisions of the Constitu-tion should be removed.

(7) Qualifications of the Head of StateThat in the event of Australia becoming a republic:

A. The head of state should be an Australiancitizen;

B. The head of state should be eligible to vote inan election for the Senate or House of Repre-sentatives at the time of nomination;

C. The head of state should not be a member ofany political party;

D. The head of state should be subject to thesame disqualifications as set out in section 44of the Constitution in relation to members ofParliament; and

E. Any future amendments to section 44 of theConstitution should also apply to the head ofstate.

(8) Implications for the StatesA. That the Commonwealth Government and

Parliament extend an invitation to State Gov-ernments and Parliaments to consider:

Al. The implications for their respective Consti-tutions of any proposal that Australia be-come a republic; and

A2. The consequences to the Federation if oneor more States should decline to acceptrepublican status.

B. That this Convention is of the view that:

B1. Any move to a republic at the Common-wealth level should not impinge on Stateautonomy, and that the title, role, powers,appointment and dismissal of State heads ofstate should continue to be determined byeach State.

B2. While it is desirable that the advent of therepublican government occur simultaneouslyin the Commonwealth and all States, not allStates may wish, or be able, to move to arepublic within the timeframe established bythe Commonwealth. The Government andParliament should accordingly considerwhether specific provision needs to be madeto enable States to retain their currentconstitutional arrangements.

SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION

(1) Title of the head of stateThat this Convention notes its earlier indicativevote and resolves that in the event of Australiabecoming a republic, the title of head of stateshould be "president".

I indicate that, for unknown technologicalreasons, the supplementary resolution at theend of the motion fell out of the machineryand is on a separate piece of paper headed‘Resolutions Group: Supplementary Resolu-tion. (1) Title of the head of state’. There wasan earlier provisional and indicative vote, ifnot a final vote, and I would suggest that theConvention is able simply to take them as awhole, subject to any contrary ruling from thechair.

The terms of the resolutions are, except intwo respects, identical to the terms on whichthey have been previously voted. The provi-sions that have been altered have a lineagainst them in the left margin. The first is in(4) The preamble, paragraph A. The substanceis not changed; it is simply a shortenedversion. The second one is B and C in (5) onpage 3. There the introductory words to themodels of oath or affirmation were slightlyamended to make it clear that in each casethey are illustrative rather than directive. MrDeputy Chairman, these issues have beendebated at great length in the past, and Isuggest the Convention will be able to dealwith them relatively quickly.

Mr GARETH EVANS —I second themotion.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I will go throughthe headings to see whether there are anyquestions or difficulties with them and we cantake a vote on them as they come up. No. (1)Timing and Circumstances of Change; (2)Title; and (3) Membership of the Common-wealth of Nations.

Motion carried.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The next is (4)

the preamble, about which we talked at somelength. Are there any difficulties with thepreamble?

Mr RUXTON —We have a preamble thatis going to take up about an A4 page in theproposed new Constitution. At present it takes


about nine lines. I support what ProfessorCraven said yesterday. I do not believe thatthese extraneous issues that have been intro-duced into the preamble should be there.

Mr GROGAN —I simply say there hasbeen a lot of debate on this and a lot ofsupport. With the addition of item D3, theconcerns that anyone has about the legalitiesshould in my view fade away so that peoplecan rightfully support these principles beingthere without any concerns about those issues.

Councillor BUNNELL —I stand before youas a member of local government for 10years. I realised on the floor of the Conven-tion the other night that the issue of localgovernment constitutional recognition waslost. I believe it was lost for various reasons,some procedural. I would like it stated inHansard that I believe the constitutionalrecognition of the issue of local governmentshould go forward. I realise it is not in thepreamble.

Dame LEONIE KRAMER —I simply wantto remark that this is very far from being apreamble. It is more like a compendium or awish list. I know it is too late for me to saythis, in a sense, but I want to register the viewthat the whole philosophy behind this ismistaken.

Mr ANDREWS —On a minor typographi-cal matter: in item F the word ‘provision’should read ‘provisions’.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Yes, that is anobvious typo. We will fix that up.

Dr CLEM JONES —I want to stronglysupport Councillor Bunnell. Local governmentin Australia has long had tremendous respon-sibilities but no representation. I commend toall delegates that in the long term in someway local government has to be given recog-nition in our Constitution.

Ms ANDREWS—I rise to support thevarious aspects of the preamble that we havehere. I think we have worked extremely hardover the last 10 days to ensure that we identi-fy what it is we have in common rather thanwhat we have that divides us. This newpreamble to the Constitution ensures that wewill be able to recognise Australia as it istoday, and I urge you to support that.

Brigadier GARLAND —It seems to methat we have a bit of a nonsense here andwhat we are likely to see is a Constitutionthat will be as big as the Tax Act. Thesematters are all very important but to includethem in the preamble means that nobody willtake any notice because they will refer to Fwhich states:

That Chapter 3 of the Constitution should state thatthe Preamble not be used to interpret the otherprovisions of the Constitution.

The only thing that is missed out of thisparticular list is: ‘I love my mother.’

Mr SUTHERLAND —I again wish torevisit the question of the recognition of localgovernment. I think it failed primarily becausethe drafters just simply put up ‘recognition oflocal government’ without including the word‘democratic’. What we have to acknowledgeis that at the time of Federation local govern-ment was not included in the Constitutionbecause it largely did not exist in a form ofdemocratic local government.

It is tragic that, nationally through ourConstitution, we do not express a desire, awish and a will that there be a democraticsystem of local government guaranteeingterritorial spread of community representativegovernment across the nation. If it is demo-cratic, it means it guards against the systemof the arbitrary dismissal of councils which,from my experience of nearly 40 years inlocal government, was largely done forpolitical reasons. If there is a council removedor dismissed, it should be the same as it is instate and federal governments. There shouldimmediately be arrangements for a freshelection. Sadly, in the state of New SouthWales in Sydney, we have had an instance ofthe dismissal of an appointed council, Rand-wick City Council, and administrators were inthere for nearly five years which spreadacross both political parties and governments.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I hesitate tointerrupt but, if you want to move an amend-ment and there are more than 10 supportersfor it, you can do it.

Mr GARETH EVANS —Not ‘more than10’; it has to be with leave of the Convention.


DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am sorry, withleave of the Convention. But I do not thinkwe can have a substantive debate on localgovernment unless somebody wants to movean amendment.

Mr GARETH EVANS —Don’t encouragethem.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am not encour-aging them, Delegate Evans, but it is just aswell for them to be aware of their rights.

Mr WILCOX —I only wish to repeatsomething that I have said before, and that isthe warning about putting words into evenpreambles. It is sometimes thought thatpreambles do not matter but, as I said recent-ly, the courts will take absolutely anythinginto consideration today, and there is noshortage of litigants to see that they have theopportunity to do so.

Whilst I support almost all of what isproposed as set out in the preamble, where weare asking to have the following elementscontain something about them, you get allsorts of difficulties. That goes on to not onlyC, but D. I will just pick out a couple. Thereis the environment, which is as long as apiece of string, and gender equality which iseven longer than a piece of string.

I conclude my remarks here by going on toE which says, very wisely—and this willcause great problems for the government andthe parliamentary draftsmen—that care shouldbe taken to draft the preamble in such a waythat it does not have implications for theinterpretation of the Constitution. The way theHigh Court today wants to get into the areasof the legislatures, you will have to be prettygood to stop them, but beware.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I take it you willbe available for consultation.

Mr WILCOX —At about the sort of feesthat James Killen was going to charge tomediate between the republicans.

Ms HOLMES a COURT —Like KirstenAndrews, I am in favour of the essence andthe philosophy of this. I would like to ask myfriend, Mr Williams, the Attorney-General if,after his people have had a go at this, can weplease send it off to some of our poets andwriters? We need the smell of eucalyptus in

this and the feel of red dust. We need to havethe feel of swimming in the Australian sea,and all those things that make us feel sopassionate about this country and love it somuch.

Dr GALLOP —What about eating beef?Ms HOLMES a COURT —Eating beef and

no feral cats. I believe we can now do some-thing wonderful with this preamble.

Ms RAYNER—I came to this Conventionhoping for a discussion, a debate, and theworking out of a new vision for Australia.Along with my fellow delegate, Tim Costello,I endorse the result of this Convention,because Australia will finally get an Austral-ian as a president, and we have talked aboutthe sorts of relationships that citizens shouldhave with their government. But I am deeplydisappointed at the pragmatic, prosaic andbusiness-like way in which we have avoidedmaking any commitment to the people ofAustralia, even in this preamble.

What we have is a preamble which is a listof instructions to the parliamentary drafts-person. And that list of instructions, even ascursory as it is, is still attacked by those whowould wish to see the Constitution, developedmore than a century ago, etched in concreteforever. Though we have references to veryimportant matters, we have managed to fudgein paragraph D: our commitment to affirma-tion of the equality of all people before thelaw; to recognition that women and men areequal; and even to any sort of recognition thatAboriginal people and Torres Strait Islandershave continuing rights by virtue of their statusas Australia’s indigenous peoples.

We have simply left that for consideration,rather than saying we were committed to it.This is despite the fact that, after much debateand two defeated motions on the floor, wefinally wimped out completely and said inparagraph F that chapter 3 of the Constitutionshould say that our preamble must not beused to interpret the other provisions of theConstitution. Even if we refer this preambleto our poets—Les Murray for example—forthe pong of eucalyptus oil, we will still have,at the end of this brilliant, lyrical ode to thequality of Australian character, a statesman-like phrase that ‘the above is inapplicable in


terms of our statutory rights and responsi-bilities’. How bloody stupid!

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Don’t use thatlanguage in the Convention.

Ms RAYNER —I withdraw the word‘bloody’. I agree with you. That was unparlia-mentary language and I apologise to delegatestoo, but it expresses the frustration I feel thatthe issues I came here to debate were takenoff the agenda on the first day.

Mr RUXTON —I was very offended.

Ms RAYNER—Mr Ruxton, please restrainyourself.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Mr Ruxton,please contain yourself. You are not helpingthe deliberations.

Ms RAYNER—I believe this Constitutionof ours should have a preamble. I am gladthat we have at least got a list. But I wish thepeople of Australia to know that we havemissed an opportunity to inspire this newrepublic of ours with a spirit of equality andfairness.

Ms DELAHUNTY —I rise to support thiswithout the pessimism of my fellow Victoriandelegate Moira Rayner. I also came to thisConvention imbued with a tremendous senseof possibility, Moira, as you know, for whatwe could do here together. Some of thepossibility has been dimmed, and the pre-amble is one area where I feel disappoint-ment; however, this Convention has beenabout the art of compromise, about craftingwhat we can give to the Australian people.

I stand here to support this today becausewe have before us dot points that say whathas been silent in our Constitution up untilnow: affirmation of the rule of law; recogni-tion of Australia’s cultural diversity; recogni-tion of gender equality; recognition thatAboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders havecontinuing rights by virtue of their status asAustralia’s indigenous people and so on. It istrue that what we have created in this list ofprinciples is, if you like, a constitutionalWhite Pages, but it is certainly substantiallysuperior to what exists in the Constitutionnow. I urge you to support it.

Ms THOMPSON—The subject of thepreamble was high in the minds of most ofthe delegates at the Women’s Convention twoweeks ago. I do not think the people whowere there were any different in that thanmost of the people who are here and mostAustralians. The idea of the preamble is togive us a vision, something which we canstand up and say what we believe in. Imper-fect as this list may be, imperfect as thedrafting instructions may be, this is our unitydocument, this is our chance to come togetherand say, ‘We believe these things are true.’Please support the preamble.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I now put section(4), the preamble. Would those in favourplease indicate.

Mr BULLMORE —Can we put E and F ofsection (4) separately?

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I do not think soat this stage. There would have to be a mo-tion from the floor, and we have now con-cluded the debate, so I do not think it wouldbe proper to put an amendment at this stage.

Dr CLEM JONES —On a procedural point,can we take A to F seriatim? There are anumber of things in here that I disagree with.I strongly want to vote for D, and I do notthink it fair, with the complexity of the issuesthat have been listed before us, that we shouldbe asked to vote for them as a whole.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am in thehands of the Convention, but nobody hasproposed a procedural motion up until now.I said to Mr Bullmore that I thought it wastoo late. We have started the voting proced-ure.

Dr CLEM JONES —I was on my feet—

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I had alreadyruled against Mr Bullmore. I put the questionthat we treat section (4) as a whole.

Motion carried.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —We now proceedto section (5), Oaths and Affirmations.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —In myview the oath or affirmation is not strongenough. There is a peculiar contradictioninvolved in B which states:


[Under God] I pledge my loyalty to Australia andits people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whoserights and liberties I respect and whose laws I willuphold and obey.

The rights that we have agreed to are veryminimal ones which will be the rights that aredeclared under law. But they are certainly notrights as they have been traditionally known,because clearly this Convention decided veryearly in the piece not to even contemplatediscussing a bill of rights that was proposedby Moira Rayner and me. I am being quiteserious. I think it is Orwellian newspeak toput that in without actually seriously consider-ing a bill of rights.

An oath must not have Orwellian newspeakin it. The words must mean something seri-ous. If we are going to swear to uphold rightsthat we do not have, it is very silly. To say‘its people whose democratic beliefs I share’is alright, but there are many different percep-tions of democracy. We have not agreed onthat at this Convention.

Moreover, it lacks the most fundamentalquality of an oath to be taken in what by anyreasonable measure could be called a demo-cratic republic. Even those who wish to denythe practical sovereignty of the people on therepublican side here still define a republic asa polity in which sovereignty rests with thepeople. That must be included in any oath. Iknow it is too late to make the amendment.I shall vote against it simply because it missesthe key quality of what a democratic polity is.

Brigadier GARLAND —Oaths or affirma-tions of fealty or allegiance are for ever oruntil released from that oath by the entity towhom the fealty was pledged. Oaths are notjust words to be mouthed. The decision bythis Convention not to request the Queen torelease all of those who have pledged alle-giance to her, her heirs and successors willcause a great deal of angst to millions ofpeople in Australia, who like Mr Edwards,have pledged loyalty to her, actually—notwhat he would like to do, but actually.

I believe it is a grave omission from thisparticular resolution that that which was putforward by Archbishop Hollingworth andProfessor Craven on this matter has not beenincluded for people to vote on.

Mr EDWARDS —As the convener of thegroup that dealt with the question of the oath,I am entirely comfortable with it, and indeedit is one that should be supported. When wetalked about the oath in the working party,there were four people who were from themonarchist side. We gave good deliberationto this matter. There was some very straighttalking and exchanges. What we came upwith was indeed a consensus.

The wording of this oath has passedthrough two votes of this chamber so far andthat, too, indicates the consensus that weachieved. There was, however, in the Resolu-tions Group a final sentence added, but Iunderstood that to be by way of a model forthose who will eventually put this together toconsider.

In conclusion, I reiterate that the oaths thatI have sworn at various times in Australia Iam sure would have been much more mean-ingful to me if I had been able to swearallegiance to Australia and to its people ratherthan to the Queen, her heirs and successors.

Professor BLAINEY—I was a member ofthe working party which Mr Edwards ablychaired, and he is quite right in saying thatthe bulk of the proposition before us wasagreed by the working party. In the debate atthe Convention, likewise, there was agree-ment, but very late the Resolutions Group putin the last sentence, which, to my mind,contradicts the previous oath. I wonder wheth-er the Resolutions Group could explain whythey decided to put in an additional oathwhich removes the phrase ‘undivided loyalty’.To my mind, undivided loyalty is a vitalphrase. It was a compromise phrase which MrEdwards, as chairman, got agreement on. Itseems to me a pity at this stage that theResolutions Group should have added some-thing so different.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —My recollectionwas that it was simply to say to thedraftspeople that there should be an alterna-tive between a longer, more elaborate formand a shorter form. I think it was just that.

Mr WILLIAMS —Mr Chairman, I cannotrecall the detail of the discussion of theResolutions Group now, but the reason it isin the present form is that what came forward


was seen as being illustrative of the objectivesrather than something that was wanted in afinal draft form. Everything that has been saidin the debates is able to be taken into accountin the preparation of any form, so I really donot think that we need detain ourselves anylonger with it.

Mr WRAN —I move:That the question be put.

Motion carried.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I put the resolu-

tion that we adopt section (5)—oaths andaffirmations.

Motion carried.Ms MOORE —Mr Deputy Chairman,

before we move on to (6), I did a really dumbthing in respect of the preamble. I thoughtyou were asking us whether we wanted toconsider it as a whole or not, and I votedagainst that. I would not like anybody to thinkI was voting against the preamble as listed,because I fully support it. Thank you.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Are there anyspeakers on (6)—miscellaneous transitionaland consequential issues? As there are nospeakers on (6), I put the question.

Motion carried.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Are there any

speakers on (7)—qualifications of the head ofstate? As there are no speakers, I put thequestion.

Motion carried.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Are there any

speakers on (8)—implications for the states?Mr FITZGERALD —I have a question for

the Attorney-General, or someone who couldadvise us, preferably the Prime Minister: if areferendum is carried in the majority of thestates that they wish to have a republic, withthe other proviso, the majority of the people,will the amended Constitution override theconstitutions in the states?

Mr WILLIAMS —The answer reallydepends upon what the formulation is that isput to the referendum. This is a subject thatis extremely difficult, as was indicated in thedebate at the time. There are differing viewseven on the effect of a 128 referendumpassage in relation to some matters. I suggest

that this is not really the occasion for techni-cal legal disputes.

Mr FITZGERALD —Could a determina-tion be made by the High Court so the peopleknew exactly whether 128 would override theConstitution of a state that voted no?

Sir JAMES KILLEN —They don’t giveadvisory opinions.

Mr FITZGERALD —They do not giveadvice.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —No. I thinkadvice is available over in the far corner.

Mr JOHNSTON —Is it really advisable toput this sort of question if we are not surewhat the answer is? We still do not knowexactly what the answer is. I think Mr Fitz-gerald made a very valid point. I think weshould have a determination on the specificsbecause, first off, we do not know them. Weare being asked, basically, to sign a blanklegal cheque. I am certainly uncomfortablewith this vote.

Mr TURNBULL —Delegates are not beingasked to sign a cheque of any kind—blank,republican, legal or whatever. I drawdelegates’ attention to resolution B1:Any move to a republic at the Commonwealth levelshould not impinge on state autonomy, and that thetitle role, powers, appointment and dismissal ofState heads of state should continue to be deter-mined by each State.

This is entirely consistent with the sovereign-ty of the states of Australia. As to the ques-tion that Mr Fitzgerald asked about the effectof section 128, it is an interesting question butit is not pertinent to this particular resolutionwhich deals with your substantive concern.

Mr BEATTIE —I just want to make certainthat the record is very clear on this, and takeoff where Malcolm Turnbull left off. If youlook at what (8) says, it says:That the Commonwealth Government and Parlia-ment extend on invitation to State Governments andParliaments to consider:

We are not determining anything. We aregiving state parliaments the opportunity toconsider this, as Malcolm Turnbull points out.This is very important to an earlier contribu-tion I made. Resolution B1 says:


Any move to a republic at the Commonwealth levelshould not impinge on state autonomy, and that thetitle, role, powers, appointment and dismissal ofState heads of state should continue to be deter-mined by each State.

That is absolutely clear. There is no doubtabout this at all.

Mr RUXTON —My question is to theAttorney. During the past couple of weeks,the Australia Act has been mentioned manytimes. If a referendum is held, do all thestates have to agree? The Constitution says atpresent that a majority of states have to agree.But because of the Australia Act 1986 I havegathered in my own mind that all the stateshave to agree.

Mr WILLIAMS —For an amendment ofthe Constitution what is required is compli-ance with the provisions of section 128. Ithink the Australia Act is dealing with anotherissue that does not arise directly on theprovisions of the Constitution.

Sir JAMES KILLEN —My point is a shortone. The wording was worded, I trust, withappropriate felicity and certainly with courte-sy. It is an invitation to the parliaments toconsider it. The word ‘government’ has beenput in. I am not distressed about that. But tome it is a very important point. It is notdirecting the states; it is an invitation to theparliaments of the states to consider theirimplications. I take leave to say that is wherethe bogging will really start.

Mr BRUMBY —In support of Sir James’scomments, I was on this working group andI want to stress the point that Peter Beattiehas made. Resolution B1 says:Any move to a republic at the Commonwealth levelshould not impinge on State autonomy, and that thetitle, role, powers, appointment and dismissal ofState heads head of state should continue to bedetermined by each State.

This was a strongly held position that nothingin relation to this matter should impinge onstate autonomy. We want to make that abso-lutely clear.

Similarly, we went on to say earlier in theresolution that it was an invitation; it is notdirecting the states. We go further in B2—andthis has now come through in this finalrecommendation—that if there are any states,

for any reason, which did not wish to be partof that national republic, then that ought to bea matter for them, should they be unable orunwilling to do so. As I remarked to you twodays ago, I think the likelihood of that occur-ring would be very remote. The likelihoodthat the Queen would want to remain as theQueen of a state in a national republic isextremely unlikely, if not impossible.

It would be like the events we had severalyears ago when imperial honours were dis-banded. Some states wished to continue withtheir own system of state imperial honoursand the Queen resolved at that time that itwould be inappropriate to do so because itwould be in contradiction of what was occur-ring at a national level. I think there is a bitof heresy and mischief being created here. Wedo not want to compel the states; no-onedoes. They have autonomy, but the reality isthat, if we move via referendum to a nationalrepublic, it is inconceivable that states wouldwish to hold out, particularly if the Queensaid she was not interested, in those circum-stances, in remaining as the Queen in aparticular state.

Mr CARR —Henry Parkes said it all: ‘Onenation, one destiny.’ While all that is beingsaid about the capacity of a state to go itsown way, to hold onto imperial links, is true,it ought to be registered very firmly that thatought to be deplored. If the Australian peoplevote in a referendum—a majority of voters ina majority of states—to set us on a republicanfuture, I think any move in any state to avoidthe implications of that should and will befrowned upon. Buckingham Palace willresolve the issue as it resolved the issue ofimperial honours being awarded in one but noother Australian state. Henry Parkes: ‘Onenation, one destiny.’

We are in this together. While the terms ofthe resolution are precisely as described bySir James Killen, we ought to view adverselyany suggestion, any hint, that one state mayhold out against the destiny of this continent.A nation for a continent and a continent fora nation!

Professor BLAINEY—I would not darehave combat with Mr Carr on a matter ofhistory because he is very well informed, but


when Henry Parkes said ‘One nation, onedestiny’ he had the clear assumption thatstates rights were paramount unless specifical-ly passed over in the proposed Constitution.He was the king of states righters.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I now propose toput section (8), Implications for the States.Those in favour please indicate; those against.

Motion carried.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Inadvertently, inthe earlier sheet, ‘Title of the head of state’was simply dropped out. It is simply a typo-graphical slip. It should read:(1) Title of the head of state

That this Convention notes its earlier indicativevote and resolves that in the event of Australiabecoming a republic, the title of the head of stateshould be "president".

I put that without debate. Those in favourplease indicate; those against.

Motion carried.

Mr WILLIAMS —It seems unlikely nowthat there will be a further meeting of theResolutions Group. Anything is possible, butit seems unlikely. On that basis, could Irecord my appreciation of the work of themembers of that group. I believe the Conven-tion is indebted to them. I particularly men-tion the work done by the Deputy Chairman,who chaired at sometimes difficult meetingswith excellent results. Also, in an environ-ment in which the usual party political barri-cades have been removed, I commend theinterest, diligence and skill of my co-rapporteur, Mr Gareth Evans QC, in his workon that committee.

I also mention with approval and gratitudethe work of the officers of the CommonwealthAttorney-General’s Department who providedinput to that committee. In addition, I thinkthe two advisers to the Chairman and DeputyChairman respectively were also of greatassistance.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Thank you verymuch. On behalf of the Resolutions Group, Ithank you for your kind words. We shouldalso pay tribute to the work of Mr Peter King,who was the counsel to the Chairman, and theHon. Howard Nathan, QC, who was my

assistant. They helped us get through thework.

Before I hand over to the Chairman, thereis one other element—that is, there is an‘other matters’ agenda item about the pro-posed handling of the ongoing constitutionalreview process. This is something that boththe Chairman and I have agreed we will holdas being within our capacity. I invite TimCostello to move that the Convention grantleave. Assuming that that leave is granted, hewill be able to carry the motion that follows.

Reverend TIM COSTELLO —I move:That the Convention grant leave for the Reverend

Tim Costello to move a further resolution propos-ing a process for review of the changes to theConstitution introduced by any referendum estab-lishing a republic, and associated matters.

This further resolution proposes a process forreview of the changes to the Constitutionintroduced by a referendum establishing arepublic.

Motion carried.Reverend TIM COSTELLO —I move:

(1) That this Convention resolves that, if a repub-lican system of government should be intro-duced by a referendum, at a date being notless than three years or more than five yearsthereafter the Commonwealth Governmentshould convene a further Constitutional Con-vention.

(2) That two-thirds of such Convention should bedirectly elected by the people.

(3) That the agenda of such Convention would beto

(i) review the operation and effectiveness ofany republican system of government intro-duced by a constitutional referendum;

(ii) address any other matter related to theoperation of our system of governmentunder republican arrangements;

(4) That the Convention be preceded by an exten-sive and properly resourced community con-sultation process, to commence within twelvemonths of the passage of a referendum toestablish a republic in which ideas and re-sponses on the above matters would be active-ly sought by the Government and Parliament.

This convention has attracted internationalinterest because people overseas have beenamazed that politicians and lay people, if Ican use that term, have sat together and talked


about their Constitution. This Convention hasattracted national interest because so manyAustralians who said, ‘I don’t understand thisConstitution’ have actually watched theproceedings on the TV, listened to them andread the papers. My soundings from Victoriasay that there is extraordinary interest and ahuge quantum jump in the level of under-standing of what our Constitution means andwhat it is about. That active citizenship andinterest is just fantastic. It represents Australiaagain seizing the ground we once held cer-tainly back in the 1890s and the first decadeof this century, when we were seen to be thesocial laboratory for democracy and when wewere actually leading the world in activecitizenship. We have, in my view, that leadagain because of this Convention.

Therefore, it seems to me that we need toharness that interest. We cannot allow it todissipate and simply ebb. We need to find amechanism in which this can actually go on.This is the mechanism we are proposing. It isa mechanism that realises that when and if arepublican government comes in, there willneed to be some review, just as the foundingfathers expected our Constitution to be re-viewed. They certainly did not believe it wasset in concrete and would be surprised to hearsome the sentiments of those who believe itis.

We have suggested that two-thirds of theconvention be directly elected by the people.Most of us know that this Convention hasworked because of election, because throughelection popular interest was aroused. That isan essential element. Why only two-thirds? Atthese conventions we do need the opinions ofexperts, and constitutional lawyers do notseem to have great charisma or the ability towin elections. So we would invite theirparticipation, which has been very usefulhere. The agenda is to review the operationand effectiveness and to address any othermatters, which is a catch-all phrase to allowwhatever matters start to arise—and wecannot anticipate them now—to be con-sidered.

Finally, it is very important that it starts ata community level. At the grassroots Austral-ians have become interested and excited, and

we must cultivate that. Therefore we aresuggesting that, within 12 months of thepassage of the referendum, if a republic isestablished, this mechanism starts to moveand to carry people with its—hopefully—tidalwave so that it ends up in a very productiveconvention like this one has been.

Mrs MILNE —I have great pleasure inseconding this motion. When I came to theConvention I expressed my disappointmentthat the agenda was so narrow. When you talkto people in the community—in saleyards, inchurch halls or wherever people are—andstart asking them what becoming a republicmeans to them they talk about far more thanjust the head of state. They talk about the factthat this is a very special moment of redefini-tion for Australia, that it coincides, by histori-cal convenience, if you like, with the begin-ning of a new millennium. It is a sign of hopefor ordinary Australians that Australia’scoming to a republic might also address widerissues of the Constitution, broader issues ofreform, that it would address seriously theissue of granting constitutional recognitionand rights to indigenous people and to allAustralians. They want to talk about howpeople can get more involved in the politicalprocess.

The Women’s Convention was strongly infavour of broad debate on issues like propor-tional representation. We were trying tobroaden the agenda of this Convention, tolook at issues of equality of men and womenunder the Constitution. It is essential that thehuge amount of interest shown around thecountry in this Convention be harnessed nowso that the civic interest that is there, thatwillingness to participate, can continue withsome sort of focus into the next few years sothat once we become a republic we canreview the effectiveness of republican govern-ment and look at issues such as the powers,the environment, for example, and whether ornot the Commonwealth—the federal govern-ment—should have a head of power on theenvironment, or whether we should entrenchthe precautionary principles.

I am urging delegates to recognise that wehave taken the first step. We are going tomove to a republic; I believe that is inevi-


table. But the quality of life of all Australiansin the republic needs to be enhanced by theirinvolvement in changing the Constitutionthrough a national discourse on ways inwhich we can address the real ills that are inAustralian society and that we have to face upto. So I urge you to support not only thesuccess of this Convention but also therecognition that there is a need for an ongoingcommunity consultation process for widerreform.

CHAIRMAN —I understand that there hasbeen notice of a further amendment for whichwe will need to obtain leave of the Conven-tion. Before I call on Mr Michael Elliott tosee whether he wishes to proceed with it, Icall on Mr Turnbull. I will then call on MrElliott to explain his intended amendment andthen he will have to seek leave of the Con-vention to pursue it.

Mr TURNBULL —The Australian Republi-can Movement is pleased to support thisresolution. Many of us were sceptical aboutthis Convention prior to it being convened.All of us have found it an exciting althoughoften stressful time. To those people whohave found other delegates’ normal, mild andequable temperaments—such as mine—occasionally show signs of irritation, I canonly give my apologies.

Ms RAYNER—Accepted.Mr TURNBULL —Thanks, Moira. Austral-

ian people can never know too much abouttheir Constitution. We can never spend toomuch time talking about our country, its lawsand its development. Ongoing constitutionalreform is a profoundly good idea. It may bethat the next Convention will meet andresolve that all is well. That is fine. We donot have an argument with that if that is thedecision. The critical thing is that we allowthis discourse to go on outside of the parlia-mentary system. I am a great believer in theparliamentary system, but there is a scope forpopular involvement. We would not be heretoday if it had not been for popular move-ments outside of the parliamentary system,and I think a great deal of benefit can comefrom this. This is an important move and Ibelieve that anyone who believes that ourConstitution should be a living document and

believes that it belongs to the people shouldsupport it.

CHAIRMAN —I call on Mr Mike Elliott tobriefly explain the purpose of his amendmentto this proposal and then he will have to seekleave of the Convention before he can put it.

Mr ELLIOTT —By way of brief explan-ation as to why I am seeking leave to movethis amendment, I would ask you to note thatthe contents of this amendment emerge froma working party that was established by thisConvention on its first day. There are alsoseveral matters within it which were raised byother working parties, which I feel have, sofar, fallen through the cracks in this Conven-tion. I would like the opportunity to argue thiscase further and not, at this stage, to argue themerits of the particular items within it.

CHAIRMAN —Is leave given by theConvention for Mr Elliott to proceed inintroducing his amendment?

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIOTT —I move:Insert at end of paragraph 3(ii):

"Including the role of the three tiers of govern-ment; the rights and responsibilities of citizen-ship; whether the Commonwealth should have anenvironment power; the system of governanceand proportional representation; whether themechanism for constitutional change should bealtered; constitutional aspects of indigenousreconciliation; equal representation of womenand men in parliament; and ways to betterinvolve people in the political process."

As I said, in seeking leave, the items con-tained within my amendment are all itemswhich were raised within a working partywhich was established by this Convention onday one. There were a number of delegateswho were, in fact, elected on platforms thatwent beyond just the questions of the repub-lic. On Day One they were obviously verykeen to discuss those, but it was made veryclear that the opportunity was not going to bethere in any detailed sense. It seems to methat, having established the working party, itwould be very wrong of us to not at least givesome consideration to the matters that wereraised by it. Several of these items were alsoraised by other working groups and, as I said


in my introduction, I think they have fallenthrough the cracks so far.

Let us just look at a couple of these items.I ask people at this stage to recognise that Iam not asking for constitutional change. WhatI am asking for is that these issues be con-sidered by a constitutional convention. Theyare all issues that are being raised verystrongly within the public, and they deserveattention whether or not you agree that achange is necessary. That is all that I ask youto acknowledge: to acknowledge that there issignificant concern about these issues withinthe public.

Let us take some examples. There are thethree tiers of government. There have beenseveral attempts within this Convention tohave ‘local government’, for instance, insertedwithin the preamble or at some other pointwithin the Constitution. The issues surround-ing local government do deserve furtherattention. As a member of a state parliament,I have become gravely concerned about theimpact of the current revenue raising arrange-ments within Australia. They are issues whichdeserve to be addressed, and addressed withina constitutional context. Really, we cannotdelay that consideration much longer.

Mr Chairman, while the question of in-digenous occupation is now going to be raisedwithin the context of the preamble, thisConvention also decided that the preambleshould have no legal force whatsoever. Thereare many people, I think, at this Conventionwho would argue that there are issues sur-rounding the indigenous people of Australiathat should be contained within the Constitu-tion proper. Again, those issues deserve to begiven thorough and prompt attention. And, ifwe are to establish a constitutional conventionbeyond this one, they are some of the issuesthat really must be addressed as a matter ofpriority.

Mr Chairman, it is not my intention to gothrough each of these issues individually;there may be members of this Conventionwho would like to do that. I simply say toyou that each of these issues is important toa significant number of Australians and thatthey deserve the attention of a future constitu-tional convention.

CHAIRMAN —I understand the amendmentis seconded by Ms Catherine Moore. Do youwish to second the motion, Ms Moore?

Ms MOORE—Yes. I am one of thosepeople who were elected to this Conventionon a broad platform, and I welcome thisamendment. This is not an exhaustive list; itis merely the beginning of some suggestionsthat we are putting to a group or a series ofgroups to take out into the community forcommunity consultation. That is what we areon about, and that is what I hope people willsupport today.

To the people who are afraid of constitu-tional reform, I say: please be part of theprocess because, if you believe in the Consti-tution as it is, it is up to you to get out intothe community and argue to keep it as it is.But there are others of us who want to see itbroadened so that it encompasses some of thethings that we have highlighted during thisConvention as being important in a movetowards a democratic nation, whether or notthat nation be a republic.

Ms DELAHUNTY —Mr Chairman, I willspeak briefly. I was the convener of theworking party that laboured with manydelegates to produce what we thought was aformula for ongoing constitutional change.We were bitterly disappointed when we wereknocked out a few days ago.

Let me commend this motion to you.Clearly, the Australian people, many Austral-ians, have engaged with their Constitution forthe first time in their lives, thanks to thisConvention. Delegates, let this civic conversa-tion continue.

Mr ANDREW —Mr Chairman, delegates:if, as a member of this chamber for five yearsor as a member of the chamber on the hill forthe last 10 years, the chamber or I had en-gaged in an exercise of self-congratulationsuch as I have witnessed here over the lasthalf an hour, the press gallery and the peopleof Australia would rightly have abused us uphill and down dale.

We parliamentarians in Australia have beenaccused day in and day out of ignoring thegrassroots. Let me tell you, on behalf of allparties and the Independents, we are only here


because we speak to the grassroots. WhetherI am speaking to the grassroots in my elector-ate or they are speaking to me, invariablywhat they say to me is, ‘Neil, the problem wehave is that there are too many parliamentsand too many parliamentarians.’

Ms Peris-Kneebone earlier today, in a verywell delivered speech, made the point that shehas been to, I think she said, 26 countries—

Ms PERIS-KNEEBONE—Twenty-nine.

Mr ANDREW —I stand corrected, 29countries—and there is none she wouldsooner live in than Australia. It was a pointthat touched all of us because it echoed all ofour sentiments. We all, Madam, agree. Thepoint is—no matter whether it has been underLabor or Liberal administrations or any otherform of administration—the government ofthis country has not been all bad. In fact, thepeople of this country find they are living ina country better managed than most othercountries around the globe.

In this resolution Mr Elliott has suggestedthat there are a number of changes that shouldbe made to things such as revenue raising, theenvironment and all sorts of sensitive issuesthat we are all aware of. He knows as a stateparliamentarian and I know as a federalparliamentarian that no one of those issues isever off the parliamentary agenda. If parlia-mentarians are ever guilty of ignoring any ofthe issues that Australians raise, then clearlythey will discipline us in the ballot box, as weall well know.

Frankly, I think this is an exercise in ab-surdity. If there is need for ongoing constitu-tional reform—and I do not doubt there is—then the parliament will be sensitive to it, andthe people will tell us and the parliament willconvene a convention as appropriate at theright time. But for us to think that we havesome sort of extraordinary wisdom thatexceeds that of any other representative andelected body astounds me. I am opposed toboth the amendment and the resolution.

Senator STOTT DESPOJA—I am also amember of parliament. I also, as do state,federal and local government colleagues, talkto people—indeed, the grassroots. There aremany issues that we are confronted with and

we have raised when we talk to members ofour constituency. One of the things that I hearoverwhelmingly is that people in our com-munity not only feel disillusioned withgovernment but also alienated from theprocess. So there is absolutely nothing wrongwith the motion before us. In fact, there iseverything to commend the motion before us.I include in that Reverend Tim Costello’soriginal motion to the Convention, because itseeks to involve the community, to involvethe grassroots in this civic conversation thatMary Delahunty has so eloquently discussed.

How can we say that we should either leavethis to our parliaments or that our parliamentsare duly and appropriately representative ofthe Australian people? We still have onlyone-third in the chamber of the Senate—andthat is a bumper representation of women asopposed to around 20 per cent across theboard. How can we say that our federalparliaments in particular are representativewhen we have no indigenous Australians andfew people from different socioeconomic orethnic backgrounds? And the list goes on.There is every reason to commend MrElliott’s and Reverend Costello’s motionbefore us today.

A variety of issues have been listed in theamendment. They are not being prescribed fora particular constitutional outcome. They arethere for consideration and discussion. Wehave seen how beneficial this process can be.I rose as soon as I heard the expression PRbecause I believe proportional representation,electoral and voting reform should be dis-cussed.

Senator Boswell interjecting—

Senator STOTT DESPOJA—But others,like you, Senator Boswell, may not, eventhough I notice you rely on it to get into theSenate. Others may disagree with that, so takepart in this conservation. Participate, ensurethat at least two-thirds are directly electedbecause that will ensure that the diversity inour community is at least reflected and repre-sented in a way that I believe this chamberhas reflected over the last two weeks. That issomething we should be seeking to continue,not to reject. I also note that the environmentand issues of gender equity are part of this


motion. I commend it to the Convention as Ido the motion before it.

Mr ELLIOTT —I move:That the motion be now put.

Motion carried.

CHAIRMAN —The question now is thatthe amendment to Mr Costello’s proposedaddition to the other matters agenda itemmoved by Mr Mike Elliott and seconded byMs Catherine Moore be agreed to.

Amendment carried.

CHAIRMAN —We therefore move on toconsider the main amendment: the motionmoved by Mr Costello. Are there any speak-ers on the main motion of Mr Costello’s—thatis, the motion by Mr Costello that is set outon the paper headed ‘Proposed handling of"ongoing constitutional review" process’? Itbegins with the introductory paragraph. Wethen have the motion. To it are added thewords that you have just agreed from MrMike Elliott.

Motion, as amended, carried.

CHAIRMAN —Mr Costello’s motion, asamended, now becomes part of item 2. I putthe question that the resolution on consequen-tial matters that was moved by the Resolu-tions Group, as amended, be agreed to.

Motion carried.

CHAIRMAN —I think we had better havea formal vote for the sake of the record. Itwould be the final vote on that particularissue, and I think it is important. Before I putthat formal vote, Professor Winterton didrequest that he be given leave to move aparticular change to the preamble; I gather itis largely because of the wording. ProfessorWinterton, would you present your proposal?

Professor WINTERTON—Thank you, MrChairman. You may remember that the othernight, in order to have some recognition inthe Constitution that there should be ongoingconstitutional change, we included item C11on page 2 in the matters that should beincluded in the preamble; that is to say, item(4), the preamble, item C11. It would lookrather inelegant in the preamble since we havepassed a substantive resolution concerningfuture change. I did move that C11 be includ-

ed; I now move that it be deleted. I formallymove the amendment circulated in my name.

CHAIRMAN —What Professor Wintertonis suggesting is that the words ‘A provisionallowing ongoing consideration of constitu-tional change’ be deleted in view of ourhaving accepted the firm proposal a fewmoments ago. Is leave given for ProfessorWinterton to delete those words?

Leave granted.

Amendment carried.

CHAIRMAN —I have asked for the bellsto be rung so that we can formally take ourvote on the transitional and consequentialissues question. I think that for the purposesof the final vote of this Convention it isdesirable that we do as we have done with allother votes—we take it formally and then weare in a position to proceed.

Has everybody got their ballot papers forthis vote? It is a ballot paper which willenable us to vote on the transitional andconsequential issues question. That is itemNo. 2 on the agenda. It is a resolution of theResolutions Group which will approve orreject the proposals for the determination oftransitional and consequential issues as modi-fied as a result of decision of the Conventiona few moments ago. I have just received aproxy on behalf of Professor Judith Sloannominating Professor David Flint to act onher behalf from 3 p.m. this afternoon, whichI propose to accept. I will pass that to thesecretariat.

Mr ANDREWS —Just a point of clarifica-tion. Is it a case that now we are voting on allthe consequential amendments which we havevoted on one by one when the deputy chairwas in your place?

CHAIRMAN —That is correct. I was goingto identify exactly that on which you werevoting as soon as we were all in the chamberand the bells were switched off. The questionbefore the Convention is that the reportmoved by the Resolutions Group on transi-tional and consequential issues, as amendedby the Convention over the course of thedebate in the last little while, be approved.Does everybody have their ballot papers?


You will note that there are three alterna-tives: in favour; against; or abstain. I ask youto put a clear indication, either a tick or across, in the box that you intend to pursue. Iask that those in favour rise in their placesand hand in their ballot papers as soon asthey are ready.

Delegates submitted their ballot papers.CHAIRMAN —Is there anybody who has

voted in favour of that resolution whose ballotpaper has not been collected? I ask those whowish to vote against the resolution as amend-ed to stand and to hand in their ballot paper.

Delegates submitted their ballot papers.

CHAIRMAN —Is there anybody who hasvoted against the resolution whose ballotpaper has not been collected? Those who wishto abstain, please rise in their places.


CHAIRMAN —Is there anybody who hasabstained whose ballot paper has not beencollected? The result of the counting is: 102yes, 16 against and 32 abstentions. We aretwo short, with 150 people being here. Ideclare the motion carried—that is, the mo-tion of the resolutions group on the determi-nation of transitional and consequential issues.The detailed results are as follows:Motion: That the "Resolutions on Consequen-tial Matters" report of the Resolutions Group,as amended, be adopted.Moved: The Hon Daryl Williams AM QC MPSeconded: The Hon Gareth Evans QC MPMotion put.Delegates (102) who voted "yes":

Andrews, KevinAndrews, KirstenAng, AndreaAtkinson, SallyanneAxarlis, StellaBacon, JimBartlett, LiamBeanland, Denver

(proxy—Carroll, Frank)Beattie, PeterBeazley, KimBell, Dannalee

Bishop, JulieBolkus, NickBorbidge, Rob

(proxy—FitzGerald, Tony)Brumby, JohnBullmore, EricBunnell, AnnCarnell, Kate

(proxy—Webb, Linda)Carr, BobCassidy, FrankCleary, PhilCocchiaro, TonyCollins, PeterCostello, PeterCostello, TimCraven, GregCurtis, DavidDelahunty, MaryDevine, MirandaDjerrkura, GatjilEdwards, GrahamElliott, MikeEvans, GarethFaulkner, JohnFox, LindsayGallop, GeoffreyGallus, ChrisGeorge, JennieGreen, JulianGrogan, PeterGunter, AndrewHaber, EdHandshin, MiaHawke, HazelHewitt, GlendaHill, RobertHollingworth, PeterHolmes a Court, JanetImlach, MaryJones, ClemKelly, MaryKennett, Jeff

(proxy—Dean, Robert)Kilgariff, MichaelKing, Poppy


Kirk, LindaKnight, AnnetteLavarch, MichaelLi, Jason Yat-SenLockett, EricLundy, KateLynch, HelenMack, TedMachin, WendyMcGarvie, RichardMcGuire, EddieMilne, ChristineMitchell, RomaMoller, CarlMoore, CatherineMuir, DavidNewman, JocelynO’Brien, MoiraO’Donoghue, LoisOlsen, JohnO’Shane, PatPell, GeorgePeris-Kneebone, NovaRann, MichaelRayner, MoiraRocher, AllanRundle, TonyRusso, SarinaSams, PeterSchubert, MishaScott, MargueriteShaw, JeffSloan, JudithSowada, KarinStone, Shane

(proxy—Burke, Denis)Stott Despoja, NatashaTannock, PeterTeague, BadenThomas, TrangThompson, ClareTully, PaulTurnbull, MalcolmVizard, SteveWest, SueWilliams, Daryl

Winterton, GeorgeWitheford, AnneWran, Neville

Delegates (16) who voted "no":Andrew, NeilBjelke-Petersen, FlorenceBlainey, GeoffreyCourt, RichardCowan, HendyFerguson, AlanGarland, AlfGifford, KennethMcGauchie, DonaldMcNamara, PatMitchell, DavidMoloney, JoanMye, GeorgeRuxton, BruceSheil, GlenWilcox, Vernon

Delegates (32) who abstained from voting:Anderson, JohnBonython, KymBoswell, RonBradley, ThomasCastle, MichaelChipp, DonFerguson, ChristineFleming, JohnHayden, BillHepworth, JohnHourn, GeoffHoward, JohnJames, William (Digger)Johnston, AdamJones, KerryKillen, JimKramer, LeonieLeeser, JulianManetta, VictoriaMyers, BenjaminO’Brien, PatrickO’Farrell, EdwardPanopoulos, SophieParbo, ArviRamsay, Jim


Rodgers, Marylyn

Smith, David

Sutherland, Doug

Waddy, Lloyd

Webster, Alasdair

Withers, Reg

Zwar, Heidi

Resolution agreed to.

RESOLUTION

"That this Convention supports theadoption of a republican system of govern-ment on the bipartisan appointment modelin preference to there being no change tothe Constitution."

CHAIRMAN —I now call on ArchbishopPell to move item 3; I understand it is to beseconded by Ms Wendy Machin. ArchbishopPell, as the mover of the motion, receives fiveminutes.

The Most Reverend GEORGE PELL—Imove:

That this Convention supports the adoption of arepublican system of government on the BipartisanAppointment of the President model in preferenceto there being no change to the Constitution.

Mr Chairman, fellow delegates: as an Austral-ian citizen it is my privilege this morning tomove the motion that we support the biparti-san model of republican government inpreference to the status quo. Many of us lastnight for different reasons were quite disap-pointed. I suppose that the direct electionrepublicans had known the worst for somedays. The monarchists were bloodied butunbowed; they know that they will live tofight again. The McGarvie-ites lamented allthat untapped voting power among the monar-chists. And the bipartisan model had no abso-lute majority, no clear mandate, to enable MrHoward to put a referendum to the people.

Despite the strong vote in principle thismorning for the republic, this republic is stillin jeopardy. This unique opportunity—thefirst realistic opportunity in nearly 100 yearsof our history for significant constitutionalreform—could still slip through our fingers.When I came here, I saw that our task was todeliver a set of Australian constitutionalarrangements, a national figurehead, and an

Aussie head of state. We were heartened bythe Prime Minister’s remarks that the BritishCrown was no longer an appropriate Austral-ian symbol. All of this still hangs in thebalance this morning. We need another strongendorsement. I submit that we stand in needof leadership—and strong leadership—fromour elected leaders, especially in the federalparliament.

I come from a church which knows abouthierarchy, from a church which respects officeand office holders, although there is no doubtthat we have produced many rebels too. So itis with respect that I submit that the delegateshave a right to know where the leadership ofthe federal government and the federal oppo-sition stand on the great issue which is beforeus in this House today and in the referendumthat will be put. Are they for or against thisbipartisan model? Is it so inferior to presentarrangements, or do they simply prefer aBritish symbolism to Australian symbols? Ibelieve that the Australian people would beinterested in these answers, and they wouldcertainly be useful before we delegates voteagain this morning on this central issue.

I come from Victoria, and I must confessthere has been the odd occasion when I havediffered from our Premier, Mr Kennett. ButI was proud of his address on Wednesday. IsMr Kennett the only conservative leader inthe country, with the exception of my oldworkmate Mr Shane Stone, who can smell thewind, recognise that change is coming and tapinto these currents of Australian patriotism?

Without support from most of the frontbenches of both sides of the parliament, itwould be wasteful to go to a referendum. Canthe Prime Minister and the Leader of theOpposition do anything to convince or inspiresome of those who believe in the republic inprinciple to support the preferred model?While republicans belong to two or threedifferent constituencies, each constituency hassomething to gain beyond the head of statebeing an Australian in the bipartisan model.

Some of my priests suggest to me some-times that I am a conservative, and I mustconfess that I have some credentials. Allconservatives here should realise that theywill never get a better result out of a conven-


tion than they have done here. It will certainlybe no less difficult for a tyrant to abuse theoffice of Prime Minister or president. That isfundamental; we all agree. The preamble hasbeen voided of legal significance, the reservepowers are retained and, with partial codifica-tion, this will in practice make them strongerbecause they will become less unpredictableand less offensive.

CHAIRMAN —I dare not ask the church tobe silent, but the time allocated has conclud-ed.

Mr HOWARD —I move:That His Grace have a brief extension of time.

Mr BEAZLEY —I second the motion, asan example of joint leadership.

Motion carried.CHAIRMAN —We will allow three

minutes.The Most Reverend GEORGE PELL—

Thank you. Almighty God remains in thepreamble and, as the Deputy Chairman haspointed out, God has had a very good Con-vention. For advocates of greater change, thebipartisan model is also an improvement. Theappointment of the president must be biparti-san and is made by the parliament, and thereis a measure of popular participation in thenomination process. Both represent greatgains for the people.

Yesterday the monarchists voted withdiscipline, integrity and honour. Lloyd Waddywas the very model of a modern major gener-al. They did not vote tactically. Their virtuebrought its own reward. Republican disarrayyesterday was our own doing. The republicansknow well that to divide is to rule even whenthe division is self-inflicted.

This puts up the challenge for all republi-cans who believe they cannot vote for thismodel. It is certainly a compromise—likeevery decision made in a body of 152 people;like every decision made in a democracy. Butmust the best, differently understood, be thedestructive enemy of the good? We need therepublican votes. The worst result would beto go to the people without a majority infavour of this model. I am not sure that thePrime Minister or ourselves would have anymandate to do so.

Ms MACHIN —I have much pleasure inseconding this motion. Yesterday we dis-cussed and together crafted a model for arepublic to put to the Australian people. Thepeople—the reason we are here, the reasonwe were in dissent yesterday on some is-sues—is what it is all about. This is about ourpeople and what is good for their future.Because of that, we have grappled withmaking them a part of the process in a fairway.

The nomination procedure was central tomuch of the discussion yesterday, and this iscentral to the whole model that we have here.It is a real attempt to reach compromisebetween widely divergent views—both repub-lican and perhaps non-republicans as opposedto monarchist.

Last night I puzzled over the debate, par-ticularly that debate about the nominationprocedure and the desire for us to incorporatesome public participation in that process. Iwondered why a medium sized committeeresponsible to the Prime Minister was areason for otherwise republican supporters tosuddenly change their minds. What is it, Iwondered, in this broadly worded resolutionthat so frightens fearless men like the federalTreasurer and the Premier and Deputy Premi-er of Western Australia?

Mr PETER COSTELLO —It doesn’tfrighten me.

Ms MACHIN —Nothing frightens you,Peter. You will be happy with the committee,I thank you for your vote of support. Couldit be the workable size mentioned in theresolution about the committee or the parlia-mentary balance that is the problem? Is it therepresentation of federalism? I thought HendyCowan would be very happy about that.Perhaps it is that the committee should reportto the Prime Minister. But, seriously, how canthose who are publicly and prominently onthe record as republicans go out of here andsay that they voted against a republic becauseof a non-binding advisory committee?

Please re-read this motion. Look at thepenultimate paragraph of the nominationprocedure. This procedure poses no threat tothe Prime Minister’s or the parliament’sauthority. Rather, it invites representatives of


the Australian people to be a part of theprocess, to talk about selecting our head ofstate, to talk with our elected representativesand others about this very important person.

Surely we all, including our political lead-ers, must recognise the genuine interest in thisprocess, as evidenced by the audiences watch-ing this Convention, and try to allow for thatgenuine desire to be a part of the process. Ithink we have all tried to do that and weacknowledge the desire of those people whocame here on a direct election platform.

I finally say that there are some delegatesamongst the republicans who came here on ajust republic platform. Just yet we do nothave a republic. We would like it, and weknow you would like that. But I believe wedo have a just society. Sometimes injustice isdone, but in my view Australians, when theyare aware of this, demonstrate that they are ajust people and will not stand for intoleranceand injustice.

We can make our society better, but pleasedo not throw the baby out with the bathwater.Please work to make Australia a republic.Together we will all work to make it a justsociety. This is not the ARM model. It is notthe Turnbull model; it is the Convention’smodel. It is not a radical proposal. I urge allrepublican delegates here to support it so thatwe can have that clear outcome.

Dr COCCHIARO —I support very stronglythe previous two speakers. We have come upwith a model and I remind everybody thatyesterday the bipartisan model received twiceas many votes as the next model, which wasthe McGarvie model. Somebody mentionedbefore that we cannot vote on behalf of theAustralian public. That is true, but the Aus-tralian public has given all of us the job, thecharge, to come here and sit for two weeks tothink about and consider all the issues and tocome up with a model. Everyone has donethat very well—we have done that on behalfof the people. Now it will be up to the peopleto talk about it, think about it, and then voteon it in the referendum.

Our parliament is not going to change withthe bipartisan model. I think everybody valuesour system of government and accepts that itis a good system of government, and nobody

wants to change this in any way at this stage.I suggest that our bipartisan model that wehave all come up with is a very good workingmodel because it involves selecting a presi-dent without giving the president any unusualor other power bases.

The committee that we have proposed forthis bipartisan model for short listing candi-dates for the Prime Minister to consider forpresidency was tuned up yesterday, and it willbe a confidential committee. This means thatit will be fully confidential. It can be guaran-teed to be more confidential, in my opinion,than what could happen in a governmentoffice.

Because of the confidentiality it will notstop persons of high calibre accepting con-sideration. Their merits and, perhaps, anydemerits, can be considered fully and inprivate. The committee can also be seen byAustralians as being representative of thegeneral community and of being away fromthe hurly-burly of parliament, so the presiden-tial candidates will be considered fully ontheir merits. It means that even a Tasmanianor somebody from a minority group could bepresident because the committee will considerall the nominations on their merits and not, aswould happen in the case of election of thepresident, on the numbers of supporters.

Everyone in Australia can nominate anyother Australian for head of state, and theycan hold the knowledge that the committeewill do its best to judge them on their merits.I will finish by saying, ‘Let’s get started onthis republic and work on it later.’

Mr LI —I seek the leave of the Conventionto move an amendment to correct an inadver-tent and simple oversight that occurred yester-day. The word ‘age’ needs to be reinserted inpart A in order that age be included as aconsideration in the composition of thenomination committee under this bipartisanmodel. It was in the original model approvedyesterday at lunchtime but was inadvertentlyleft out yesterday afternoon. I think it is avery important but, hopefully, not a terriblycontroversial issue.

CHAIRMAN —Is leave granted? As thereis no objection, please proceed.


Mr LI —I move:That paragraph 3 of part A be amended so as to

read:

. . . take into account so far as practicable consider-ations of federalism, gender, age and culturaldiversity.

The very crux of this committee is to berepresentative of Australians. It is very sim-ple: I feel that young Australians should havea place on it. Nobody would deny the contri-bution the young delegates to this Conventionhave made, and there is no argument that theycould not make an equally valuable contribu-tion to that committee.

Ms ANDREWS—I second the motion.

CHAIRMAN —I think we will allow thespeakers to take into account that motion byMr Li. I call Mr Johnston and he will befollowed by Ms Atkinson.

Mr JOHNSTON —I rise to speak ferventlyagainst this bipartisan motion. It is not somuch that I do not acknowledge that it wasput together with the best of intentions—itwas—but that I see it as leaving a lot ofquestions unanswered. To begin with, how dowe know that this constitutional communitycouncil will have real authority? How do weknow that, behind the scenes, its intentionsand its decisions will really be taken serious-ly? Any recommendation can be taken off tothe parliament and the parliament may havea completely different idea of who they wantto be the Governor-General or the president.How do we know that the constitutionalcouncil of citizens is really going to work?We are not even sure who is going to put ittogether. Will it be equally bipartisan or willthe government put it together?

Then we come to the dismissal procedure.I would like to remind all delegates that Isupported an amendment from ProfessorWinterton which ensured that the presidentcould not prorogue the parliament and that wewould not, in Professor Winterton’s words,have a case of ‘constitutional chicken’ as thePrime Minister or the president tried to throwthe other out of office. As ProfessorWinterton quite rightly pointed out, you couldend up with a situation where you did nothave a president and you did not have a

Prime Minister, depending on who firedwhom first.

This is a very serious situation and, inmaking any changes to our Constitution, wehave to know that the changes we make canwork when there are political stresses. Profes-sor Winterton made a very valid argument, inmy view, that there was a serious flaw in thedismissal procedures, in that you could end upwith a situation where nobody was runningthe country. If that does not throw caution tothe wind, I do not know what does. We haveto be very cautious. I think there has been fartoo much thinking in noble terms and notenough in practical terms.

This is a republican debate where we haveto produce something that can work; some-thing credible that the people can consider asa viable alternative. I saw a lot of goodalternatives by a lot of learned people likeBill Hayden and Richard McGarvie, both ofwhom I have come to respect greatly for theirwork and diligence at this Convention andprior to it. I saw their models voted out soquickly that I was absolutely appalled that wecould do this. They are very learned men andthey put a lot of work into those models. Ithink that, if we were going to move to arepublic, those were the best models that wecould have used. In my opinion, what wehave ended up with is the worst of all modelsand, again, I am going to be voting verystrongly against it for the youth of New SouthWales and the country.

Ms ATKINSON —I am speaking verystrongly in favour of this model. I havespoken earlier in this place of a journey thatI, as have many others, made to be here. Ithink I have probably always taken it forgranted that I am a monarchist, but when thisConvention became a reality—which waswhen I happened to be living overseas inFrance and seeing Australia from a distancewith a great deal of love—I started to thinkabout the possibility of a republic.

I then came home to my children and mygrandchildren and I saw this country as theirfuture, not just for the next few years but forthe next 10 years, 20 years, 50 years andperhaps even beyond. I talked to their friendsand their neighbours and then I was con-


vinced that Australia was moving towards arepublic. That is why I have been here forthese last two weeks. I have been here for mychildren and my grandchildren and for theirgenerations, and to make sure that those of uswho are charged with the responsibility ofputting this recommendation together do itproperly and get it right.

I came here believing that we should be arepublic but I had not yet made up my mindabout the process. I do not believe that myold friend and mentor, Clem Jones, wouldhave deliberately misrepresented me yesterdaywhen he said that I had said that I would dowhat people want, which he interpreted tomean that I should be voting for the directelection model. I said that I would come toCanberra, I would listen on their behalf, Iwould evaluate and assess and then I woulddecide. That is what this Convention has beenabout. I congratulate the Prime Minister formaking it happen.

Now I say that it needs to be carefullyexplained—and well explained—to all thosepeople in the community as it has beenexplained to us. I know how the directelectionists feel because I also feel stronglyabout being involved and having a say. I alsofeel very strongly about our system of democ-racy and I do not want to put that at risk. Ibelieve that this model is the one that suitsAustralia best. I do not think we want drasticand radical change all at once. I do think thatwe want public consultation, we want theinvolvement of the states and we want somecommunity input. I do not think we want topull apart democratic institutions. We do wantto preserve institutions such as Prime Ministerand Cabinet, particularly the rights of theSenate and particularly those of us who comefrom the smaller states.

I believe in incremental change. I believe indoing this step by step. I believe in notrushing. I believe in putting, as it were, a planon the drawing board and having a very goodlook at it. I certainly hope that all of us inthis chamber—all of you who believe thatAustralia is ready to move on, that Australiais ready for our own head of state and thatAustralia is ready to stand up in the world as

being truly Australian—will vote for thismodel and help make Australia a republic.

Mr BEAZLEY —I take up the Arch-bishop’s challenge and once again nail mycolours to the mast on this particular issue bysupporting the motion. At the outset of thisConvention I did say that those of us in theopposition party did not come here to createa train wreck, even though we profoundlydisagreed with the process that we were goingthrough. In the spirit of that, I think we haveconducted ourselves well during the course ofthis Convention. I believe we continue to doso. Part of that is to ensure that this particularproposition gets up.

I now plead with my fellow republicans togive this show a go. Firstly, a number whowere a little inclined in our direction havesaid that they do not like the committeeprocess—too much political correctness,maybe chaos, maybe people will find them-selves insulted. They have become convincedover the last couple of weeks that we reallyare sincere and committed in parliament anddo try to do things well and ‘why don’t wejust trust you and forget about the commit-tee?’ Please do trust us. When parliament setsup this committee, they will set it up not tocreate a dog’s breakfast; they will set it up todo honour to the significant position that isbeing nominated. They will do honour to thatin the process. It does not matter whether itis a Labor government or a Liberal govern-ment; they will do honour.

The second point relates to the method ofelection, and those here who are advocates ofa direct model. If for some reason back in the1890s Britain had cast us adrift, the delegatesto those conventions would have had twopropositions: an American presidential systemor a Westminster system. I believe that theywould have concluded with the Westminstersystem. As many republics have, they wouldhave come to the conclusion that they oughtto have a process of appointment outside theelectoral process for a president to create asituation where parliament was clearly prior,clearly superior and the head of state per-formed the ceremonial tasks of a head of statethat they were used to.


This model has been disadvantaged at thisConvention by the democratic nature of it notbeing exposed. It would have been exposedback in the 1890s. It has not been exposedhere. Give it a shot so that we have a chanceto get this in place. It is not necessarily thelast word that will ever be said about therepublic.

To the McGarvie-ites, those who are con-cerned with that particular model: the modeof dismissal has taken up an essential charac-teristic of the McGarvie model, that is, thereinforcement of that democratic Westminstertradition. Finally, to my old teacher, PaddyO’Brien: I beseech you, please, to considerthat you may be wrong. Your profounddemocratic sense and sentiment is incapableof incorporation within this Convention. Itrequires a totally new convention to itself inorder for it to be properly considered. Givethe rest of us a shot at this Convention to getsomething up that is important to us andcontinue your noble struggle after that.

Mr WADDY —Mr Chairman, those whoproposed the model yesterday were Mr Wranand Mr Turnbull. Today we have a manappointed by the head of the oldest continu-ous monarchy in Europe, the Vatican, whereAustralia sends its own ambassador. It isinteresting that His Grace is able to be sucha monarchist in his occupation and such arepublican in his sentiment.

Why you should not endorse this particularmodel is that it is no good. You can haverepublican sentiments. You have heard againand again that we are a republic in all butname or that it is de facto or whatever youlike to say, but because of a crisis of symbol-ism which appears in the minds of republi-cans, in some way when you want to rundown the Queen of Australia—who, as Pro-fessor Winterton says, is of course a distinctlegal personality—she becomes the Queen ofEngland.

Let me take you back to the greatest repub-lican of them all, the Hon. Paul Keating,whose name, I have noticed, has been singu-larly absent from debate. On the ABC theother night—hardly a hostile environment—hesaid, ‘Why would you want to give thepowers of a king of England to an elected

politician who is virtually unremovable?’Why indeed? He was talking, of course, withcandour about direct election on the basis thatdirect election, because it would involve anationwide campaign by the leading politicalparties, would produce what a politicianthinks is a mandate. He was, of course, right.But this model would take that candidate afterthe mirage of community selection. Thenomination procedure is even worse than thatfor the Order of Australia. The committeedeciding awards of the Order of Australiameets in secret, gives no reasons, hands outgongs to those it thinks are right and does noteven have the courtesy to write back and tellyou when you nominate the local schoolmas-ter after a lifetime of service that they areignoring your nomination.

Are we to have complete secrecy in thisbody, as the Order of Australia committeedoes, to protect one’s reputation or iseverybody’s reputation to be bandied aroundwith any gossip and scuttlebutt that anyonelikes to feed into it? If the late Lennie Mc-Pherson, whose name seems to excite themedia lately, is nominated, is no-one to sayanything about him at all? It is a mirage ofpopulist nonsense. It will not work and itwould not work nearly as well as the presentprocedure.

The election procedure is a farce. The ideais that the Prime Minister would take onenomination to a joint sitting of both houses ofparliament and then, in a dismissal crisis, hewould turn back to the House of Representa-tives. Cast your mind back to 1975: the clashwas between the Senate and the House ofRepresentatives. They have nobbled theumpire, and they ask you to take that. Hewould exercise his powers in his own right,not above politics. They give no grounds forhis dismissal and they give him a five-yearterm. This is constitutional vandalism. Evenif you are a republican, do not foist this onthe people of Australia with your vote andrecommendation.

Mr TURNBULL —I am very surprised tohear my friend Lloyd Waddy describe this as‘a constitutional vandalism’. The characterist-ics of the model that he was so vehement incriticising then are all characteristics inherent


in the current system. The Prime Minister can,of course, instantly dismiss the Governor-General today. The Prime Minister is inevi-tably—albeit informally—answerable to theHouse of Representatives. All we have donehere is formalise an existing fact of parlia-mentary life.

The real innovation in this model is at thefront end and it does differ. It accepts all ofRichard McGarvie’s arguments about thereserve powers and the need for the PrimeMinister to be able to remove, but simplysays that, in the matter of appointment, thereshould be bipartisanship. I believe Australiansbelieve—

Mr RUXTON —Section 5, Malcolm—section 5.

Mr TURNBULL —I am sorry, Mr Ruxton,I couldn’t hear you! I believe that Australiansbelieve in bipartisanship and would like to seemore of it. In terms of the nomination proced-ure, there has been a deal of criticism of thiscommittee. Let me remind delegates of this.By and large, most republicans have agreed—even the more conservative republicans—thatthere should be an open nomination process.Are we really going to say that those nomina-tions are going to be put in the shredder?Surely, in the cold light of reason, parliamentwould decide, and the government wouldwant, to have a mechanism that was respon-sible for considering those nominations,otherwise it would be a farce.

Now what have we done? We have said nomore than ‘recommend’ to parliament. Wehave not suggested that it be in the Constitu-tion. We have recommended to parliamentthat the committee, which inevitably would beestablished, should not be composed of sevenor nine middle-aged white males like myselffrom Sydney, but should include people fromdifferent parts of Australia, should includewomen, should—if we accept Jason Li’samendment—include younger people andshould include people from different culturalbackgrounds, and, clearly, we were highlyfocused on the need for indigenous people tobe represented.

You can call this tokenism if you like, butwhen you look at the appointed delegates tothis Convention, this is exactly what the

government did. It made a virtue of appoint-ing young people. It made a virtue of appoint-ing women. It made a virtue of appointingpeople from an indigenous background, andpeople from a non-Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Celtic background. We must be realistic aboutthis committee. You can be as sceptical aboutcommittees and as sceptical about politicalcorrectness as you like. This is not a prescrip-tion. We recognise that it is going to have todevelop over time and be handled by parlia-mentary resolution. This recognises no morethan that which a responsible government, aresponsible parliament, would take intoaccount when considering nominations fromthe public which it ought to respect so much.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —In aconversation over a beer last night with HisGrace Archbishop Pell, I discovered we havecertain friends in common and we havebecome very friendly towards each other. Inthat spirit I said to him, ‘Your Grace, it is notsurprising that you support this model be-cause, as a high hierarch in one of the world’smost hierarchical organisations, it is to beexpected that you would support a hierarchi-cal model.’ I do not say that with disrespect.It is my view, and he knows it is my view. Itold him that at the Irish Ambassador’s party.I also would remind His Grace and everyoneelse that, indeed, the methods by which HisHoliness the Pope are elected are more demo-cratic than the methods proposed in thisdocument.

As to my friend and former student, KimBeazley—for whom I have great affection—Ithank him for his warm and jovial remarks. Iwould just remind him that I would love toembrace him, if only he would embracedemocracy fully. I would say to Kim, andother members of the Labor Party, that theLabor Party was, in my view, the party ofdemocracy. It was the party of giving thebattler a go. It was the party that pioneeredthe right to vote in Australia. It was the partythat pioneered getting away from propertyqualifications for upper houses.

But now it has stopped short of that. It issupporting hierarchy; it has become reaction-ary. That is why, Kim, I cannot embrace youon this matter. Please come around to the


democratic side and we will all embrace eachother. Now, Kim said, ‘Trust us,’ but heforgot to say, ‘The cheque’s in the mail,’ or,‘I’ll respect you in the morning.’

Finally, I will make two quick points. Theterm ‘bipartisan’ is newspeak. It is not abipartisan model; it is the model throughwhich the Prime Minister would essentially,in secret, pick one name out of a hat and thenthat name will go through a wheeling anddealing process. This person is going to besacked in a letter from the Prime Minister. Ifthis office is going to be the protector of theConstitution, as most people expect the headof state to be, how can such a person be theprotector and upholder of our constitutionalrights? He cannot be. So, all in all, we cannotvote for this model. We must not vote for thismodel. We must hang out for a democraticmodel.

Mr HOURN —I am pleased today, afterseven years of posturing, to now have amodel put before us which we can debate inseriousness. We have had 100 years to scruti-nise our present system and only a short timeto have a look at this one. But a quick scru-tiny shows that this cobbled up, insipid,compromise of a republic model that has beenput before us does not hold up.

The nomination system is tokenism. MrTurnbull says that it is not, but it is a clearsystem of tokenism. It will deliver only awarm fuzzy feeling and nothing else. Somepeople will have the opportunity to putforward nominations, but they will go to aparliamentary committee. When I think ofcommittees they always remind me of adefinition I once heard of a committee beinga cul-de-sac to which ideas are lured and thenquietly strangled.

At the end of the day, the Prime Ministerwill have the ultimate decision and it really istokenism putting up nominations from localgovernments and community organisations. Icannot see a nomination from myself beingconsidered. I do not think my local council inSubiaco will have much influence. I do notthink my local member, who is an Independ-ent, will have much say in it.

The appointment by a two-thirds majorityof parliament needs very close scrutiny.

History tells us that only four times in ourparliamentary history has there been a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament,and history shows us every day that parlia-ment is a hostile place. There will be dealmaking, there will be horse trading. TheLeader of the Opposition could derail theprocess. There is a great deal of uncertainty.

But the main difficulty with this model isthe dismissal powers. There will be an incred-ible increase in the executive power of thePrime Minister under this model. The propo-nents of this model tell us that the powers ofthe president should be the same as thosecurrently exercised by the Governor-General.But the powers and independence of the newpresident are going to be nobbled. The abilitlyto protect the sovereignty of the people, as theGovernor-General does now, will not be thesame for the president. How can a presidentbe a neutral constitutional umpire if he can besent off the field by the Prime Minister?

The balance of our present system is goingto be upset. At present, the balance is aboutright between the head of state, the head ofgovernment, the parliament and the people.But this model will remove very importantchecks and balances. There will be an in-creased power of executive government andincreased executive power by the PrimeMinister.

As a West Australian, I would like to pointout that West Australians have a couple ofthings they passionate about one, they do notlike being told what to do by eastern staters;and, two, they do not like more centralisedpower in Canberra and more power to politi-cians. They also do not like being sold a pupand have the wool pulled over their eyes.

I think delegates need to look very carefullyat this matter. I do not think any of us wantto be associated with failure. This is a cob-bled up model. It is a model for celebrities. Itis a pseudo democratic model. It is a republicat any price. If we vote for this model we willbe replacing a maligned monarchy with a lesspopular republic for elites. Delegates mustremember that they are going to have theirvote recorded. I do not think anybody herewants to be remembered for backing a loser.That is what this model is going to be.


Dr O’SHANE —The question that thisConvention supports the adoption of a repub-lican system of government based on thebipartisan appointment model in preference tothere being no change to the Constitution isa trick question. To vote against it is to votein favour of a constitutional monarchy. Earlierthis morning on the floor of this chamber I,along with over 100 of my fellow Australians,voted for a republic in principle—in principle.I did not vote for just any republic.

I came to this Convention on a platform ofa just republic, not just a republic. I am sorryto realise that, having been involved in thediscussions over the last 9½ days, this modelis just a republic. It barely gets into thecategory of republic even then because itcontinues to maintain a Constitution whichwas designed for a constitutional monarchysystem of government. If we are to change toa republic—most particularly, if we are tohave a just republic—then we need to designa constitution for a democratic republic ofAustralia. This model is a long, long wayfrom doing that.

Over the course of this Convention I haveheard a number of comments made by peopleboth within this chamber and outside thechamber that to have a democratically electedhead of state would mean that the head ofstate then became a political player in thepower stakes. The answer to that problem isnot to say, as so many have said, that there-fore we should not have a democraticallyelected head of state. Rather, the answer is tosay that therefore we have to strictly codifythe powers of the head of state. But it doesnot stop there. We must also spell out in aconstitution for a democratic republic ofAustralia the respective roles, authorities andpowers of the Prime Minister and cabinet andgovernment’s responsibility to parliament.

I also happen to be a very strong advocateof proportional representation. Another issuethat has been raised on this floor is the func-tion of the Senate and its powers. In a trulydemocratic society the continuation of a houseof review, the principles underlying which arelocated way back in the days of strong aristo-cracy, can no longer be worn by a democraticrepublic of Australia. We must abolish the

Senate eventually and ensure that we haveproportional representation represented in ourHouse of Representatives. I will not be votingagainst it, Mr Chairman; I will not be votingfor it. I must abstain.

Mr McGUIRE —Fellow delegates, thismodel deserves your support because it hasevolved through a great system of democracy.Half the delegates here are here because wewere elected by the people directly; half havebeen appointed by the people elected by thepeople directly. For two weeks we havelobbied, voted, discussed, amended and votedagain and we have come up with the Conven-tion model—it is the Convention model. Thefine line we walk to accommodate everyonehere today is personified none better than bythe Costello family. Peter wants less com-munity involvement; Tim would like more. Ifwe cannot get one family to agree fully, whathope do we have with 152 strong-mindedpeople? That could be a good thing. I havebeen uplifted by the intelligence and passionof the speakers over the fortnight but if, whenthis question goes to the vote shortly, youvote not on the work of the Convention onbehalf of the people of Australia but onpersonal principle brought here a fortnightago then we should have gone and playedgolf for two weeks and turned up today to putour hands in the air.

Direct election republican delegates,McGarvie republican delegates and all otherrepublicans wrestling with this point: let usremember what we are here for. Whatever theroute—direct, McGarvie, ARM or any other—the ultimate result is to get an Australian asa head of state. Voting for a republic, as wedid earlier in the day, is a bit like voting forfree beer—a good idea, but we need themodel to get it up. Some say to me, ‘Don’tworry, it is inevitable; it will come eventual-ly.’ That is rubbish. This is the vote to tell thePrime Minister that republicans want a repub-lic and to give our people something to voteon.

It has only taken a hundred years to get thisfar! Who knows when we will get anothercrack? Why would we have any ongoingconstitutional conventions if a clear messagedoes not emerge from this vote? Those of you


with republican blood coursing through yourbodies have now got to stand up and lookinto your hearts. Do you want a republic? Doyou want an Australian head of state or don’tyou? That is the question we are voting on inthe next 10 minutes.

Lloyd Waddy, I will quote former PrimeMinister Paul Keating. He said once, ‘In therace of life always back self-interest becauseat least you know it is trying.’ Now the timeis to get off self-interest and get back to whatwe are here for.

Tomorrow we will all wake up and all thepetty jealousies, the personality clashes, thepersonal animosities and the lobbying of thelast two weeks will be gone. A lot of us willprobably not even run into each other everagain; a lot of us will. But, fellow republi-cans, at the end of the day when you wake upyou have to make sure that you have votedthe right way on this. In conclusion, a no voteor an abstention is a vote against an Austral-ian as a head of state. Remember that tomor-row morning when you wake up and remem-ber which way you voted.

Mr CLEARY —Mr Chairman, can I justmake a point of clarification?

CHAIRMAN —No, you cannot speakwithout a microphone. You have asked me ifyou can get on the speakers list; there areabout 30 waiting. There is no point of order.I call on Mr John Brumby.

Mr CLEARY —A point of clarification?CHAIRMAN —No, not at this stage.Mr BRUMBY —Mr Chairman and deleg-

ates, I want to strongly support the motionbefore the Chair. I want to strongly supportthe bipartisan model, which is clearly thepreferred republican model coming from thisConvention. Like everyone here over the lasttwo weeks—indeed over the last few years—Ihave had to look long and hard at what is thebest republican model for Australia; what isthe best model to give us an Australian headof state.

I have looked long and hard at directelection because I can understand its appealto many of the people who make up thisConvention. I was attracted by the Irish modelbecause Mary Robinson stood there as an

example. But when you look at the Irishmodel, Mary Robinson is the exception; sheis not the rule. The Irish model is no modelfor Australia and, in fact, between 1973 and1990 there were no elections for president inIreland because the political parties simplyagreed on a joint nomination. Far from pro-ducing passion, energy and dynamic presi-dents, the Irish model produced one president,Eamonn de Valera, who was elected at theage of 76 and elected again at the age of 83.The Irish model is no model for Australia,and Mary Robinson was an exception.

The essential question here for the directelection people is this: if you have an honestdebate, there are only two choices—anAmerican-style presidential system or aWestminster system of government. If youhave got a Westminster system of govern-ment, the preferred republican model—thebest republican model—is the bipartisanmodel, with two-thirds appointment by parlia-ment.

I have looked very hard at the option thatthe Hon. Richard McGarvie put up because heis an eminent lawyer and was a great Gover-nor of Victoria. The strength of RichardMcGarvie’s argument was that in the two-thirds model there was a problem if youwanted to dismiss a Governor-General or apresident. With respect to Richard McGarvie,the two-thirds bipartisan model has taken upthat concern; it has taken up that criticism.Dismissal now is by a simple majority vote ofthe House of Representatives; in other words,entrenching the authority of the PrimeMinister and our Westminster system.

So we have made the modifications to themodel, we have got the best of both, and Iappeal today to all of those delegates—thedirect electees and particularly the McGarviepeople, the 22 of them who voted for RichardMcGarvie’s model—to acknowledge that thetwo-thirds bipartisan model we have heretoday is the best compromise. It polled twicemore than any other model which has comebefore this Convention, and it is for thatreason the most preferred.

This convention is a once in a centuryopportunity for us to become a republic, forus to appoint an Australian head of state. Let


there not be squabbling amongst the republi-cans. Let us not wish the moment away. Letus get a system which expresses the way weare, the way we want to be, and not the waywe were 100 years ago. Some 90 people, asagainst 50 people, in this Convention want arepublic. I urge all republicans to get behindthe bipartisan model, which is clearly pre-ferred.

Mr PETER COSTELLO —I thank Eddiefor referring to our family and the contribu-tion that we could make. I suggest that if theConvention would like to delegate power tous, I am sure we could fix this over a Christ-mas dinner. In fact, if you want a constitu-tional monarch and an Australian head ofstate, we have a sister!

I am for change. I think that Australiashould become a republic. I do not believethis is an optimal model. I think it is a hybridon a hybrid. Nobody would have designedthis a priori. It does not have sleek lines. Itdoes not have design. It is a compromise.What is more, I do not think the work isfinished. The work is not finished becausewhen the forefathers of the Constitution cameto the convention in the 1890s, they draftedthe clauses of the Constitution, the actualwords.

You will recall that the Prime Minister saidin his opening address that it was detailedwork. With all due respect, this model isbasically throwing back into the parliamentvery important questions. In Part 4, it isthrowing back that the Convention recom-mends that the parliament consider variouspowers and how to draw them. In Part 1 it isthrowing back a nomination procedure, andnot one to be put in the Constitution but oneto be separately enacted. The work is notfinished.

One thing we know is that we will have areferendum and that this model will go to it.If you ask me—and this is the way I thinkArchbishop Pell put it—if this is the best youcould get, would you go for it, then that isone question, but another trick question is: doyou prefer this to the current situation? All Isay is: we do not know yet. I have not givenup on it because I will be in the parliament,

and I will be seeking to try to improve it. Wedo not know yet whether it will be preferable.

In answer to what Wendy said about theconsultation provisions, I did not think theywere a good idea because I do not think youwill be able to keep the consultation a secret.One of delegates said, ‘We have dealt withthat—we have a clause in this part that saysthat the committee shall not disclose anynomination.’

Let me tell you how this town works. In themorning, you go down to Aussie’s CoffeeShop and you say, ‘Who is up for the HighCourt next week, Aussie?’, and he tells you.Then you go up to the press gallery and yousay, ‘What’s on in the cabinet agenda nextweek?’, and they tell you. If you still havenot figured out what is happening, you askthe Comcar driver on the way home. Youhave put a clause in here that says it is goingto be confidential, but it means nothing. IfMary Gaudron has nominated MichaelMcHugh and Michael McHugh has nominatedMary Gaudron, you will read about it in‘Melba’ within 24 hours.

The point I make about that is that it putspeople who are up for consideration in a verydifficult position, to which Malcolm, whocame, like Nicodemus, by night to try to stealmy vote on this, said, ‘Don’t worry about anyof that: the parliament can ignore it.’

Mr TURNBULL —I did not say that. Thatis outrageous!

Mr PETER COSTELLO —It would not bea good start to get off on that basis. That is amatter for the parliament to legislate. Austral-ia will move on. I think Australia shouldmove on. I think this should go to the referen-dum. But I think that the outcome of thisquestion is not essential to that. It is not anessential question and I believe the workshould continue and be finished. That is whyI will not be voting either for it or against it.

CHAIRMAN —As there are so manyspeakers, we will allow more time for debateon the issue immediately after we resume at2 o’clock.

Mr MUIR —This question No. 3 poses acrisis of conscience for those who believe inthe sovereignty of the people and electing the


President. The dilemma for us is that, if wevote no, we support the monarchy; if we voteyes, we support a bipartisan model which canhardly be called bipartisan. It is in effect atwo-legged camel which does not do the job.The Prime Minister controls the whole pro-cess, from the nomination to the appointmentto the dismissal. Near enough is not goodenough for Australia. Those who want changeand believe in the sovereignty of the peopleand are not happy with the few words thathave been cobbled together by the ARM andothers should abstain. At the end, however, itcomes down to an examination of one’s ownconscience. I for one am not going to bend toany emotional blackmail.

We in the Clem Jones team put together acomplete model for a republic after listeningto the people of Queensland. It is not Clem’smodel, it is not Ann Bunnell’s model, it is notmy model—it is the model of those whovoted for us in Queensland. This two-leggedcamel is not going to get across the line in areferendum. A referendum on a two-leggedcamel is going to put the republican cause inAustralia a long way behind. We believe therewill be only one chance to get a republic inAustralia and that chance needs to be takenwith the direct election by the people. Wewill not achieve incremental change. Somepeople here today have said incrementalchange would be achieved: you get bits andpieces of a republic in and you can then go toelect a president. I do not believe that canhappen. You need a head of steam to getconstitutional change in this country. I believethe head of steam will be diminished by a bitsand pieces republic.

Mr VIZARD —Before I make my remarks,could I just place on the record my indebted-ness to the Convention and to the chairmanfor allowing me to hand in my piece of paperduring the vote yesterday. It was greatlyappreciated. I particularly wanted to acknow-ledge my gratitude to Mr Hayden and MrWaddy for their gestures. Thank you verymuch.

Firstly, let me say I support the brave andwise words of Archbishop Pell. We seek tofind consensus. We seek to find a commonmodel. I know some delegates are struggling

with the model, particularly with the approvalof a head of state by joint sitting of theparliament of Australia. They say it is a greatimpediment. You are struggling with the roleof parliament. You say that politicians willget in the way. You say that politicians maycontaminate the model. But here is a distinc-tion between politicians who may come andgo and the great institution of parliament. Itis the parliament, not any politician, which isthe cornerstone of our Australian democracy.This is parliamentary democracy, and 100 percent of Australians believe in parliamentarydemocracy. Parliament is truly democratic.Power is concentrated, but in a diffuse way.

We cannot go around being patriotic yetdemeaning our parliament. We cannot demeanour parliament without demeaning our democ-racy, our history, our country and our tradi-tions, including the British ones we haveinherited. What we have achieved we haveachieved very largely through parliament. Weentrust to the parliament the responsibility forthe defence of the nation, the making of peaceand war, the making of laws and the collec-tion and distribution of revenue. If you thinkthis is the best country in the world, nothinghas done more to make it so than that institu-tion—the institution of parliament. It will donothing for Australian democracy to diminishthe parliament, to decide at this point in ourhistory that the parliament is just a collectionof politicians who cannot be trusted. It will bea vote of no confidence in an institution wewon 150 years ago and affirmed our faith in100 years ago. We should be reaffirming ourfaith in parliament now. The parliamentaryelection of a president is not only the trulydemocratic method of election but the trulyminimalist republic. It makes the least chan-ges to our basic democratic structures andtraditions.

Those of you who are on the cusp of adecision: if the greatest risk that you face heretoday is to endorse a model which has at itsheart the Australian parliament, the touchstoneof Australian democracy, and if the greatestrisk is that you reaffirm to the Australianpeople the centrality of that great Australianinstitution, which is already entrusted withevery aspect of our daily life from foreign


affairs to health, from education to thenation’s defence, then you are risking nomore than you risk daily in your continuingmandate to parliament. You will have dis-charged your duties if you give the people ofAustralia a clear model upon which to vote ata referendum. But you will have acted beyondreproach if that model is enacted upon thecornerstone of the very parliament that unequ-ivocally shapes their lives, their history andtheir future. I urge you to vote for this mo-tion.

Mr TURNBULL —A point of personalexplanation. I do not propose to compound—

Mr RUXTON —I did not hear him. Is heclosing the debate? He has had a second time.He got two starts at the microphone.

CHAIRMAN —He is not closing thedebate. He is making a personal explanation.

Mr CLEARY —I sought the same requestfrom you and you would not let me comeforward.

CHAIRMAN —Mr Cleary, you did notseek to make a personal explanation.

Mr TURNBULL —I do not propose tocompound the unfortunate lapse of his nor-mally impeccable good manners in MrCostello citing a private conversation withme. I have not said anything to him or any-body else that is inconsistent with what wehave said here today. Mr Costello is, how-ever, quite right when he says parliament canignore that proposal for community consulta-tion. Of course it can. It can ignore everythingwe recommend but it will ignore these recom-mendations at its peril. I have no doubt thatthe parliament will take this into account.

CHAIRMAN —I have received a proxyfrom Mr John Anderson for Senator NickMinchin. The hearing is suspended until 2p.m.Proceedings suspended from 12.53 p.m.

to 2.00 p.m.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I declare open

this session. The proposition is that we shouldhold the voting on this question at 2.15 p.m.or a little thereafter.

Mr RUXTON —At the beginning of thedebate last week Mr Turnbull said that this

was going to bring all Australians together. Isuggest that this will be the commencementof the great divide. I heard the Treasurer thismorning come in in a frivolous way. As faras the Treasurer is concerned I would ratherlisten to his brother, the Reverend TimCos te l lo . We have heard the word‘democracy’ used so many times. The greatestexponents of the word ‘democracy’ were KarlMarx and Lenin, and never forget it.

The committees: the government appointsa committee and they wonder why people getsuspicious. People are always suspicious ofcommittees that are appointed by the govern-ment. The list of candidates cannot be pub-lished because it may offend some if they arepassed over. Anyone standing for electionshould not be frightened to have his namepublished. I do not see that reasoning at all.

Section 5: why is it section 5? All we haveheard about is the dismissal of the presidentbut we have not heard anything about thedismissal of the Prime Minister and theparliament. That is what worries me. Section5 is the only safeguard the people of Australiahave. He does not put it in his pocket and runback to Buckingham Palace; he has got togive it back to the people in an election.

Trust us. I have heard that before: trust us.Two-thirds majority in the parliament? Bipar-tisan? I do not believe it; it will end up beingpolitical and the pork-barrelling that is goingto happen will be outrageous. Eventually itwill be the Prime Minister and the PrimeMinister alone.

Finally, and I have said this before in thepast couple of weeks, it is the extraneousissues that keep being brought up. PatO’Shane brought some up this morning—theSenate, for instance, and proportional voting.Then we have had all sorts of other things—gender, et cetera. I suggest to you all that thisis the start of the opening up of the greatestcan of worms this country has ever seen.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —There are twoproxies that I should report: one from MsSchubert requesting a proxy to Miss MelanieMarkham and one from Neville Bonnerrequesting a proxy for Colin Howard. That isfrom 2 o’clock today.


Mr CLEARY —I would like to clarify acouple of things here. I stand for an Austral-ian republic. I stand for a real republic, a justrepublic, a democratic republic, a republicthat affirms the authority of the people. I willnot be moved from my position by someonesaying things along the line that there issomething selfish about sticking to one’sprinciples. One of the problems in politicstoday is that votes are just cast according toa particular line. If you want acolytes, you getacolytes, but I refuse to be one. I am notsaying for a minute that that makes me aprecious person or any more special thananyone else. It is just that, at some point intime, you get delivered a card, and you canpick the card up and go with it or you can liedoggo. I am afraid I cannot lie doggo on thisquestion.

There is a qualitative difference between therepublic as proposed by the ARM and therepublic that I envisage for Australia. I be-lieve that the republic that the ARM proposeswould bury the aspirations of the Australianpeople. For that reason, I cannot support thatrepublic. You have to understand: if I actuallythink there are qualitative differences betweena phoney republic and a real republic, Kim,what would I do? Which way would I vote?

Archbishop Pell gave a very good speech.It was a very reasoned speech and very welldelivered. But I say this to the Archbishop:there is a thing in the Catholic Church calledtruth. Truth is handed down from ordainedleaders. There is no room for conscience inthe Catholic Church. You follow the laws aspassed on from God via the Pope and thebishops. You actually believe in truth. I amarguing that the truth today is that the repub-lic, as proposed by the ARM, is a phoneyrepublic; it is a dishonest republic.

But I will say this much: the Prime Ministercan take no comfort from what has happenedhere over the last 10 days. Over the last 10days, we have opened up a discussion abouta real Australia, a diverse Australia, an Aus-tralia with an Aboriginal history that thisPrime Minister has not always recognised andabout the Wik issue. They are big issues forus in Australia. My republic would endeavourto acknowledge all those things and acknow-

ledge the great efforts of Australians overtime.

We had a preamble that was neutered herein a pathetic fashion by our constitutionallawyers because you would not put poetry,aspiration and inspiration into the preamble.You wiped it out—just wiped it out. ‘No, wecan’t put that in. We can’t say who we are.We can’t say any grand, bold things aboutAustralia. No, we can’t do that.’ So what arewe going to do? One hundred years after thelast Constitution, we are going to bury theaspirations of Australian people. We are goingto bury them again in a false republic—aphoney, trumped-up republic.

It hurts me so much to actually have to voteagainst or abstain from a vote on this republicbecause, in my heart of hearts, I am so addict-ed to the idea of a republic. My ancestorsfought the British in a war in 1920 for arepublic in Ireland, and some of them werekilled. I believe in a republic. Michael Collinswent to England and he came back with a badrepublic.

The Right Reverend John HEPWORTH—Mr Deputy Chairman, we came here withthe intention of changing this debate fromsimply a brawl about republican models to afair debate about the present system ofgovernment versus whatever was the best thatwas put up against us. This is the momentwhen we come to vote on what we have allbeen on about.

We came here to argue against the idea thata republic was inevitable. This morning, 58.5per cent was the vote in favour of an inprinciple republic. It is not a devastatingexample of inevitability. We came here withthe idea of arguing that the present system ofgovernment was a high form of democracy.We share that democratic ideal with ourcolleagues on the direct republic benches. Iam not sure we share it as yet with those onthe ARM benches.

What we have before us now is a proposalto shift the sovereignty of this nation from theCrown to the parliament. That is the inevi-table consequence of what we are now beingasked to do. It is not a debate about republicversus something else. We are debating heads


of state and therefore we are debating sover-eignty.

I am happy to enter into the argument thatthe Crown, as it has evolved, especially in thepast 200 years, is in fact the encapsulation ofthe sovereignty of the people, and I am veryhappy with an Australian system which doesnot give sovereignty to the parliament. Sover-eign parliaments have always been dangerouscreatures and they are not to be trusted.

Our present parliament has been criticised,and I do not share that criticism because infact parliaments do hard jobs. The nature ofthe job involves taking massive responsibility,and humans given massive responsibility tendto act strangely. But in fact basically Australiahas been extremely well served by its parlia-ments, as it has been served by its Federation.The problem that I have got is: roll the ideaof sovereignty into the parliament, allow themto deliver the very existence and the legiti-macy of the one who is meant to stand apartfrom it, and you have not kept the presentsystem in place—you have made a starkchoice between what is being proposed andwhat is the ideal.

May I appeal in conclusion to those whohave come here to argue for different repub-lics. I find myself in strong disagreement withArchbishop Pell. All republics are not thesame. Look around the world and that isobvious. You cannot vote for just any repub-lic on the basis that any republic is better thanwhat we have got. Any republic is not betterthan what we are got and the world is full ofthem. Those who came here to argue forsomething different should argue again an-other day and not ditch their vote behind amodel that they know in their conscience isnot a real republic, is not what we have gotand is not a good system of government.

Mrs ANNETTE KNIGHT —The questionwe are being asked to pass judgment on islike the first resolution, in my mind. It is nota question that we at this Convention shouldanswer. It is one that must be decided by thepeople of Australia. I am still of a mind thatthis is not a question of republic or monarchy,of republican option or status quo; it is onlyabout what will be the best system for Aus-tralia. We have been charged with the respon-

sibility of coming up with an option for theAustralian people to consider and weigh upagainst the status quo and that is all. Weshould not be making the decision for them.We have arrived at an option to put beforethem: let them make the judgment.

Though we have endeavoured to find thebest model to present, what we have, I andmany others at this conference believe, is notthe best. It has serious shortfalls and a lack ofclear and concise definition in some areas. Ithas some undesirable elements. It cannot besaid to be better. It does not fulfil our obliga-tion. It does fulfil our obligation, though, toprovide a model for consideration by thepeople.

We at this Convention should not commitourselves to or endorse a system that is basedon a model that is less than satisfactory, onein which we do not have absolute confidenceand that cannot deliver a system better thanthe one we have. In all conscience, becauseI do not believe the question posed is one forus to decide, abstention is the only option.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Before I callGraham Edwards, the proxy for NevilleBonner will be exercised by John Paul.

Mr EDWARDS —I want to be a part ofthis motion and to endorse the openingremarks that were made by Archbishop Pellwhen he spoke this morning. He made anabsolutely compelling speech, and I urgepeople to reflect on what he had to say. Asthis is the last occasion I will speak, I want tosay to the monarchists: I appreciate andrespect the fight that you have put up. I donot agree with your arguments, but I have agreat deal of respect for some of the peoplein your ranks. I appreciate the view and thefeeling that you have about Australia. Thatview and that pride are shared by those of uson the republican side of the benches.

Mr Chairman, I do not want to speak formore than one minute, but I want to say thatalmost a decade ago I took part in a welcomehome parade for Vietnam veterans through thestreets of Sydney. It was a parade that hap-pened some 20 years after the war was over.As you can imagine, it was an incrediblyemotional parade for those veterans. I havenot felt the strength of that emotion again


until this morning when the vote was taken inprinciple for us to become a republic. Wheneveryone stood by their benches and applaud-ed, I felt again that strong sense of purpose,direction and emotion.

I really hope that that emotion and thatfeeling were felt out there in the communityby those people listening and viewing via TV.Today is a historic occasion. I urge republicandelegates, whatever their persuasion, torecognise that this next vote is the first realstep towards achieving an Australian as ourhead of state. I urge you to vote for thismodel. I say to you: please listen, let us unite,let us join together in the long journey ofbringing our Australian Constitution home.

Mr WILLIAMS —Mr Deputy Chairmanand delegates, how to vote on this choicebetween the bipartisan model and the statusquo is, for me, a very difficult question. Ihave supported another model and I havesignificant reservations about this one. On theother hand, I want to see an Australian headof state. Not to support the motion would be,in the circumstances, at least for me, tosupport the status quo.

I expect we will vote for a referendum andthat there will be one, but there is a long wayto go in the development of the model to beput first to the parliament and then by theparliament to the people. In those circum-stances, I propose to give greater weight tosupporting change than I give to my reserva-tions about the model. I will vote for change.

Mr Deputy Chairman, my position and thatof the Treasurer are very similar. In my view,the difference between us I think is simplythat I have given greater weight to the desira-bility for change.

Mr HOWARD —Mr Deputy Chairman, Istart my brief remarks by taking the Conven-tion back to the charge I gave it at the begin-ning, because I think some of the words thatI then used have, either through inadvertenceor on some occasions deliberately, beenmisrepresented. What I said—and I think it isvery important for the vote that is to takeplace in a moment and also later on thisafternoon; I will repeat the words in thatspeech—was:

I inform the Convention that if clear support for aparticular republican model emerges from thisConvention my government will, if returned at thenext election, put that model to a referendum . . .

Let me repeat that: if there is clear support fora particular republican model, we will put itto a referendum.

I want to make it very plain that I chosethose words deliberately. They were meant toconvey a very clear and unmistakable mean-ing. I want to repeat them the moment beforethe vote is taken.

I also repeat again—this is well known—that I have been a supporter of the presentsystem for many years. My party knew myposition when it made me its leader in 1995.The Australian people knew my positionwhen they elected my government to powerin March 1996. I have never disguised, in theinterests of responding to what may appear tobe majority support for a particular proposi-tion, a point of view that I cannot in con-science embrace.

I remain opposed to change because Ihonestly do not believe that Australia wouldbe a better country if we abandoned thepresent constitutional system. That is myhonestly held belief. I find it a curious notionin this debate that in some way a mark ofleadership is to repudiate something which,deep down in your heart, you believe in, inthe name of responding to what is the currenttransient, perhaps enduring, support for aparticular point of view.

I can respect the strength of feeling ofpeople like Phil Cleary. He may disagree withme on many things—and he does on justabout everything, I think—but I can respecthis point of view. I said to people when thisConvention started that I wanted it to be anoccasion for plain speaking. I have not dis-guised my view.

I do not support the present system out ofsome nostalgia for a British past nor for thesinging of ‘God save the Queen’ or forsomething that is now distant. I support itbecause, through an accident of history andthe maturity of the Australian people, we haveembraced to ourselves a system of govern-ment that has given us a coherence and astability that are the envy of this world. In the


true Burkian tradition of honourable conserva-tism—and I think honourable conservatism aswell as constructive conservatism are import-ant on these occasions—I believe it is emi-nently consonant with a democratic, inclusivefuture for Australia to maintain that system.

Mrs CARNELL —I nailed my colours tothe mast on this whole issue about four yearsago and I did that again earlier last week—that is, I am a republican and I do believe indirect election. The easy option for me todaywould be to vote yes simply because that isa vote for the people of Australia to have achoice on a republic. But I think that is theeasy option. I do not believe at all that it isappropriate to vote yes simply because it ischange. I believe that we must vote for agood option, for a good compromise and fora good model. I strongly believe in giving thepeople more input into our democratic system.I strongly believe that the people are thecentrepiece of democracy, not parliaments.

I think it is very important today to have alook at what happened in the ACT when wehad self-government. A style of governmentwas put together by a committee. It was puttogether as a compromise. It was calledmodified d’Hondt as our democratic systemof election. Six years later it was overturnedby referendum and did enormous damage tothe ACT in the meantime.

If you put a bad model to the people ofAustralia I believe strongly they will knock itback, because they are not stupid. I believethat by supporting this cobbled togethercompromise, we will be putting the wholebasis of a republic back by 10 or 20 years. Ibelieve very strongly that one of the princi-ples of democracy is that people are suspi-cious of government. This model, though, isbased upon the whole premise that govern-ments are suspicious of the people—that theydo not trust the people to make the rightdecisions.

I believe this turns democracy totally on itshead. I cannot bring myself to vote with themonarchists here. I cannot bring myself tovote for a model that I believe will be over-turned by the people, that is not right and thatis a cobbled together, bad compromise. I willbe abstaining.

Mr RANN —We cannot allow this Conven-tion to become a code word for failure. Thatwould give the opponents of change, andthose who will fight any constitutional reform,every alibi and every excuse to do nothing. Itis our task to help define what Australiastands for and where we are going as a nationat this important turning point in our history.

It is a time to show leadership. That is whywe were sent to this Convention. It is not atime to blink or squib but a time to moveforward. Most delegates know that I did notcome here to support this model. I supportedthe Gallop direct election model. But I ampleased that this Convention has now, thismorning, endorsed future constitutional reformand another convention in a few years to lookat a range of issues that are dear to many ofus here today.

I appeal to all republican delegates, what-ever model we supported last year, last weekor even last night, to take a big and coura-geous step forward by helping to build abridge to the future and by embracing changeat this important moment in Australia’shistory. As republicans, whatever our views,we can do so with honour by again giving therepublic another decisive vote now, and thenmoving forward to even greater constitutionalreform. I urge all republican delegates to heedthe words of Archbishop Pell, and to comehome to the republic and to an Australianhead of state, and that is why I am supportingthe bipartisan model.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —ArchbishopHollingworth, are you seeking to ask a ques-tion?

The Most Reverend PETER HOLLING-WORTH —Mr Deputy Chairman, I rise toseek clarification from you. I had anticipatedbeing called to speak but now that this ses-sion has concluded, I am only able to refer toits contents by asking a question seekingclarification from you. I and others here findourselves between a rock and a hard place.The problem lies in the way the motion hasbeen formulated in the sense that it asks themembers of this Convention to make a clearstatement about whether they prefer thebipartisan model republic hastily drawntogether yesterday to the status quo.


With Mrs Knight I agree that we are beingasked to make a false choice which shouldproperly be put to the Australian people at areferendum. Secondly, we are being asked tochoose between a republican model thatcontains elements of earlier models preparedby several of us to that of the status quo. Iagree to sign my support for that model notbecause I believed it was entirely satisfactory,but because it was essential that this Conven-tion came up with two clear choices whichcould go before a referendum. That was theprimary task, I believed I had when I came tothis Convention and we have been able todeliver on that. If it were necessary to supporta republican model, my own proposal wassomewhat different to the one we have beforeus. It was in the spirit of compromise that Ifelt that it must be supported, even though itwould not be my preference.

The point I want to make is that I andothers are now confronted with a real moraldilemma. If we are forced to make a choicebetween the status quo, which is tried, testedand known, and a bipartisan republican modelwhich contains a number of procedural prob-lems that are unresolved, I regret to say thatI would have to abstain from the proposal,even though I had done some prior work indeveloping the compromise which is beforethe Convention. Hence the moral dilemmaabout which I seek advice.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am in noposition to rule on moral dilemmas. You areinfinitely better placed than I am.

The Most Reverend PETER HOLLING-WORTH —Can I make it clear that I amforced by the motion to abstain from voting.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Before I put thesubstantive question, there is an amendmentthat has to be disposed of. It is the amend-ment by Jason Li and Kirsten Andrews thathas been circulated, and that is to amendparagraph 3 of Part A to read as follows:. . . and take into account so far as practicableconsiderations of federalism, gender, age andcultural diversity.

I put the amendment that the word ‘age’ beinserted. Those in favour please indicate;those against. It is clearly carried. I now putthe question, as amended, that this Conven-

tion supports the adoption of a republicansystem of government on the bipartisanappointment of a President model in prefer-ence to there being no change to the Constitu-tion.

Councillor TULLY —On a point of clarifi-cation: given that there were not 152 deleg-ates voting on every motion yesterday, willthe voting result be based on an absolutemajority of delegates, or just a simple majori-ty of those voting?

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —A simple majori-ty of those voting.

Mr LOCKETT —I move:That the motion not now be put.


DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —It is a proceduralmotion, so I will put it without debate.

Motion lost.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Please now fill

in your ballots and sign them. Would those infavour of the resolution please stand.

Mr RUXTON —Mr Deputy Chairman,please note that the ballot paper is pink!

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am amazed thatyou have not complained that so much of theNotice Paperearlier was green.

Delegates submitted their ballot papers.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Those voting

against the resolution, please indicate.Delegates submitted their ballot papers.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Those wishing

to abstain, please indicate.Delegates submitted their ballot papers.DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The result of the

ballot is for 73, against 57, abstentions 22.Delegates (73) who voted "yes":

Andrews, KirstenAng, AndreaAtkinson, SallyanneAxarlis, Stella

Bacon, Jim

Beattie, Peter

Beazley, KimBell, Dannalee


Bolkus, NickBrumby, JohnCarr, BobCassidy, FrankCocchiaro, TonyCollins, PeterCostello, TimDelahunty, MaryDjerrkura, GatjilEdwards, GrahamElliot, MikeEvans, GarethFaulkner, JohnFox, LindsayGallop, GeoffreyGallus, ChrisGeorge, JennieGreen, JulianGrogan, PeterHandshin, MiaHawke, HazelHewitt, GlendaHill, RobertHolmes a Court, JanetKelly, MaryKennett, Jeff

(proxy—Dean, Robert)Kilgariff, MichaelKing, PoppyKirk, LindaLavarch, MichaelLi, Jason Yat-SenLundy, KateLynch, HelenMachin, WendyMcGuire, EddieMcNamara, PatMilne, ChristineMoller, CarlO’Brien, MoiraO’Donoghue, LoisOlsen, JohnPell, GeorgePeris-Kneebone, NovaRann, MichaelRayner, Moira

Rundle, TonyRusso, SarinaSams, PeterSchubert, Misha

(proxy—Markham, Melany)Scott, MargueriteShaw, JeffSowada, KarinStone, ShaneStott Despoja, NatashaTannock, PeterTeague, BadenThomas, TrangThompson, ClareTurnbull, MalcolmVizard, SteveWest, SueWilliams, DarylWinterton, GeorgeWitheford, AnneWran, Neville


Anderson, JohnAndrew, NeilBartlett, LiamBeanland, Denver

(proxy—Carroll, Frank)Bjelke-Petersen, FlorenceBlainey, GeoffreyBonner, Neville

(proxy—Paul, John)Bonython, KymBorbidge, Rob

(proxy—FitzGerald, Tony)Boswell, RonBradley, ThomasBullmore, EricCastle, MichaelChipp, DonCourt, RichardCowan, Hendy

Devine, Miranda

Ferguson, Alan

Ferguson, ChristineFischer, Tim


Fleming, JohnGarland, AlfGifford, KennethHayden, BillHepworth, JohnHourn, GeoffHoward, JohnImlach, MaryJames, William (Digger)Johnston, AdamJones, KerryKillen, JimKramer, LeonieLeeser, JulianManetta, VictoriaMitchell, DavidMitchell, RomaMoloney, JoanMye, GeorgeMyers, BenjaminNewman, JocelynO’Brien, PatrickO’Farrell, EdwardPanopoulos, SophieParbo, ArviRamsay, JimRocher, AllanRodgers, MarylynRuxton, BruceSheil, GlenSmith, DavidSutherland, DougWaddy, LloydWebster, AlasdairWilcox, VernonWithers, RegZwar, Heidi


Andrews, KevinBishop, JulieBunnell, Ann

Carnell, Kate

Cleary, Phil

Costello, PeterCraven, Greg

Curtis, DavidGunter, AndrewHaber, EdHollingworth, PeterJones, ClemKnight, AnnetteLockett, EricMack, TedMcGarvie, RichardMcGauchie, DonaldMoore, CatherineMuir, DavidO’Shane, PatSloan, JudithTully, Paul

Councillor TULLY —Mr Deputy Chair-man, I raise a point of order. Have youdeclared the result of the ballot?

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am sorry, Ideclare the motion carried.

Councillor TULLY —I have a point oforder, which I wish to come up and speak toformally, in respect of the declaration of thatvote. The rules are silent in respect of thedetailed method of voting, and they are silentin terms of whether or not—I am sorry, I willcontinue; I will not see people shaking theirheads.

There is no provision in here for a resort tothe standing orders of the House of Represen-tatives or otherwise. In other words, resortmust be given to common law. I would liketo refer to Joske’sLaw and Proceedings atMeetings in Australia. I will read for thebenefit of delegates—this is quite important—a reference to this. It reads:Consequently, where a majority of those present isrequired, a motion may be defeated by a number ofthose present abstaining from voting . . . So wherea simple majority of those present was necessary—

It is quoting a particular case—and, of the 35 present, 16 voted for the motion andeight against it, while 11 did not vote at all, themotion was lost.

Sir, prior to your putting the vote, you indi-cated that it would be based on the number ofthose persons voting.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Yes.


Councillor TULLY —Clearly, those courtcases indicate that the abstentions must betaken into account. They exceed the numberof persons voting for, and, to avoid thepossibility of court proceedings in respect ofthis matter, I indicate to you on the basis ofthis document that that vote must clearly bedeclared as lost.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I am deeplygrateful for the advice of Councillor Tully ona number of matters. I draw his attention tothe eighth edition of Joske’sLaw and Pro-ceedings at Meetings in Australia. I draw hisattention to the beginning of the paragraphthat he read, where there are some words thatappear to have eluded his attention andcertainly have not received the benefit of thegreen highlighter. It says:Rules of a body may prescribe a particular methodof voting and may abrogate the common lawmethod which requires merely a majority of votes.

I rest my case. It has been passed by a ma-jority of votes.

Councillor TULLY —I move dissent fromyour ruling, Sir.


DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —You are verywelcome.

Councillor TULLY —I will be brief in mymotion of dissent. Even though you havequoted that, I am not sure you have quotedany provision of these rules which indicatesthat we have abrogated the provisions regard-ing common law because, clearly, it is silent.I asked you prior to the vote whether or notall the votes being taken into account wouldbe counted. I asked whether or not in thosecircumstances it would be an absolute majori-ty of all delegates or whether it would be asimple majority of those voting. People hadthree choices when voting: for, against orabstain. The rule at law is quite clear; Ichallenge anyone to show me where it iswrong in law. There are no provisions in therules which we adopted either on the first dayor progressing through this particular Conven-tion or in the debating procedure for thisstage of the proceedings yesterday and today.I believe that quite clearly there is a majority

of 79 votes against—either as No or Ab-stain—and only 73 in favour.


DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —In the case of aruling against the chair, there is only onespeaker for and then the chair responds. Therules of debate, which you all, includingCouncillor Tully, agreed with at the beginningof these proceedings, make no provision foran entrenched majority. Early on in theproceedings, the Chairman was asked to ruleas to the kinds of majorities which wouldoperate and to distinguish between a simplemajority and an absolute majority.

There is no rule in the procedures—and itmay have been an oversight on the part ofCouncillor Tully that he did not provide forit—that says that there must be an absolutemajority affirming a particular motion. Wetake it, and it is the normal common law rule,that an abstention means a refusal to take aposition. So, in that case, if you are lookingat a—

Professor Patrick O’Brien interjecting—

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —ProfessorO’Brien, you are expert on very many things,but I doubt whether the rules of procedure isone of them. You do not need to go pastJoske. Joske is absolutely clear. Joske saysthat the rules of a body may prescribe aparticular method of voting and may abrogatethe common-law method. We have not doneso. The common-law situation is maintained.I am glad to see a few judicial nods, which Itake to be approval. The result is that amajority of those who voted cast a vote for oragainst the proposition. There is clearly amajority.

Mr TURNBULL —I move that the questionbe put.

Motion carried.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I put the ques-tion that the Deputy Chairman’s ruling bedisagreed with. Those in favour please indi-cate. There are four in favour.

Motion lost.


Mr HAYDEN —Mr Deputy Chairman, ona non-legal but practical basis, I think on thePrime Minister’s criteria there is a clear viewemerging. The clear view is 79 votes No andAbstain, and Yes 73. That is the clear view asdistinct from any legal interpretation.

Mr HOWARD —Can I offer a clear viewon that?

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Please.

Mr HOWARD —Mr Deputy Chairman,when I spoke a few moments ago I remindedpeople of precisely what I said at the begin-ning of the Convention. I said:I inform the Convention that if clear support for aparticular republican model emerges from thisConvention—

I repeat the words: ‘a particular republicanmodel’. The only commonsense interpretationof this Convention is, firstly, that a majorityof people have voted generically in favour ofa republic. In fact, 89 out of 152 votedgenerically in favour of a republic. Secondly,amongst the republican models, the one thathas just got 73 votes is clearly preferred.When you bind those two together, it wouldbe a travesty in commonsense terms of Aus-tralian democracy for that proposition not tobe put to the Australian people. Moreover, itwould represent a cynical dishonouring of myword as Prime Minister and the promises thatmy coalition made to the Australian peoplebefore the last election. I would hope that thenext resolution is carried unanimously andperhaps put without too much more debate.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —We now proceed,unless there are any more procedural motions,to the fourth resolution. I understand that isto be moved by Malcolm Turnbull.

RESOLUTION

"That this Convention recommends to thePrime Minister and Parliament that therepublican model, and other related chan-ges to the Constitution, supported by thisConvention, be put to the people in aconstitutional referendum."

Mr TURNBULL —I move:That this Convention recommends to the PrimeMinister and Parliament that the republican model,and other related changes to the Constitution,

supported by this Convention, be put to the peoplein a constitutional referendum.

The Constitution of Australia belongs to itspeople. They will make a decision as towhether this proposal will be accepted bythem or not after parliament has consideredand enacted the principles and resolutions ofthis Convention into a constitution amend-ment bill. It is clear that there is an over-whelming preference of this Convention forthe bipartisan model. I appreciate the PrimeMinister’s remarks and congratulate him. Iwould urge you to vote now to recommend tothe Prime Minister and parliament that thebipartisan model and other related changes tothe Constitution, supported by this Conven-tion, be put to the people in a constitutionalreferendum.

Ms HOLMES a COURT —I second themotion. Deputy Chairman, Delegates, I quotedTim Winton on the first day, and I am goingto read it again:You’ve never seen people relish the lighting of alamp like this, the way they crouch together, cradlethe glass piece in their hands, wide eyes caught inthe flame of a match, the gentle murmurs and thepumping and the sighs as the light grows and turnsfootprints on the river beach into long shadowedmoon craters. Let your light so shine.

Our lights have shone for the last two weeks,particularly the lights of the young peoplewho were here. We have crouched; we havecradled; we had been wide eyed; we have litthe match; we have had murmuring andpumping; we have had sighs. Some peoplehave said that the model we have come upwith, which has a majority of supporters inthis house, is a camel. I say it is a beacon totake us into the 21st century. I am delightedto second this motion of Mr Turnbull’s, tosend this motion out to the Australian peopleso that they can tick that final box, so that wecan have a head of state and so that we canburst, as Tim Winton says, into the moon, thesun and the stars of who we really are—Australians: perfectly, always, every place, us.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —I wouldlike to speak against the motion.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —No, just resumeyour seat. I will give you the call. There is aproposed amendment to item 4 on theNoticePaper, moved by Kerry Jones and seconded


by Bruce Ruxton. That motion seeks to deletethe word ‘supported’ and replace it with theword ‘identified’. For the amendment to beallowed to proceed it requires leave of theConvention. I will ask for those who areprepared to give leave for the amendment togo ahead.

Mr HOWARD —Can you just repeat it? Iwas conferring with my learned counsel.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —We might needto have a count. I was asking whether therewas leave granted for the amendment to bemoved by Kerry Jones and Bruce Ruxton todelete the word ‘supported’ and substitute theword ‘identified’. Leave in this case means 50per cent of those present. Could I have anindication of those in favour of grantingleave.

Because you do not call for votes against,leave just requires more than half of thosepresent. The figure in favour of granting leaveis 69, so, paradoxically, it is not possible forleave to be granted.

Senator ALAN FERGUSON—I raise apoint of order. You said 50 per cent of thosepresent. How do you know there are 152present? I know of at least one who ismissing alongside me, and I do not knowwhether other people might not have left theroom.

Mrs GALLUS —That person is sitting overhere; she is not missing.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Is there a desireto have a count? No. The indication is that itis only a minority.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —I amspeaking against the motion. I congratulatethe ARM on getting 73 votes. This is not afootball match and I am not a so-called poorloser, and what I have to say is not motivatedin any way by that footy game. I repeat thatI congratulate the ARM and the other peoplewho supported that motion in getting 73votes. I only wish that we had got 73 votesfor our model, and we did not. Having saidthat—and here comes the ‘but’—I do opposethe vote. I will vote against this being put toreferendum. The reason is this: it is not amajority of the delegates. I, maybe mis-takenly—I am not challenging the chairman’s

ruling anymore—did believe that whateverwent to the people would have to receive thevotes of at least a majority of delegates. Iknow for a fact that some delegates hereunderstood that in abstaining they wereactually voting, and that happens to be thecase. So I am not the only person under themisapprehension.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —We have dealtwith that matter. This is a different question.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —It is not;it is the same question.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —With respect, itis a different question, and I direct you to talkto the question before the chair.

Professor PATRICK O’BRIEN —Allright. I do not believe it should be put, for thereasons that I have given. I do believe that ifthe ACM votes to support the motion thenthey will come across to Australian people asbeing principleless. Remember that Mr Mal-colm Turnbull a week ago offended many ofthe ACMers by saying that he thought theywere going to vote strategically to make surethat at the bottom line the model they thoughtcould not get through the Australian peoplewould get up. That is what they have done,and they have betrayed their principles if theyvoted that way. I oppose the motion and hereI stand.

Mr COWAN —Like all delegates, I camehere to address the questions that were put inwriting to us by the Chairman on behalf ofthe Prime Minister and reinforced by thePrime Minister in his opening address justrecently. There is consensus among Austral-ians about two things. The first is that theylike the system of government, the freedomsand the quality of life our constitutionalmonarchy provides, and secondly, they wouldlike an Australian head of state. If it can bedone, then do it. But do not—whatever youdo—weaken those first points.

As a state representative, I would like toadd another qualification or two. The first isthe need to protect the federation, and thestates’ constitutional responsibilities, and thepowers within it. The second is to preserverepresentative parliamentary democracy withinthe states. I include in that the delegated


authority of the states: local government. Isupport this particular motion because it isnecessary for us to have a referendum so thatall Australians can determine whether they door do not want to be a republic. But I reservemy right to make sure that in putting thatreferendum those particular points that I havemade are protected and preserved. I haveseen, for 25 years of political life, the powersof the states encroached by the inventions ofthe High Court and by the financial powers ofthe Commonwealth. The last thing this coun-try needs is a republic that promotes central-ism.

Professor BLAINEY—First, could I saythat, while I do not support the propositionthat I hope is to go to the Australian people,I do congratulate the republicans on theirvictory. Even I felt a slight lump in the throatwhen I saw your jubilation and the jubilationof people in the gallery when you had thenumbers. I congratulate you and I wish youwell. I will not go any further.

I felt, when the vote had been taken, thatperhaps John Quick of Bendigo should havebeen here. He, in many ways, is author of thisevent. He came to Australia in the 1850s asa child and set to work in the stamp mills andin various labouring tasks. Eventually he gothimself an education. He was the man atCorowa who believed that, ultimately, in adifficult situation in 1893 when Federationseemed doomed, the only way to revive itwas to bring in the people; and we have seenthat happen in the last fortnight. I also con-gratulate you, Mr Prime Minister. You havetaken this unconventional decision to involvethe people in debating this important question.It is not always an easy decision to handpower to somebody else but you have done itand I congratulate you.

May I just say that when the republicanmovement began to gain momentum after MrKeating’s announcement, it was not realisedthen, because it was so long since we had hada major constitutional change that involvedthe emotions as well as decisions aboutpower, by many politicians nor by the media,what an enormous task it would be to enlistthe public in seeing the issue as important andseeing its implications. Mr Keating grasped

the issue to himself and pushed forward to aconsiderable degree, but he kept public out ofit, and he kept the opposition out of it. Frommemory, Mr Kennett nominated me as theVictorian representative, but since I wasagainst the republic I was not chosen, al-though Mr Turnbull would have been perfect-ly happy for me to be there.

Ultimately, it is debate that brings out thedifficulties and the significance. Debate isvital. It is all important. When I think of the1890s and that slow movement towardsFederation which was ultimately accom-plished, it was incredibly difficult. EvenSydney, which was then the biggest city inAustralia, said, ‘We don’t think we wantFederation.’ In the first referendum that greatcity voted against Federation, and that is whythey got the great prize of Canberra, as abribe. If only three train loads of voters inQueensland had changed their mind, Queens-land would not have voted for it. WesternAustralia came in very late—very late indeed.

I think we face an issue as difficult as theissue that was faced in the 1890s because itreally combines two things. It is a debateabout symbolism. You and I came with ourown ideas of symbols, and I would be verysurprised if any one of the 152 here reallychanged their mind about symbols in thespace of the last fortnight. But the otherquestion, the most difficult question, is howyou apportion the powers, how you appointthe president and how you dismiss him. Thatis a very difficult question. I believe it mustgo to a referendum but the debate must be ona very substantial scale throughout the nation.I hope that debate takes place and the deci-sion, whatever it is in 1999, is decisive.

Mr TIM FISCHER —I support the printedmotion as it properly completes the businessof this Convention. It was so drafted by theResolutions Group and I support it as onewho supports the existing Constitution andone who, enjoined with John Howard, Alex-ander Downer and so many others at the lastfederal election, went forward with a policyto provide for a convention delivered inspades and for a vote of the Australian peo-ple. We have the Prime Minister’s confir-mation this day that that too will be delivered


and delivered in the year 1999. I think weshould all accept the result of the Conven-tion—win, lose or draw.

We now should formally recommend it tothe Prime Minister and the parliament. Formy part I will be guided—as will all Austral-ians, I am quite sure—by the will of theAustralian people. I will put as much effortinto the debate as I can to see that these veryimportant matters are fleshed out fully. Youdo not lightly tamper with your Constitution.

Mr GARETH EVANS —Those of us whoembarked on this republican journey togethersome time ago have come a remarkably longdistance in this last fortnight. There is noquestioning the historical significance of whatwe have decided in these last two days and noquestioning the historical significance of themotion we are about to clearly pass to put thebipartisan model to a referendum.

But let us face it: we have come only halfthe journey. The referendum campaign will bephenomenally significant and a crucial test ofthe goodwill of us all and the maturity of thiscountry. Forty-two referendum questions havebeen put over this century; only eight of themhave been successful. No referendum proposalthat has ever been put to the Australian publicwhich has been associated with a substantialbody of organised opposition has ever beensuccessful. Every amendment proposal whichhas been defeated has in fact had a substantialbody of organised opposition—usually fromone or other of the major parties at the nation-al level or on some occasions coalitions ofsmall states and state politicians.

Very few referendums have been on issueswhich are inherently capable of capturing andlifting the national spirit. Perhaps there hasbeen only one such in our national memory,and that was the 1967 referendum to recog-nise the place of our indigenous people in ournational life. That did capture the nationalspirit. It passed in all six states with a majori-ty overall of something like 91 per cent.Maybe this referendum, after the benefit of ayear or so of campaigning and thought andconsideration, will prove to be another suchexample. But we certainly cannot assume that.

There is a role and responsibility, accord-ingly, for all of us here who have participated

in this debate and produced this result. So faras my friends in the ACM, the monarchistcamp, are concerned, I cannot expect you andI do not ask you to do anything other thanvigorously express the no case and campaignagainst the referendum, as you undoubtedlywill.

To my republican colleagues, however, inparticular those who found it so difficult tojoin in the consensus with their fellow repub-licans this week, I urge you to think, thinkand think again about what is at issue hereand about this historic opportunity that wenow have that might not easily recur—itcertainly will not recur before the historicallysymbolic, exciting and moving event of theturn of the century—to move the communityon behalf of what it is that we all believe in.If we do want an Australian to be thiscountry’s head of state, we have a heavensent opportunity to get there and I hope youwill be with us. I will understand perfectly if,right to the wire, you continue to take theview that you took this fortnight. That is whatmany of you, after all, were elected to do. Butwith this fortnight past us and the referendumcampaign under way I hope and trust and ifI prayed I would pray that you join with us inthat.

There is one final group to whom I make aspecific appeal—a group of people with avery specific role, set of responsibilities andhistorical opportunity—and that is the politi-cal leadership of this country, those politicalleaders at the state and federal levels whohave hitherto taken the view that they cannotsupport this. This is a historical opportunity.If I had the time I would read you a letter thatmight move you. But I just make the pointthat by all means take the parliamentaryopportunity, Peter and your colleagues, andstate leaders, to further refine the model. Butunderstand the nature of the task and thespirit that is upon us and help us carry thegame forward.

Dr CLEM JONES —I move:That the Convention grant leave for Mr Clem

Jones to move a further amendment.

This will be the last time I speak. It is prob-ably appropriate that in my last speech Ishould differ from our Prime Minister. I do


not believe we have a model to go forward ora position where we have clear support foranything which is the wish of the people.

Motion lost.

Dr CLEM JONES —My view is that theproceedings during the last 10 days showquite clearly that the model to be put beforethe people is a model which is not acceptableto the rest of the people in Australia. I wouldlike to quote quickly from a letter addressedto Mr Malcolm Turnbull which I receivedtoday. It says:

I sent a delegate, Mr Clem Jones, to the Conven-tion with the idea of a popularly elected president.In view of the fact that the model did not getpreference, I find it offensive to say the least thathe has taken it upon himself to disallow me thechance to have my say at a referendum on thebipartisan model. While I can appreciate the factthat he was sent on a particular ticket, his narrow-minded and egotistical attitude is beyond my belief.Will you please tell him that on my behalf.

There is no need because he sent me a lettertoo. The letter goes on:

I am an ordinary Australian. Let me have my say.

That is what we want to do, of course: let thepeople have their say. This is the first, out ofover 250 letters that I have received since Ihave been here, which suggests that thepeople are not almost 100 per cent behind theproposition that we put forward: that we musthave a president elected by the people.

Ms PANOPOULOS—We, in ACM, aresupporting this motion. We are supporting thismotion because the Keating-Turnbull model—in whatever form it has existed and in itspresent hybrid—needs to be tested by theAustralian people.

For the last five years, we have heardmeaningless, shallow slogans about a repub-lic. We have heard about ‘waiting in queuesat airports’ and ‘a resident for president’. Wehave heard little about a detailed alternativeConstitution. We have heard nothing aboutany improvements that would be made to ourpresent system. We are waiting. The Austral-ian people are waiting. We came to thisConvention for symbols and we are leavingwith a shambles. Finally, let the Australianpeople have their say.

Mr LAVARCH —I suppose it is appropri-ate that the resolution that will just about getthe greatest vote of this entire 10 days will bethis last resolution. There, of course, will bedelegates who vote against it; those whobelieve that the proceedings and the votes thathave been taken over the last two days,particularly the last vote, do not indicatesufficient support for the proposition to goforward.

Those are views that I can understand. I amdisappointed by the vote, but understand thereasons that delegates have taken in abstain-ing. Nonetheless, I think we have a responsi-bility to go forward and to continue to arguethis case in the Australian community. It is aresponsibility, I think, all of us take seriously.We were not here merely to have listened toeach other’s points of view—as important asthat was. We were here to formulate a modelwhich could go forward and, if nothing else,would promote the cause of constitutionalunderstanding and debate in the Australiancommunity.

That is why I think we should proceed withthe referendum. I think that we should see theparliament fulfil its role now in drafting thereferendum bill. There will no doubt becontributions and debates concerning thatparticular enterprise. Then let the great ques-tion go into the Australian community sometime next year and let the real argumentbegin.

Senator NEWMAN—Just a few minutesago, Mr Cleary said that he believes he standsfor a just and fair society. So do I and so do,I guess, all of us here. But I part companyfrom Mr Cleary and many of his colleaguesbecause I stand for a constitutional mon-archy—for a system which has operated wellfor nigh on a century, and which continues toserve us well.

But I did come here with an open mind. Idid come here to listen to the arguments, tolisten to the debate. I certainly came here tohelp in formulating a republican model whichcould be put to the people, a task which thePrime Minister gave to us all. As I listened tothe debate I believed that Mr McGarvie’smodel would do the least damage to ourexisting system and had much to recommend


it; but the Convention decided otherwise. I amsad about that, but I still believe that it wasthe best option available to us and that notsufficient attention perhaps was given to it bysome of the other groups.

I have not been convinced of the need forchange, but I was prepared to endorse thesafest model to go to the people. With thismodel, in a referendum I will not vote for themodel that has received the Convention’ssupport. But this Convention, as I said earlier,was given a task by the PM to identify arepublican model to go to a referendum, tostand against our tried and true constitutionalmonarchy. That is why I am ready to supportthis resolution—that the republican model,which I personally do not support, should goto the people for their decision in competitionwith our current excellent system. Neverthe-less, I urge all those who understand andbelieve in the precious nature of our existingsophisticated system, and the stable anddemocratic Australia which we enjoy as aresult which has given us our fair and justsociety, to speak out. Do not be cowered bythose who would paint you as old fashionedor out of step with the times. Speak out toprotect that which you know to be precious.But now let the people decide.

Mr EDWARDS —I take the opportunity, insupporting the motion, to say that I am nowvery pleased that this question can be put tothe Australian people. I support the motion.I move:

That the question be now put.

Motion carried.

Mr WADDY —I seek to make a personalexplanation in light of the remarks made byProfessor O’Brien in your absence from thechair when he reflected upon the principles bywhich those of ACM might vote. He said that,were we to vote for a referendum so that thematter could be placed before the Australianpeople, we would be unprincipled. In myinitial speech to this Convention, I repeatedthat we called for a referendum and I did sothen. We will vote in accordance with ourprinciples, no matter what Professor O’Brienthinks.

Mr BULLMORE —Is it possible for me toask the Prime Minister to clarify what he saidleading up to this, before he convened theConvention and before the election? He alsomade a statement on plebiscites if we did notreach a consensus here. Could he maybeclarify that for us on the consensus?

Mr HOWARD —The language that I usedvery deliberately and very carefully in myopening speech at the beginning of the Con-vention was ‘clear view’. As I said a momentago, when you have a combination of 89 outof 152 voting generically for a republic, andclearly the republican model attracting themost support at this Convention is the onethat has been adopted, in those terms I amsatisfied beyond any reasonable doubt that thecharge given to the Convention has beenfulfilled. I think the matter ought to now beremitted to the Australian people for theirverdict.

Mr BULLMORE —The question was: whatwas the position on a plebiscite?

Mr HOWARD —The position on theplebiscite was that, if there had not been aclear view in support of a particular republi-can model, then we would have had a plebis-cite. But there is a clear view in support of aparticular republican model; therefore we donot need a plebiscite. I do not want to havea plebiscite and I will not have a plebiscite.

CHAIRMAN —Thank you, Prime Minister.While I appreciate delegates’ thirst for know-ledge and for question time, this is not thatand, unless you have a point of order or someother reason, Dr Mitchell, for what purposedo you seek the call?

Dr DAVID MITCHELL —I wish to makea personal explanation. I find that I have tovote against this motion because of its actualwording. The explanation I want to make isto you, the delegates and the people of Aus-tralia. It is not because I do not want thismatter to go to the people of Australia. I do,but I am troubled by the wording of themotion and must oppose it.

CHAIRMAN —Ms Moore, on what basisare you seeking the call?

Ms MOORE—I just wanted to ask you:have you closed the speakers’ list, especially


in light of the fact that nearly all of thespeakers this afternoon have been male andwe have had a total gender imbalance? I wason the speakers’ list to speak before themotion was put.

CHAIRMAN —Unfortunately, the questionwas put before the Convention; the Conven-tion decided the question should be put. Yourname and a good many others were also listedand regrettably none of them were calledeither. Have the ballot papers now beendistributed? Does anybody not have a ballotpaper? If all delegates have their ballotpapers, we will proceed to the ballot. Thequestion that is before the Convention, movedby Mr Malcolm Turnbull and seconded byJanet Holmes a Court, is that this Conventionrecommends to the Prime Minister and Parlia-ment that the republican model, and otherrelated changes to the Constitution, supportedby this Convention, be put to the people in aconstitutional referendum. Will you pleaseindicate on your ballot paper that box whichyou endorse and sign your ballot paper. Willthose who have so voted Yes, please rise intheir places so that your ballot papers may becollected?


CHAIRMAN —Those delegates who votedNo, please rise in their places and hand intheir ballot papers.


CHAIRMAN —I ask any delegate whovoted Abstain to rise in their place.


CHAIRMAN —While we are waiting forthe voting to take place, I have been told thatthere are apparently a number of delegates’books in circulation around the chamber andsome of the owners have asked that if deleg-ates have finished with them, could they bereturned to the centre table to be collected.

CHAIRMAN —Yes, Mr. Ruxton? You stayin your place if you want to talk to me duringa count.

Mr RUXTON —I want to make a point,Sir. I want to remind everybody that 73people voted for the motion and—

CHAIRMAN —That has nothing to do withthis. It is inappropriate that you raise this atthis time.

Mr RUXTON continuing —CHAIRMAN —It is inappropriate for you

to speak, Mr Ruxton. I deny you the right tothe call.

Mr RUXTON continuing —CHAIRMAN —It is inappropriate for you

to be speaking at this time, Mr Ruxton, andwhat you just said will be struck off therecord. There is a time and place for mostthings and you need to say them in accord-ance with our rules and procedures.

The result of the ballot on item No. 4, thatthis Convention recommends to the PrimeMinister and parliament that the question beput to the people in a constitutional referen-dum, is ayes 133, noes 17, abstentions 2. Ideclare that resolution supported by an abso-lute majority.Delegates (133) who voted "yes":

Anderson, JohnAndrew, NeilAndrews, KevinAndrews, KirstenAng, AndreaAtkinson, SallyanneAxarlis, StellaBacon, JimBartlett, LiamBeanland, Denver

(proxy—Carroll, Frank)Beattie, PeterBeazley, KimBell, DannaleeBishop, JulieBlainey, GeoffreyBolkus, NickBonner, Neville

(proxy—Paul, John)Bonython, KymBorbidge, Rob

(proxy—FitzGerald, Tony)Boswell, RonBradley, ThomasBrumby, John


Carnell, KateCarr, BobCassidy, FrankCastle, MichaelChipp, DonCocchiaro, TonyCollins, PeterCostello, PeterCostello, TimCourt, RichardCowan, HendyCraven, GregCurtis, DavidDelahunty, MaryDevine, MirandaDjerrkura, GatjilEdwards, GrahamElliot, MikeEvans, GarethFaulkner, JohnFerguson, AlanFerguson, ChristineFischer, TimFleming, JohnFox, LindsayGallop, GeoffreyGallus, ChrisGeorge, JennieGreen, JulianGrogan, PeterHandshin, MiaHawke, HazelHayden, BillHepworth, JohnHewitt, GlendaHill, RobertHollingworth, PeterHolmes a Court, JanetHourn, GeoffHoward, JohnImlach, MaryJames, William (Digger)Johnston, AdamJones, KerryKelly, MaryKennett, Jeff

(proxy—Dean, Robert)Kilgariff, MichaelKillen, JimKing, PoppyKirk, LindaKnight, AnnetteKramer, LeonieLavarch, MichaelLeeser, JulianLi, Jason Yat-SenLockett, EricLundy, KateLynch, HelenMachin, WendyManetta, VictoriaMcGauchie, DonaldMcGuire, EddieMcNamara, PatMilne, ChristineMitchell, RomaMoller, CarlMoloney, JoanMoore, CatherineMye, GeorgeMyers, BenjaminNewman, JocelynO’Brien, MoiraO’Donoghue, LoisO’Farrell, EdwardOlsen, JohnO’Shane, PatPanopoulos, SophieParbo, ArviPell, GeorgePeris-Kneebone, NovaRamsay, JimRann, MichaelRayner, MoiraRocher, AllanRodgers, MarylynRundle, TonyRusso, SarinaSams, PeterSchubert, Misha

(proxy—Markham, Melany)Scott, Marguerite


Shaw, JeffSloan, Judith

(proxy—Flint, David)Smith, DavidSowada, KarinStone, Shane

(proxy—Burke, Dennis)Stott Despoja, NatashaSutherland, DougTannock, PeterTeague, BadenThomas, TrangThompson, ClareTurnbull, MalcolmVizard, SteveWaddy, LloydWest, SueWilliams, DarylWinterton, GeorgeWithers, RegWitheford, AnneWran, NevilleZwar, Heidi


Bjelke-Petersen, FlorenceBullmore, EricBunnell, AnnCleary, PhilGarland, AlfGifford, KennethGunter, AndrewHaber, EdJones, ClemMack, TedMitchell, DavidMuir, DavidO’Brien, PatrickRuxton, BruceSheil, GlenTully, Paul

Webster, Alasdair


McGarvie, RichardWilcox, Vernon

CHAIRMAN —Prior to moving on, I wouldlike to ensure that all ballot papers have beenproperly put in their envelopes and sealed. Allcounts and the names of those who voted willbe recorded and distributed in theHansardoftoday’s proceedings.

In the federal House we have a proceedingnormally called a special adjournment at theend of a sitting and it seemed appropriate thatwe might have a similar procedure at thisConvention. On behalf of all delegates, Ishould say to you that the Deputy Chairmanand I have prepared a memorandum which weare about to present to the Prime Minister.Because of the vote having just been taken,we are trying to get it updated. It will then bedistributed and, while we are having thesespecial adjournment proceedings, all delegateswill have some chance to have a look at thataide-memoire. Essentially, it reports no morethan the votes taken and the proceedings ofthe Convention and makes the recommenda-tions which you have just passed to thegovernment and to the parliament.

On wider issues, there are a few mattersthat I would like to cover. I might then callon the Deputy Chair to speak and I havenotice of a motion from Kirsten Andrews, tobe seconded by Mr Graham Edwards, on thegeneral question of those who have attended.

On behalf of us all, I would like to start bysaying to the Australian public: you havebeen wonderful. For most of us it has reallybeen quite an extraordinary experience. Thoseof us who have been in parliament for a whileexpect more brickbats than bouquets. I thinkall of us have found it incredible that so manyin the wider community have been interestedin our proceedings. There have been some-thing like 80,000 visits to the Internet homepage, something over 17,500 visitors to thepublic galleries in the course of the few daysof the Convention—that was to last night—there have been more than 1,000 writtensubmissions from the Australian public, morethan 300 people have been through the publicgallery per hour and there has been, in manyother ways, involvement of the wider com-munity. I think it appropriate that, therefore,we all thank you first.


Secondly, I commend each of you asdelegates on what has been quite a fun occa-sion. Barry and I are used to the adversarialcircumstances of parliament. It has amazedme that so many have presented their caseseloquently, with good humour and with con-siderable effect. I commend you for that. Ithink it has been quite a remarkable demon-stration of Australian democracy.

The other list of people that I need toidentify is extensive. I want to run throughthem because they have all been important.First, Prime Minister, to you and your govern-ment, I thank you for the catalyst whichenabled this to take place at all. There is nodoubt that while many were cynical about thenature of a convention, it has been a veryimportant part of the process of preparingAustralia for the next century. I commendyou, Prime Minister, and your government forthat. I thank the Leader of the Opposition forthe endorsement that he and his team gave. Itmay have been a bit jaundiced at first but thebill got through, and you have certainlyparticipated wholeheartedly and thoroughly,and we appreciate that.

I thank Senator Nick Minchin, the ministerresponsible for the Convention. He has reallyensured that all your administrative arrange-ments worked as they should, and far more.To Bill Blick, who sits on my left, JohnDoherty and their team, we all owe a particu-lar debt of gratitude. There is an enormousamount of administrative detail necessary foran event like this. We particularly appreciatewhat you do and have done. In that samecategory I would like to extend our thanks tothe Hon. Howard Nathan QC and Peter King,who have been the counsel assisting bothBarry Jones and myself, and of course ourown personal staff, in particular, AndreaHaese, who has been so magnificent. So muchwould not have happened if I had not had herassistance.

A number of others have been absolutelyessential to this Convention. To the ACM andthe ARM and all others of you who, aselected delegates, had volunteers and othersupporters and contributors, this conventionalso owes a debt. But for them, you wouldnot be here and but for them, the quality and

quantity of your argument would have beensignificantly inhibited. So I thank you.

There is then within this place anotherhorde of people who have been most signifi-cant. The media have looked down on us andpried into what we think of as the fishbowl ofpolitics. You will know now why we feel sooften as though we are swimming out there ina small pool and you observe our everymovement. We thank you because withoutyou, again, the public would have beeninhibited in their participation. Among you—and unusually for me—I would like to com-mend the ABC. Your involvement in thisevent has been extraordinary. Your coveragehas been excellent and, what is even moreamazing, so too has been your reporting. Ithink for that we should all be both thankfuland grateful and commend them.

To other people—the attendants, the busdrivers, the taxi drivers, the Comcar drivers,certainly Hansard and Bernie Harris—Iextend my thanks. I offer Lyn Barlin, theformer Clerk of the House of Representatives,a special thanks. He came back from retire-ment to keep Barry and me on the straightand narrow and he has done it well.

There are many other volunteer staff andsupporters around this place. One that I didwant to identify is Castle Catering. Those ofyou who are not as familiar with the place onthe hill that we customarily eat in, I can tellyou that it is nowhere as well served as youhave served us during the course of thisfortnight. Thank you, and a job well done.

There are then but a few other thank yousto make. The one that is important is to BarryJones, who as my deputy has been quiteoutstanding. For your good humour, yourrather effervescent approach to the proceed-ings and for the professional way in whichyou have handled your task, I extend mythanks. The professional conference organisershave also been very significant in makingthings happen.

Finally, but by no means least, a thank youto our families, including my wife. I knowyour partners have all missed you in thecourse of the fortnight. They may or may notbe glad to see you return, but I can tell youthat home comforts will look great after a


fortnight—for some of you—in this ratherrestricted environment. Above all, can I sayit has been a remarkable occasion, and foryour participation I offer my personal thanks.

DELEGATES—Hear, hear!

CHAIRMAN —I would like Mr BarryJones to say a few words before we hand theCommunique to the Prime Minister.

Mr BARRY JONES —Mr Chairman, at ourfirst function out in Kings Hall on the Sundaynight of the reception, I said that my greathope, as Deputy Chairman of the Convention,would be that delegates would leave with afeeling that they had been treated fairly andhad had an opportunity to express their pointsof view. I hope that this is true of the over-whelming majority—an absolute majority,certainly—of delegates, although this after-noon I have had the feeling, and I concede,that it may not be a unanimous view.

I would have to say that for myself thehardest thing was to sit in the chair and notmake helpful suggestions and corrections offact to the speakers. I must say it has all beenintellectually very stimulating, but I haveheard some astounding things said on bothsides of the House.

As I remarked last night when we had ourdinner, it took an astonishingly short periodto turn this diverse group of 152 delegatesinto something really very close to a parlia-mentary or a quasi-parliamentary forum withall the differences on party lines and some-times people looking around a bit uncertainlyto see which way that they were expected tovote. Sometimes there were some unlikelypoliticians or quasi-political figures emerging,including Arvi Parbo, Professor GeoffreyBlainey, the twin archbishops and so on whoplayed a very interesting role.

I must say, too, that the experience asChairman of the Resolutions Group wassomething I will never forget; it will certainlybe worth a chapter in the memoirs. But, infact, I think there has been a high level ofcivility and goodwill. I think that in a way wehave done something to augment the sensethat the political process is viable, but wehave to perhaps look at many issues, not justthis one, in different ways; we have to be

more inclusive, we have to be more welcom-ing and we have to be more open.

I think this has been a very good exercisefor the Australian polity, and I am grateful toall of you who have put so much into it. Iconclude by expressing my gratitude to IanSinclair, who I think has provided superbleadership.

DELEGATES—Hear, hear!The Chairman and the Deputy Chairman

having presented the communique to thePrime Minister—

CHAIRMAN —I will call the PrimeMinister first, and I then have notice of tworesolutions. I will then call Mr Beazley.

Mr HOWARD —His Grace the Archbishopof Melbourne said that God had had a prettygood Convention. Without in any way wish-ing to belittle the Almighty’s success, I thinkAustralia has had an even better one. ThisConvention has demonstrated the truth of aproposition that I have always held very dear,and that is that the things that unite us asAustralians are greater than the things thatdivide us.

I ask myself: what have I learnt from thelast two weeks? I have learnt something thatI was not so sure of at the beginning: I haveno doubt that Australia can conduct a referen-dum on this issue with vigour, with passionand with meaning, and yet in a way that doesnot undermine or fracture the essential valuesof our society.

I have learnt from this Convention that theAustralian way of doing things is special andunique. I have not experienced anything likethis in all the years that I have been in publiclife. The bringing together of so many peoplein different ways, with different backgrounds,with different contributions, with differentviews was something that at the beginningone might have thought was fraught withdanger—anything could have happened andanything could have emerged.

In terms of the positions that were taken, Isuppose that, at various stages, that appearedpossible but, in a great display of civility andgood humour, and with great integrity inmany areas, it was possible for us to live outwhat has been a moment in Australia’s his-


tory—a moment that I am sure everybody hastreasured.

I have been a member of the federal parlia-ment since May 1974. I have been immenselyprivileged to come to the highest electedposition in this country and to be given thegreatest honour that can ever become the lotof any Australian man or woman, and that isto be the Prime Minister of our wonderfulcountry. I would, therefore, have thought thatin terms of that sense of excitement andexhilaration, I had enjoyed it all, but therewas something special about this gathering,something which showed in the looks onpeople’s faces.

I share Professor Geoffrey Blainey’s re-sponse to the look on the faces of MalcolmTurnbull, Neville Wran and Janet Holmes aCourt. They are not people with whom I haveidentified very closely on this issue, but theyobviously have an enormous enthusiasm forit and they felt a sense of exhilaration andhappiness when what they had worked toachieve was, in fact, achieved.

I also pay particular tribute to Lloyd Waddyand Kerry Jones, the leaders of Australiansfor Constitutional Monarchy. I know thedifficulties they have endured in puttingforward a cause which, for a long time,received very little support or recognition incommentaries on this issue. I know abouttheir lack of resources. I know what was saidand suggested at the beginning about theirpropensity to vote strategically. I salute theimmense integrity of the way in which theyhave handled themselves throughout the entiredebate.

The reason why this Convention has beena success and the reason why it has captured,to a very significant degree, the interest andimagination of the Australian people is that,despite our differences, we all smell the sameeucalypt, we all the know the same dust, andwe all feel the same salt in the same ocean.Those things which are dear to one side of theargument are equally dear to the other.

What has struck me more than anythingelse about this Convention and the wholedebate is the integrity of the Australianismthat has been expressed by all the delegates.I will go away from this Convention an even

more idealistic Australian, one with an evengreater passion to allow our democracy toflourish. We will have a vote next year. TheAustralian people will decide the outcome ofthat, and we will all accept the verdict of theAustralian people with grace and goodwill—all of us, whatever the result may be.

It was always my fervent wish that thisissue could be resolved in the sense of it notbeing on the agenda when we celebrate thecentenary of our federation. If Australia is tobecome a republic, it ought to become arepublic on 1 January 2001. If Australia is notto become a republic at that time, let it be offthe agenda for the celebration of the centena-ry of our Federation so that we can sharetogether the jubilation, the gratitude and theaffection that we feel for what this countryhas meant to us over the last 100 years.

That does not mean to say that the issue, ifit is rejected next year, will not necessarilyreturn. It is in the nature of a democracy thatthat is always open to the people, but this isthe celebration of 100 years of the Australiannation, with all its achievements, and acknow-ledging all of its blemishes. On that point,one of the things which has enriched thisConvention has been the contribution of therepresentatives of the first Australians—theindigenous people. I hope that in some waythis is a sign to you, Lois, Gatjil, Nova, Pat,George, Neville and David, from all of us thatyou occupy a very special place in our com-munity.

I think we can look forward with great hopeand in a very positive way to the conduct ofthis referendum. This Convention has spokenvery clearly. It is the intention of my govern-ment, if it is returned at the next election, tohold the referendum before the end of 1999.In the meantime, in the nature of things, otherissues will flood back to the stage of publicdebate. I imagine that there will be a periodin which the debate on this issue might goslightly onto the backburner, particularly in sofar as some of the more active politicalplayers are concerned, but that, once again, isin the hands of the Australian public.

We will not backtrack on the commitmentsthat we have given, and I have given in thename of my government. I said before the last


election that we would have a convention. Ipromised the Australian people a vote beforethe year 2000. I said at the opening of thisConvention that if a clear view emerged abouta republican model the Australian peoplewould have a referendum. I repeat my prom-ise that that will occur. I repeat again that themembers of the Liberal Party of Australia andtherefore, in practice, the members of mygovernment, will be allowed an open or freevote during that campaign.

I am proud that my party, the Liberal Partyof Australia, allowed a conscience vote onthis issue. I do not say that to criticise theother parties. I simply say that it is a mark ofthe maturity of my party that we did that.This is an issue that is atypical; it is different;it does not follow the normal conventions andcanons of political behaviour. I am very proudthat the Liberal Party is mature enough andstrong enough to allow people an open andfree vote on this issue.

I want to say to you, Ian, that you haveadorned the proceedings of this Convention ina way that has won everybody’s admiration.There is nobody, and I repeat nobody, in thisroom—and I am not normally noted formodesty in these things—whose parliamentaryskills and management skills in a chambersuch as this are as consummate as yours andyou have demonstrated that.

Barry, you brought with you your particularrole as National President of the AustralianLabor Party but also, because of who you are,the character that you are and what you meanto many people in Australia, you brought anadded quality as Deputy Chairman of theproceedings. I also salute very warmly thecontribution that you made.

I would like to thank Nick Minchin inparticular who has carried the ministerialburden. Nick has two specific responsibili-ties—and many others—in my government.The two specific ones he has have been verylively of late. One has been the ConstitutionalConvention and the other has been nativetitle. He has worked very hard and has beena great source of support and strength to mein this. I would also like to thank a memberof my personal staff, Catherine Murphy, who

has been of particular help to me and to Nickand has kept me informed.

Can I join in thanking the secretariat and,in particular, Bill Blick, who is from mydepartment, who has headed up the secretari-at. To Lyn Barlin, whose work as Clerk Iadmired immensely, I am delighted that hehas been able to help us out.

There is not a lot more I can say. I amreally so happy that we have been able tohold something so different, so special. Wehave come through it as better Australians; weare all the happier for the experience. Thememories that I will take away from thisinclude the lovely grace sung last night byGeorge and his wife, which was a beautifultouch and a reminder of the special diversityof our country, and the immense intelligence,dignity and bearing of the younger delegatesto the Convention with their variety of views.But we should not forget that the aged co-horts at the other end of the range were alsovery well represented. Their contribution wasconsiderable and we are greatly in their debt.

It has been a very special experience. I haveloved every minute of it. I feel privileged tohave been the Prime Minister who brought itabout. I think it has brought us together asAustralians, whatever the outcome of thereferendum might be, in a very special way.Thank you very much.


Mr BEAZLEY —Mr Chairman, the train isstill running. There was no train wreck. TheConvention produced an outcome, and pro-duced it, I believe, very well indeed. So,Prime Minister, if I could, through you, Icongratulate your ministers, your staff and ourpublic servants on the organisation of amagnificent Convention.

One of the things I note most about it isthat they were most keen to give us a senseof history about it—both in our surrounds andin the medals and the briefcases they gave us.There was a wonderful sense of occasionorganised here for all of us. We are gettingbetter and better at doing our history. This isa Convention which has been graced with allthe proper accoutrements as well as whatwent on on the floor.


I also congratulate the delegates. This hasbeen an extraordinary two-week parliament.We did not like the way it was appointed andwe had our complaints about it, but it turnedout some pretty good people. My office overthe last couple of weeks has had a steady rollof correspondence from Australians sayingthings about what they have seen of thisConvention on the ABC and portrayed else-where, and it has been enormously flattering,particularly of the younger delegates—anddeservedly so. I am grateful I have had 18years in politics because I can feel the hotbreath of Generation X on the back of myneck after this particular gathering.

There are some very talented people inpolitics outside the major parties in thisnation. I can only hope that they make achoice to involve themselves in our affairs. Ibelieve if they do that they will contributemassively to the good governance of thenation. One of the things this Convention hasteased up is the knowledge in all the politicalparties that there are still faults in their re-cruitment procedures, because there is workto be done to ensure that the best of Austral-ians have the opportunity to serve in what Isincerely believe to be the best of all parlia-ments.

I congratulate, firstly, my republican col-leagues and the ones who have actuallycarried the battle in this. This has been carriedby Malcolm Turnbull and his team. It hasbeen carried by the dissident republicans aswell. They may not have been among thenumbers of the republicans, but they have hadtheir views. Some of them have paid a greatdeal of their personal funds, in terms of theelection campaign expenses, to be here. Iknow Malcolm did it in relation to his teamin ARM, and I know Clem did it. Betweenthe two of you, you have probably seen thebest part of $600,000 devoted from yourpersonal resources to the republican cause. Ithink that bespeaks well of your commitmentand your passion. With that sort of spirit andpassion I think we will see a great deal as thisdebate proceeds.

Let me say at the outset that if the party Ilead are in opposition, we will support thisreferendum and, if we are in government, we

will put it. I think that the procedures thathave taken place here have to be honoured byall sides of the political process, and they willbe. As the Prime Minister said, they will behonoured by us and they will be honoured byhim. You have honoured the commitment thatyou have undertaken in your performancehere and the way in which the procedureshave been conducted.

After 18 years, I know a deal about parlia-mentary processes and I know basically whatwe were presented with was a possibility ofanarchy. You may think things here haveproceeded rather well and so they have, butlet me tell you that it is a close-run thing. TheChairman had ideas about what must be doneand the government had an idea about whathad to be done, but the chairpersons and thegovernment have no majority here, and whathappened was a spontaneous establishment ofa parliamentary procedure and orderly disci-plined processes.

I particularly want to congratulate thecommittee that was responsible basically forall the motions that came before us, and therole that they played. Barry chaired it. I wantto thank my deputy, Gareth, for the role thathe played in this, Daryl Williams for the rolethat he played in that regard as well and theother members who served on that committee.They have ensured that what could have beenan extraordinarily difficult process proceededin an orderly and disciplined way, and theydid very well by it. There are always greatrisks at a convention like this and we havecome through it, I think, exceptionally well.

I join the Prime Minister, too, in congratu-lating what might be termed the ‘other’categories of delegates who were here, and Istart with our indigenous people. We have notfound the right way yet to ensure that ourindigenous people are represented properly inthe mainstream of Australian political life. Wehave not found the method for that. Themethod needs to be found, and perhaps thatwill come out of the reconciliation process.But they certainly have had the proper rolehere—there is no question about that—andhave taken full advantage of it to express thefeelings of their people to the nation. And, in


the circumstances of a convention on therepublic, what better place to do it?

I congratulate the category of delegates whocame from the states—my own party col-leagues, the Liberals, the Nationals and otherswho are represented here. They have donetheir particular state bodies proud. They havehad a view. The view has been broader thanthemselves, and they have argued that viewhere very effectively and very logicallyindeed. I congratulate also those who haverepresented here the fact that we are a multi-cultural nation. This is probably more repre-sentative of the true character of the Austral-ian nation—both in age distribution andmulticultural background—than any otherforum of the nation. That has been a notedcontribution to the debate and it has beenincorporated within it. I include in that regardthe religious component as well who havemade an extraordinarily good contribution. Ialso congratulate the delegates who represent-ed the monarchical position. This is a difficultconvention for them as these are difficulttimes for them and they conducted themselveswith very great dignity. They did very wellfrom that point of view.

Lastly, I come down to you, Mr Chairman,and your deputy. I was at one of the numer-ous gatherings organised once by the NationalParty to try to tell you that your career oughtto be terminated. I presented you at thatoccasion—many years ago now—with apicture of the heavy cruiserAustraliaafter theaction in Leyte Gulf when it became one ofthe first victims of the kamikaze campaign ofthe Japanese. It was a bit of a wreck, it has tobe said, and I thought it sort of representedyou after the years in politics. So I presentedit to you with a sign which said, ‘This is, wethink, an appropriate picture of you. Fromyour detractors in the Labor Party.’ The gunswere silent, the bridge was knocked out, thefunnels were askew, but the ship moved on.

You too have moved on and have gracedthis chamber with your presence in the finalsession of your political career which still hasperhaps other phases to it but not in parlia-ment. You do look very properly ensconcedin that chair. Can I thank my colleague theLabor Party President who has been the

Deputy Chairman here. It would be a foolishperson in this Convention who would take ahistorical point on Barry and probably evena procedural point on him. You will notnecessarily get an accurate answer but thevolume will shut you up. He has—as ineverything he does—really graced this chair.

My final word of thanks goes to you, PrimeMinister. I did not like the particular proposi-tion that you put together and I still havesome doubts about it, but you took a fewrisks with this. I just hope we see you on thehustings with us when this vote finally comesto be put before the Australian people.

CHAIRMAN —If only parliaments at thefederal and state level in Australia could agreeto the same degree of unanimous acceptance,it would be remarkable. I have two delegateswho have asked whether they can raisematters. One is a matter to be raised byKirsten Andrews and supported by Mr Gra-ham Edwards, and I understand RichardMcGarvie also wishes to move a motion.

Ms ANDREWS—I want to express ap-preciation on behalf of the delegates. We haveheard a thankyou to the many staff who haveserved us and assisted us over the last twoweeks. I think there is one thing that we allagree on, and that is that there has probablybeen more than 152 delegates worth of egosin this room over the last week or so, and ithas been incredibly hard. The media havenoticed that some of the tempers that we havebeen dealing with have been difficult. Wehave worked extremely long hours. One thingI am aware of is that, no matter how long thehours were that we have worked, those in thesecretariat, the catering staff—whether we aretrying to send a fax or an e-mail or obtain avegetarian meal—have served us with dili-gence and goodwill and that has certainlybeen appreciated by me, by Mr Edwards andby many other delegates. I would like toexpress on the record my appreciation onbehalf of the delegates. Thank you.

Mr McGARVIE —Mr Chairman, I move amotion supported by my good friends LloydWaddy and Malcolm Turnbull. I am movingthis partly because I am judged to have morewhite hair than anyone else here, partlybecause I am not aligned, and partly because


my two colleagues think it is about time Imoved a motion that I will be able to get upin this Convention. I move:

That this Convention expresses deep appreciationfor the great contribution made to the success ofthis Convention and to this nation by the outstand-ing, fair and tolerant chairing of this Convention bythe Rt Hon. Ian Sinclair and the Hon. Barry Jones,the arduous and effective work of the ResolutionsGroup, the skilled and demanding services providedby the honorary advisers, Mr Peter King and theHon. Mr Justice Howard Nathan, the ever patientand skilled services and assistance of the staff ofthe Convention secretariat, the staff of theAttorney-General’s Department, the staff of OldParliament House, the efficientHansardstaff andthe outstanding internal and external televisioncoverage of sessions in this historic Old ParliamentHouse. The detailed coverage of the public pro-ceedings of the Convention is testimony to thepublic interest in the issues involved.

I speak only on one item of that, and that isthe way in which this Convention has beenchaired. People asked me before the Conven-tion how it would go. I thought it would gowell, and I told a number of people it woulddepend entirely on the way it was chaired. Allmy aspirations and hopes have been satisfied.

I am sure that I speak on behalf of everydelegate when I say that what could havebeen a failure has been a tremendous successin Australian national life, and this nationowes a very deep debt of gratitude to you, MrChairman, and you, Mr Deputy Chairman.

CHAIRMAN —A number of other peoplehave asked to speak, but I think we areprobably all talked out, unless they reallywant to speak.


CHAIRMAN —I missed mentioning oneperson who has been terribly important in thewhole deal, a man called George Scarfe.George is currently responsible for managingand maintaining this wonderful old building.I say to George, we thank you for allowing usto bring it alive, and long may this wonderfulvenue continue to serve for conventions andmeetings of this order. Would you now allplease rise to sing the national anthem.

Delegates sang the National Anthem.

CHAIRMAN —Thank you, Delegates. Ihereby declare the Convention terminated.

Convention adjourned at 4.08 p.m.

transcripts of proceedings constitutional convention 13 february...

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