I've been saying the republic is dead for months now. Everywhere I go, I hear the sound of people knocking another nail into the coffin, if not actually shovelling earth into the grave. If I were Malcolm Turnbull, the head of the Australian Republican Movement, I'd throw in the towel now, and save myself and my supporters the trouble and expense of fighting a referendum campaign next year.
Often enough the people behind the hammers are the republicans themselves. Anne Twomey is a lawyer in the service of the NSW Cabinet Department, released from her Sydney cabinetmaking for an evening to address a public lecture at ANU. And Mike Keating is the head of the ACT Attorney-General's Department, looking very much at home in the Law School's Lecture Theatre.
Anne spent the best part of an hour examining the legal hurdles in the path of the republic from the point of view of the States. She emerged at the far end, having successfully demonstrated, to my layman's eye at least, that though there were some formidable obstacles, with a little bit of legal interpretation, the co-operation of the State governments and the votes of the people, they could be got around, or under, or through with a wee bit of wriggling.
She got more and more optimistic as she progressed and, brushing off the dust and straightening her clothing in conclusion, she announced that Australia, with a bit of coaching, could follow en masse where she had squeezed through. Perhaps the sheer mass of the public will could move aside the little legal difficulties by brute force.
The first and greatest problem is the Constitution. The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal nation, made up of the six States, all of considerable antiquity as established polities. New South Wales was over a century old at the time of Federation, and the other colonies were also somewhat set in their ways. It took about a decade of wrangling, debate, negotiation and voting before Federation was finally achieved on the first day of 1901.
So our Constitution is very much a document born of compromise between the six States. The final section deals with the process of amendment, a difficult business requiring not only a majority of votes overall, but a majority of votes in a majority of States, and the concurrence of any State affected by the referendum. One might imagine that if we were to make such a major change as becoming a republic, then all of the States would need to agree, but not so, noted Anne, giving a little wriggle and historical twist.
We could safely become a republic even if one or two States (she singled out Queensland and Western Australia) voted to retain the monarchy. The relevant part of the constitution didn't mean quite what it said, and even if it did, the Commonwealth could force the States to sever their links with the Crown by using Section 106 of the Constitution, and Clause 5 of the Imperial Act covering it.
She spoke of the possibility of the States engaging in some sort of compact after a referendum to smooth the transition and carry out the will of the people. And there are a lot of wrinkles to be smoothed. Not only must the various State and Territory Constitutions be amended, a task of varying difficulty in some cases involving a further State referendum, but the Crown and vice-regal mechanisms of the Governor and Executive Council are virtually entrenched in a collective millennium of legislation. Each Act of State Parliament would have to be scrutinised, amendments drawn up, and passed.
A difficult task, she noted, but not insurmountable, and she quoted various precedents of varying relevance throughout the world. Canada and Iceland were mentioned.
As she drew to her optimistic close, the sound of hammers was very loud in my ears. Perhaps the republicans, the lawyers, the academics and the bureaucrats could band together and work out a transition to a republic in each state, using various devices to map out the path. But would the people follow the lead of the ivory tower residents?
Generations of Australian voters have proved that no matter what the politicians and academics tell them they must do, when it comes down to an election or a referendum, they do exactly as they bloody well please, and the pundits are left with egg on their faces. Only eight out of forty two referenda have been carried, for instance, and these have usually been amendments of obvious necessity supported by both of the major parties.
Far more likely, I thought, that at least a couple of States would vote against a republic, and then the fat would be in the fire as the grand republic degenerated into a tawdry swamp of legal challenge, nit-picking debate and scare campaigns.
Canada, if not Iceland, was raised by Mike Keating, as he discussed the role of the Governor in State and Territory Government. Each British colony had a Governor as the vice-regal representative, and this eminent personage, often elegantly dressed in military uniform, sashes, orders, decorations and plumes, was the formal embodiment of government, taking the advice of the local parliament, giving the Royal Assent to legislation, issuing election writs and so on.
It so happened, Mike told the eager throng, that a Canadian province had once had a vacancy in the position, and due to various factors, no replacement had been found for some time. Images of blizzards, snowdrifts, premiers cut off in remote provinces and the difficulty of digging a grave in the frozen ground raced through my mind, but no explanation was forthcoming as to why there had been a delay.
But the business of government had continued, we were informed, and ways had been found to carry one despite the absence of a vital player. Obscure legal mechanisms had been dug out by the bureaucrats, lawyers, academics -- the usual crew.
This precedent had been utilised when it came to establishing self-government in the ACT. Cost had been cited as the reason why no ACT Governor was included in the new polity, but I suspected that the crew of chardonnay-sipping socialists in power at the time had simply decided to dispense with a vice-regal officer out of hatred of royalty. The Northern Territory had been given a Governor a decade earlier when the Liberals were in power, so why did the ACT get a quasi-republican model when Hawke was running the show with the help of the Democrats?
Anyway, there was nobody in the top job, and so the Australian Capital Territory had a sort of "virtual Crown", with the Governor replaced in his functions by legislative provisions, chief justices, chief ministers and a host of legal mechanisms dreamed up by the ivory tower crew. For instance, the ACT has fixed election dates, so a Governor is not required to be advised, issue writs and swear in the successful candidates. It just happens automatically.
Mike was a little concerned over what would happen if there was "a political meltdown" along the lines of the 1975 crisis, but so far this had not happened. (A distinct possibility any tick of the clock, I thought, considering the minority government and the gang of scurvy knaves on the cross benches.)
The notion being pushed by both Anne Twomey and Mike Keating was that the regal or vice-regal presence could be safely replaced as much as possible with some sort of nice legal solution. Ways could always be found, and the people could safely put their trust in the legal and bureaucratic mechanisms and solutions drawn up by committees of eminent personages, academics and others who understood how the system worked, don't you worry about that.
The people, in their democratic sensibility, would see that the lawyers had come up with the best possible way through the complicated maze of Constitutions, legislation and regulations, and the people would vote the right way at the right time and generally do as they were told. And pigs might fly.
It was the joint question and answer session right at the end that banged in the final nail. It was clear that a republic would be helped enormously with the co-operation of the various State and Territory governments, who could assist in campaigning for a Yes vote, who could pass the necessary legislation, amend their Constitutions, make regulations and generally smooth the way for new centralised arrangements to take even more of their power away and entrench it in Canberra.
From a lecture theatre in the ANU this all seemed quite reasonable, and of course, Anne Twomey assured us with a smile, the State governments would expect certain concessions from the Commonwealth in return for their cooperation. When Paul Keating had been in power, the New South Wales government had been looking at financial considerations as well as whatever other goodies could be negotiated. Roads, bridges, hospitals -- the pork barrel would be flowing freely.
And this is where the hammers were cast aside and the power drill brought out to screw the coffin of Malcolm Turnbull's republican camel firmly shut. For it is almost certain that John Howard, staunch monarchist, will be the Prime Minister at the time of the 1999 republican referendum. He is not going to pay the States to make a republic any easier. The contrary is a safer bet.
So will the people vote for a major change, one that is beset with legal obstacles, opposed or at best given lukewarm support by State and Federal governments, and the subject of an intense scare campaign by monarchists? Well, they never have before, and if the only support comes from merchant bankers like Turnbull, or the sort of republican, lawyer, academic bureaucrats embodied by Anne Twomey, they are far more likely to dig in their heels and refuse to follow where they are led.
We'll see a republic in due course, I expect. But not in this millennium.