angela replies to doug:
>> Ok, could the Australians on the list brief us on what this is all about?
>
>this coming saturday, australia is having a constitutional referendum.
>bascially, two questions: should the british regal be replaced by a pres
>elected by two-thirds of the parliament? should this preamble (see below)
>be included?
oh you didn't go and include it? how embarrassing -- as if it wasn't bad enough without you having to go and show it to people. howard's so like the most embarrassing grandfather imaginable.
>the aust constitution has no preamble as such, and as catherine pointed
>out, a preamble would have something like the force of a bill of rights:
>defining the citizenry as sucjects endowed with certain, well, in this
>case, traits. and, australia is constitutionally part of the brit empire.
>but culturally, politically and economically this connection waned after
>WW2, and was put to rest with the passage of legislation in 1986.
>currently, the PM appoints a Governor-General who takes on the reserve
>powers of the Queen.
but, it's worth saying, only nominally at this point
>Major contentions:
>
>a) the preamble, despite nice words about Aborigines and Torres Strait
>Islanders "having a special relationship to the land", would effectively
>put to an end land rights in this country. opponents of the preamble were
>arguing for the inclusion of words to the effect of "custodianship", etc.
>indigenous land rights have been one of the most contentious issues of this
>decade, beginning with the High Courts' historic voiding of the principle
>of terra nullius (ie., "empty land" which legitimated the theft of land
>without compensation as would have been required under british common law),
i recently heard a paper claiming the mabo decision (the one angela refers to above, a succssful land rights claim on grounds of traditional occupation) actually did no such thing -- but i'll try not to be distracting.
>and ending with the passage of the so-called Ten-Point Plan that overturned
>both the High Courts' ruling and the Racial Discrimination Act, and
>re-legitimated pastoral and mining leases. the preamble would give this
>constitutional force. indigenous groups have been split over the issue of
>the preamble after some stupid politician decided that "something was
>better than nothing", and that therefore a cultural gesture was sufficient.
>most indigeneous groups, however, and all the left oppose the preamble for
>this and other reasons.
of course the point is that said stupid politician is identified as 'aboriginal' and therefore seems to give more credibility to the preamble. one more photo of ridgeway (the stupid politician) and howard smiling to camera, and i swear i'll... be extra annoyed i suppose. i've heard quite a lot of people trashing ridgeway over this, as if he should be more responsible for the referendum results than anyone else. and also, somehow implying that as aboriginal his compromise on the republican issue is more tracherous than the everyone else who compromised.
>b) by far the largest contention on the republic question is that most
>people want a directly-elected pres. this ranges from a directly-elected
>pres (DEP) with a ceremonial role a la ireland; a DEP with executive powers
>a la the US; a DEP with more or less the current reserve powers of the GG.
>mostly, this insistence on a DEP comes from a deep distrust of the
>parliament and a ragy populism which seems unimpressed with the fact that a
>DEP would be more likely, not less, to result in a politicisation of the
>role of the pres relative to the GG's current ritualistic demeanour.
part of the appeal of the direct election model also stems from the casting of the Pres on both sides as a figurehead -- if the Pres is a figure of/for Australia, very many Australians seem to want more of a say in determining who this is than they do their current politicians (who are in general tolerated until they too obviously break one of the popular rules). people have run scare campaigns on ideas like -- would you want Sam Newman (televised football jerk) for president. but i've been surprised at the degree to which people want to say it should be Don Bradman (deified ancient cricketer) or it should be Gough Whitlam (you yanks ought to bloody know who that is and i refuse to gloss it).
>moreover, the opposition is a result of the process by which the proposal
>was drafted, with 'mainstream' republicans leaning to their right in order
>to endeavour to come up with a compromise proposal acceptable to the
>current Liberal PM -- who has used the shortcomings of the proposal to in
>fact campaign for a 'no' on the republic and a 'yes' on the preamble (which
>he for the most part wrote himself). eg., there is no mechanism for
>impeachment, the PM can just sack the pres in this proposal.
which would be the worst possible result, and, i fear, the most likely.
>the 'yes' and 'no' campaigns.
>
>the 'no' campaigners are an alliance of some of the direct-electionists and
>the monarchists. the direct-electionists range from independant liberal
>democrats to populist socialists. since the only really effective slogans
>this campaign can run (the brit royals being for the most part highly
>unpopular) is that "this republic will deliver a politician". when the
>monarchist side loses the advertorial plotline however, they go on a rant
>about how the monarchy is a stable political system, republics are
>dangerous, just look at the weimar republic, this is ripping up the
>constitution and we're heading for a revolution and civil war. hence the
>contradiction of de tocquevillian populism.
my favourite -- tell me one republic in the world that's as a wonderful as Australia. i think this is the most effective as i've noted it stalls people who are quite enthusiastic about the republic (the rest of you might be interested to know that the worse answer that could be given to this is the USA, oh ok Weimar might be as bad).
>...this has been
>the achilles' heel of the 'yes' campaign -- the populace in fact desires
>more not less changes. more recently, sections of the govt coalition
>(Liberal-National) have thrown their weight behind the campaign, arguing
>that unless there is a 'yes' vote on the republic, the dissonance between
>an outdated constitutional arrangement and cultural/economic realities will
>result in the formation of more excessive demands for constitutional
>reform. (of all the spin, this is the most accurate assessment of the mood
>and possibilities: a 'no' result will mean a swift move to a consideration
>of wider constitutional reform.)
i'd say yes and no on this. there are some very significant indications that more change is desired but, what am i saying, only in some demographics. there are a whole heap of people who want doug anthony's reassurance (no i'm not glossing that either -- i'm sick of you bloody americans) that the model is 'safe'. even people who would maim themselves rather than vote national -- kind of 'if that conservative old bastard thinks this is safe there can't be anything dangerous about it'.
in some ways i think i'm most deeply disturbed by this 'safety' aspect of both campaigns. i don't know how many people i've read or heard asserting that australia is a nation that does things gradually, safely. what is this meant to refer to? is this the process of inscribing a new nationalist identity trait? i thought we were taciturn but rushed in blindly to do the right thing or some such shit. in general i'm disturbed by the nationalising effects of the discussions, though how else is a replublic referendum going to run, but this serious concerted affirmed ascription of traits really bugs me.
>the left is split on the issue of the
>republic, but since everyone knows that the proposal is more or less crap,
>it comes down to what the political rather than technical results of any
>vote will be. by now, everyone on the left knows that they were
>marginalised in the process of developing the constitutional proposal, so
>it becomes an assessment of whether or not a 'no' vote will put an end to
>constitutional reform for a long time or whether it will in fact begin it.
and this is the question now. beasley (forget it, i didn't even think about it) is all over the radio this week talking about what a labour govt will do if elected next time. i think they're definitely putting together a profile of how successful an election run on a republican platform would be. but surely it will be costello (not a hope, look him up) in the liberal chair then anyway, and he's a republican -- as is reith (you've heard of a search engine), almost a reason for voting no -- so it won't work. i think the only likely chance of another -- let alone a better -- referendum option in the not too distant future is if the libs run the next cmpaign with a monarchist leader.
enough. i still think it's about ingrained cultural positioning in some special way -- where do 'you' stand on the queen (yes i know you know who she is) or kerr (hah!) and so on is just being made to fit these supposed debates. maybe it's just me. but i thought the deliberaqtive poll was quite interesting.
catherine (confused and disappointed yes voter)