11.11.1999
New opportunity
Australian referendum
Australians have conclusively rejected the republican model offered to them by monarchist Prime Minister John Howard. However, there are no signs of a movement posing a genuinely democratic alternative to the two bourgeois camps fighting over the details of the constitution.
With polls showing that only nine percent of electors actively want a monarch at the pinnacle of the constitutional structure, this result must be seen as a remarkable victory for Howard and his ‘back to the future’, 1950s-style ideological agenda. In a country with a decidedly republican sentiment, he has managed to steer his way through a referendum which kept his treasured monarchy intact.
Nevertheless, the message is far from simple. While Kerry Jones, leader of the Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, has claimed the outcome as a resounding vote of confidence in the constitution and for conservative stability, those voting ‘no’ have done so for mixed reasons. Up to one third did so not to defend the existing constitution, but in order to reject one particular republican model. The referendum would not have gone down if it was not for these republicans, who nevertheless placed themselves in the monarchist camp and thus, unwittingly, on the side of reaction. In essence, what was on offer was widely seen as a ‘politicians’ republic’ - that is, a republic from above, with no democratic content from below.
With almost 84% of the vote counted, 54.65% were ‘no’, 44.45% ‘yes’ and 0.90% informal (ie, writing a different message on the ballot paper). Not one of the six states returned a ‘yes’ result, with only the public service-dominated Australian Capital Territory voting ‘yes’. The ACT is not a state and holds no weight in referenda in the Australian constitution. Victoria had the highest ‘yes’ with 49.95% - it is also the state which returned the highest informal vote.
In opinion polls leading up to the referendum, around two thirds of the electorate stated that in any plebiscite where the choice was between a republic and a monarchy, they would opt for some form of republic. So while the ‘no’ result is a victory for Howard and the monarchists, the establishment Australian Republican Movement and its leader, millionaire merchant banker Malcolm Turnball, are quite clearly culpable when it comes to the defeat of their own undemocratic model.
Throughout the seven years or so of the ARM’s existence, it has proposed a ‘republic’ that actually entails the barest minimum by way of constitutional change - an agenda which has failed to fire the imagination of the predominantly republican working class. Their defeat is not the defeat of consistent democrats and revolutionaries.
Chastising Howard for his obfuscatory role in the referendum, Turnball said:
“Here is a Liberal prime minister who had the chance to shape an inevitable transition and to shape it in a conservative and moderate way. All he has done is given the republican issue - a very popular issue - back to the Labor Party.”
Turnball has now resigned as head of the ARM. Yet the agenda for official republicans remains the same: minimal ‘change’ from above to prevent real, thorough-going democratic change from below.
In this context, we have not witnessed a victory for Queen Elizabeth II, but Howard. Yet the question is still open and in a way it has also opened up the republican issue in Britain.
In this referendum, the monarchists had to give ground on what for them is a cherished truth - that Elizabeth Windsor has a right to rule by birth alone. Here we have monarchists admitting the admissibility of ‘democratic’ consultation on the question, relinquishing their presumptions of hereditary ‘right’ - a factor which could lead to their downfall. Republicans - in Australia and the UK - must take full advantage of this unwitting concession to democracy.
Already the budding king Charles III has said he would be prepared to seek approval in a referendum. Republicans must press for this vigorously from below. And this week, the contradictory nature of the constitutional monarchy was further exposed when the queen, fresh from her ‘electoral victory’ in Australia, lectured Ghana’s parliament on the necessity of democratic accountability.
So in Australia the republic issue is far from dead. Already, the Labor Party has started debating its position for the 2001 election. Opposition leader Kim Beazley says he favours a plebiscite, before then moving to vote on the nature of any republic. The influential Labor state premier in New South Wales, Bob Carr, has expressed staunch opposition to the direct election model for president.
After their defeat, the official republicans are looking decidedly shaky. Yet the very fact of the referendum has exposed the constitution as pliable - and increasingly open to change from below. This is ringing warning bells in the establishment camp.
Perth businesswoman and prominent ‘yes’ campaigner Janet Holmes à Court pointed to the underlying instability in the new situation. She said: “I suspect that we won’t get a republic now unless there is a major rethink of our current system. Our system has worked fantastically well for the past 100 years.” It is for this reason that establishment republicans such as Bob Carr favour minimal reforms, to ensure that constitutional change can be controlled, and is kept out of the hands of the masses.
Decidedly patrician bourgeois politicians have sat in both camps. The monarchists proclaim the monarch as representing the constitutional stability of the nation, while establishment republicans hope to achieve a presidential system to perform the exact same role.
A real thirst for democratic change exists only outside the rival establishment factions. Unfortunately, with no campaign to galvanise them, they split between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps, with only a tiny minority opting to reject both undemocratic alternatives and registering an informal vote - by writing, ‘For a real republic’ across the ballot paper. While this constituency is ripe for the politics of revolutionary democracy, the old left is content to leave the entire republican agenda in the hands of the ruling class.
The issue of a new constitutional arrangement under some form of republican model is emerging as a potentially hegemonic idea in Australian politics. The victory of the monarchists this time could be their last hurrah. But with the defeat of a most undemocratic form of republic, the issue is far from settled. Who will take the lead on the republican issue now? Given its track record during the referendum campaign, the Australian left will have to shift strategic tack 180 degrees for it to take up the challenge.
At present the Democratic Socialist Party, the International Socialist Organisation and the ‘official’ Communist Party of Australia wait for the Labor Party to take the lead. We don’t need to act around constitutional issues, goes their refrain, as they do not concern workplace pay and conditions. Yet without a working class programme for real constitutional change, it will be the ruling class which continues to decide how we are ruled.
Despite the left’s disdain, a desire for radical change is gathering pace - and predominantly in working class areas.
At present, this feeling expresses itself in the form of a demand for a directly elected president with reserve powers. Yet, for communists, it would be an abrogation of our duties to merely go along with this. Presidentialism per se is counter-posed to real democracy from below.
With no mass campaign on the ground, the challenge is clear. It is up to communists to set a new agenda
Marcus Larsen