Comment & Debate
John Pyke. “Reasons Why Australia Should be a Republic” – “A Republic as the Perfection of Democracy The main reason that we should become a republic is that it is the only way to fully express our Australian democratic values in our system of government. The Australian colonies were among the first places in the world in which all men had the vote, and the new Australian nation was among the first to recognise women’s claim to the same right. We taught the world about the secret ballot (still called the “Australian ballot” in some places). We have never had any local positions or Houses of Parliament filled by the hereditary principle – and yet the occupant of a hereditary office is notionally at the apex of our system of government.
In a democracy we are not subjects of a monarch, we are citizens – and a citizen is someone who, as Aristotle said over 2000 years ago, both rules and is ruled. In a democracy all citizens ought to be able to aspire to all public offices, and all public officials ought to be elected, directly or indirectly, by the people, or fairly appointed on the basis of suitability for the position. There is no room for inherited office! A democratic republic is the only complete democracy. It would be a very Australian thing to institute a republic.
The Constitution of a democracy ought to make it clear that the nation is a democracy. Ours is a strange compromise. On one hand it refers to a House of Representatives and Senate “directly elected by the people”, and requires our approval, expressed by voting in a referendum, before the Constitution can be altered; here it is clearly democratic. On the other hand it says that the executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen (of the United Kingdom) and is exercised by the Governor-General, who merely takes “advice” from Ministers who sit among the elected representatives of the people in Parliament. In two places the Constitution refers to a “subject of the Queen” – and a subject is someone who is ruled but does not rule. In these aspects it is monarchical and colonial. Only a republican Constitution can spell out our commitment to democracy without compromise.”