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Chapter 9 - Abolishing Deceit and Pretence |
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Chapter 9 - Abolishing Deceit and Pretence
When the Constitutional conventions are followed the Governor-General and Queen hold only nominal authority. Why is this not stated in the Constitution?
A Constitution based on dishonesty
To state, as our written Constitution does, the Queen and Governor-General have numerous legislative and executive powers when in reality these powers are intended to be exercised by elected representatives, is simply deceitful. Everyone who reads our highest law is likely to be deceived as to how the system operates in practice.
Under the British Constitution the King was gradually forced to cede power to the Parliament. To conceal the extent to which the power structure was changing, the British adopted Constitutional conventions under which the King only exercised his powers with the approval of the House of Commons, or the Government which that House supported. Legal fictions were created; that the laws passed by Parliament were made by the ‘King in Parliament’; that government decisions made by the Cabinet were made by the ‘King in Council’ (meaning an executive council of his Ministers). We inherited these fictions when they were written in to our Constitution.
Legal fictions are simply dishonest. When the system works as it should, in accordance with Constitutional convention, it is just not true to say that the Governor-General is involved in making the law by signing his or her assent to legislation. Invariably the Governor-General has played no part in developing the legislation. Similarly, when the Executive Council, presided over by the Governor-General, rubber-stamps Cabinet decisions, it is simply untrue to say that the Governor-General is administering the Government. He or she does not participate in the decisions in any meaningful way.
Why should we respect - or retain - a system which cannot be honest about how it actually operates?
This is not the only way in which our system falls short of acceptable standards.
A Head of State who takes no responsibility for his or her actions
Children are taught over time to take responsibility for their actions. Acceptance of responsibility for one’s own conduct is rightly seen as a sign of maturity. It is what we expect from adults. But what can we expect from our present Head of State?
Neither the Queen nor the Governor-General accept responsibility for Government decisions. The Ministers in the Government accept responsibility. This is how the system was described in the first legal text on Australia’s Constitution, when discussing how sections 61 and 62 operate together:
“Whilst the Constitution, in sec.61, recognizes the ancient principle of the Government of England that the Executive power is vested in the Crown, it adds as a graft to that principle the modern political institution, known as responsible government, which shortly expressed means that the discretionary powers of the Crown are exercised by the wearer of the Crown or by its Representative according to the advice of ministers, having the confidence of that branch of the legislature which immediately represents the people. The practical result is that the Executive power is placed in the hands of a Parliamentary Committee, called the Cabinet, and the real Head of the Executive is not the Queen but the Chairman of the Cabinet, or in other words, the Prime Minister. .........”
Quick and Garran, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, 1901, p.703.
The text then quotes at pp.703-4 from an 1896 publication by Sir Samuel Griffith, the principal author of our Constitution and later the first Chief Justice of the High Court:
“.... It is, of course, an elementary principle that the person at whose volition an act is done is the proper person to be held responsible for it. So long as acts of State are done at the volition of the head of the State he alone is responsible for them. But, if he owns no superior who can call him to account, the only remedy against intolerable acts is revolution. The system called Responsible Government is based on the notion that the head of the State can himself do no wrong, that he does not do any act of State of his own motion, but follows the advice of his ministers, on whom the responsibility for acts done, in order to give effect to their volition, naturally falls. They are therefore called Responsible Ministers. If they do wrong, they can be punished or dismissed from office without effecting any change in the Headship of the State. Revolution is therefore no longer a necessary possibility; for a change of Ministers effects peacefully the desired result. ....”
So if the conventions are followed, the Governor-General doesn’t make decisions, despite holding the legal power to make them, and is never held accountable if those decisions are wrong. Someone else does the job and takes the blame. The same rules apply to the Queen.
In other words, neither the Governor-General nor Queen act like adults, making their own decisions and accepting responsibility for their actions. Why should anyone respect people like that?
This is not the fault of the individuals who occupy these positions from time to time. This is how the system has developed - in a way which contradicts two important principles by which we all want our Government to operate:
▸ the principle that Governments should be honest and open in their decision-making; and
▸ the principle that those who exercise power should accept responsibility for their actions.
Royalty is inconsistent with democracy
The contradictions with principle do not stop at that point. Democracy is based on the principle of equality. There is no consensus as to how far equality should extend - that is a regular battleground within all democracies. But a certain minimum level of equality is recognised:
▸ Every person in the land, no matter how rich or poor, no matter how ‘high’ or ‘low’, has the same right to vote.
▸ Every person is equal before the law, in that the law applies in the same way to all people whose circumstances are the same.
▸ Every person is eligible to stand for Parliament and serve in Government (if they meet the criteria in s.44 of the Constitution).
Monarchy is the opposite of equality. Monarchy is based on inherited privilege. The Queen and the royal family claim a privileged legal and social status, which is mimicked by her Australian representatives. The Queen is our Head of State. No Australian citizen need apply for the position.
In a democracy, it is absurd for anyone to have a higher status than another based on rights acquired at birth. Yet s.42 of our Constitution states that:
“Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives shall before taking his seat make and subscribe before the Governor-General, or some person authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the form set forth in the schedule to this Constitution.”
The oaths require Members of Parliament to swear “I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty ....”.
This primitive feudal rubbish is inconsistent with democracy. If the people are prepared to vote for a person to become a Member of Parliament, that person does not need to pass any other test in order to qualify for the position. Our elected representatives should not have to pretend they feel loyalty to a foreign monarch when in reality their loyalties invariably lie elsewhere - to their own political principles, to their party, to their electorate and to their own self-interest.
Rewarding the unproductive
Our society also places a high value on productive work. No-one respects a ‘bludger’. There is widespread acceptance that those who contribute more should be rewarded.
What contribution does the Governor-General make? As Chapter 4 showed, the only present functions of the position which are consistent with the Governor-General being an impartial figure above party politics are ceremonial roles, such as receiving foreign ambassadors and representing Australia overseas, or trivial tasks such as supervising the honours system.
Ceremony is inherently unproductive. It produces nothing of economic value. Some ceremonies provide emotional support to those participating. Many others are simply a waste of time, performed because those involved are in the habit of performing them. In practice, our Governors-General have spent most of their time swanning around the country, hosting or attending functions, making vacuous speeches.
In return for being a substitute monarch, the Governor-General is paid a salary under s.3 of the Governor-General Act 1974 of $394,000. (Since 2001, the Governor-General’s salary has been taxable. The Queen commenced paying UK income tax in 1993) - see Bills Digest no.149 2008-2009, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bd/2007-08/08bd149.htm#_ftnref10. On retirement, the Governor-General receives an annual payment, each year until death, equivalent to 60% of a High Court judge’s salary: Governor-General Act, ss.4(1) & 4(3)(a). The extent to which the Governor-General receives free accommodation, meals and travel is not readily available from public records, but obviously there are significant perks of office, all provided at the highest standard.
The Governor-General has one of the highest remuneration packages in Australia, for doing a job which contributes little and could be done adequately by almost anybody prepared to take it on. This is an insult to the majority of Australians who work hard and do something useful for their income.
The puerile nonsense of ancient traditions, fancy titles and strange headwear cannot conceal the fact that the monarchy is an institution fundamentally in conflict with modern values. No principled person should respect it.
Yet the republican proposal put at the 1999 referendum simply replaced the Governor-General with a President. There was no change in the powers or role, beyond abolition of the connection with the British monarchy. What was proposed was that we choose an Australian to be a short-term substitute monarch. There was no recognition that the whole concept of monarchy, and all its manifestations, needs to be abolished.
The Advancing Democracy model proposes a fundamentally different and limited role for Head of State. The Governor-General will become one of us - someone doing a worthwhile job. He or she will not be someone with a higher social standing. Like our Members of Parliament, he or she will be an ordinary citizen who for a time performs a public service.
The Constitution will move away from being a misleading, deceitful document. It will show with complete clarity how our Government is to be chosen and who is responsible for running it.
Go to next chapter |
|
|
Chapter 9 - Abolishing Deceit and Pretence
When the Constitutional conventions are followed the Governor-General and Queen hold only nominal authority. Why is this not stated in the Constitution?
A Constitution based on dishonesty
To state, as our written Constitution does, the Queen and Governor-General have numerous legislative and executive powers when in reality these powers are intended to be exercised by elected representatives, is simply deceitful. Everyone who reads our highest law is likely to be deceived as to how the system operates in practice.
Under the British Constitution the King was gradually forced to cede power to the Parliament. To conceal the extent to which the power structure was changing, the British adopted Constitutional conventions under which the King only exercised his powers with the approval of the House of Commons, or the Government which that House supported. Legal fictions were created; that the laws passed by Parliament were made by the ‘King in Parliament’; that government decisions made by the Cabinet were made by the ‘King in Council’ (meaning an executive council of his Ministers). We inherited these fictions when they were written in to our Constitution.
Legal fictions are simply dishonest. When the system works as it should, in accordance with Constitutional convention, it is just not true to say that the Governor-General is involved in making the law by signing his or her assent to legislation. Invariably the Governor-General has played no part in developing the legislation. Similarly, when the Executive Council, presided over by the Governor-General, rubber-stamps Cabinet decisions, it is simply untrue to say that the Governor-General is administering the Government. He or she does not participate in the decisions in any meaningful way.
Why should we respect - or retain - a system which cannot be honest about how it actually operates?
This is not the only way in which our system falls short of acceptable standards.
A Head of State who takes no responsibility for his or her actions
Children are taught over time to take responsibility for their actions. Acceptance of responsibility for one’s own conduct is rightly seen as a sign of maturity. It is what we expect from adults. But what can we expect from our present Head of State?
Neither the Queen nor the Governor-General accept responsibility for Government decisions. The Ministers in the Government accept responsibility. This is how the system was described in the first legal text on Australia’s Constitution, when discussing how sections 61 and 62 operate together:
“Whilst the Constitution, in sec.61, recognizes the ancient principle of the Government of England that the Executive power is vested in the Crown, it adds as a graft to that principle the modern political institution, known as responsible government, which shortly expressed means that the discretionary powers of the Crown are exercised by the wearer of the Crown or by its Representative according to the advice of ministers, having the confidence of that branch of the legislature which immediately represents the people. The practical result is that the Executive power is placed in the hands of a Parliamentary Committee, called the Cabinet, and the real Head of the Executive is not the Queen but the Chairman of the Cabinet, or in other words, the Prime Minister. .........”
Quick and Garran, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, 1901, p.703.
The text then quotes at pp.703-4 from an 1896 publication by Sir Samuel Griffith, the principal author of our Constitution and later the first Chief Justice of the High Court:
“.... It is, of course, an elementary principle that the person at whose volition an act is done is the proper person to be held responsible for it. So long as acts of State are done at the volition of the head of the State he alone is responsible for them. But, if he owns no superior who can call him to account, the only remedy against intolerable acts is revolution. The system called Responsible Government is based on the notion that the head of the State can himself do no wrong, that he does not do any act of State of his own motion, but follows the advice of his ministers, on whom the responsibility for acts done, in order to give effect to their volition, naturally falls. They are therefore called Responsible Ministers. If they do wrong, they can be punished or dismissed from office without effecting any change in the Headship of the State. Revolution is therefore no longer a necessary possibility; for a change of Ministers effects peacefully the desired result. ....”
So if the conventions are followed, the Governor-General doesn’t make decisions, despite holding the legal power to make them, and is never held accountable if those decisions are wrong. Someone else does the job and takes the blame. The same rules apply to the Queen.
In other words, neither the Governor-General nor Queen act like adults, making their own decisions and accepting responsibility for their actions. Why should anyone respect people like that?
This is not the fault of the individuals who occupy these positions from time to time. This is how the system has developed - in a way which contradicts two important principles by which we all want our Government to operate:
▸ the principle that Governments should be honest and open in their decision-making; and
▸ the principle that those who exercise power should accept responsibility for their actions.
Royalty is inconsistent with democracy
The contradictions with principle do not stop at that point. Democracy is based on the principle of equality. There is no consensus as to how far equality should extend - that is a regular battleground within all democracies. But a certain minimum level of equality is recognised:
▸ Every person in the land, no matter how rich or poor, no matter how ‘high’ or ‘low’, has the same right to vote.
▸ Every person is equal before the law, in that the law applies in the same way to all people whose circumstances are the same.
▸ Every person is eligible to stand for Parliament and serve in Government (if they meet the criteria in s.44 of the Constitution).
Monarchy is the opposite of equality. Monarchy is based on inherited privilege. The Queen and the royal family claim a privileged legal and social status, which is mimicked by her Australian representatives. The Queen is our Head of State. No Australian citizen need apply for the position.
In a democracy, it is absurd for anyone to have a higher status than another based on rights acquired at birth. Yet s.42 of our Constitution states that:
“Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives shall before taking his seat make and subscribe before the Governor-General, or some person authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the form set forth in the schedule to this Constitution.”
The oaths require Members of Parliament to swear “I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty ....”.
This primitive feudal rubbish is inconsistent with democracy. If the people are prepared to vote for a person to become a Member of Parliament, that person does not need to pass any other test in order to qualify for the position. Our elected representatives should not have to pretend they feel loyalty to a foreign monarch when in reality their loyalties invariably lie elsewhere - to their own political principles, to their party, to their electorate and to their own self-interest.
Rewarding the unproductive
Our society also places a high value on productive work. No-one respects a ‘bludger’. There is widespread acceptance that those who contribute more should be rewarded.
What contribution does the Governor-General make? As Chapter 4 showed, the only present functions of the position which are consistent with the Governor-General being an impartial figure above party politics are ceremonial roles, such as receiving foreign ambassadors and representing Australia overseas, or trivial tasks such as supervising the honours system.
Ceremony is inherently unproductive. It produces nothing of economic value. Some ceremonies provide emotional support to those participating. Many others are simply a waste of time, performed because those involved are in the habit of performing them. In practice, our Governors-General have spent most of their time swanning around the country, hosting or attending functions, making vacuous speeches.
In return for being a substitute monarch, the Governor-General is paid a salary under s.3 of the Governor-General Act 1974 of $394,000. (Since 2001, the Governor-General’s salary has been taxable. The Queen commenced paying UK income tax in 1993) - see Bills Digest no.149 2008-2009, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bd/2007-08/08bd149.htm#_ftnref10. On retirement, the Governor-General receives an annual payment, each year until death, equivalent to 60% of a High Court judge’s salary: Governor-General Act, ss.4(1) & 4(3)(a). The extent to which the Governor-General receives free accommodation, meals and travel is not readily available from public records, but obviously there are significant perks of office, all provided at the highest standard.
The Governor-General has one of the highest remuneration packages in Australia, for doing a job which contributes little and could be done adequately by almost anybody prepared to take it on. This is an insult to the majority of Australians who work hard and do something useful for their income.
The puerile nonsense of ancient traditions, fancy titles and strange headwear cannot conceal the fact that the monarchy is an institution fundamentally in conflict with modern values. No principled person should respect it.
Yet the republican proposal put at the 1999 referendum simply replaced the Governor-General with a President. There was no change in the powers or role, beyond abolition of the connection with the British monarchy. What was proposed was that we choose an Australian to be a short-term substitute monarch. There was no recognition that the whole concept of monarchy, and all its manifestations, needs to be abolished.
The Advancing Democracy model proposes a fundamentally different and limited role for Head of State. The Governor-General will become one of us - someone doing a worthwhile job. He or she will not be someone with a higher social standing. Like our Members of Parliament, he or she will be an ordinary citizen who for a time performs a public service.
The Constitution will move away from being a misleading, deceitful document. It will show with complete clarity how our Government is to be chosen and who is responsible for running it.
Go to next chapter |
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