1998 Constitutional Convention - the high tide mark of support for the Australian republic

20 years ago, the last Constitutional Convention was debating an Australian Republic but as a result of its decision, the Republican movement was to slip, stagger and ultimately shatter.

THERE IS DEFINITELY a retro-culture moment happening in Australia.

The revisiting of Countdown episodes over the past six months on the ABC, supported by the success of the earlier Molly Meldrum mini-series, was so popular that Countdown-era music became the theme of the 2017 New Year’s Eve concert at Sydney Harbour.

It is worth remembering that the infamous Countdown interview with Prince Charles is still the most awkward British royalty moment in Australian television history.

Countdown: His Royal Highness The Prince Of Wales roasts Molly Meldrum

But it is definitely the 1990s that appear to be making a come-back. The Spice Girls are reforming, Oasis music has been re-found as a result of the Manchester bombing, scrunchies can be found again next to bathroom basins around the country and don’t even start me with the re-release of Cadbury Caramilk bars.

Another come-back in Australian politics is the Australian Constitution. The dual citizenship fiasco that has recently engulfed Federal politics has highlighted the existence and influence of the Australian Constitution. The High Court decisions terminating a slather of Australian Federal politicians have sent the message the Australian Constitution can’t be ignored.

The re-emergence of discussions about the Australian Constitution around family dinner tables, on buses on the way to work and at the front-bar in pubs, brings back memories of February 1998, when the daily debates and comments of the 152 delegates to the Constitutional Conventionbeing held in Canberra, were on the front page of national newspapers.

The 1998 Constitutional Convention was held in Old Parliament House, Canberra from the 2-13 February 1998. Its stated purpose was to consider the pros and cons of removing the Monarchy from a role in Australian government and law and changing the Australian Constitution to include a republican form of government.

The Constitutional Convention was convened by former Prime Minister John Howard to discuss issues related to three broad questions about whether or not Australia should become a republic. The three questions identified for discussion by the Prime Minister were:

1. Whether Australia should become a republic;
2. Which republic model should be put to the electorate to consider, against the status quo; and
3. In what time frame and under what circumstances might any change be considered.

If the consensus was "yes", then a republican model was to be decided on, so it could be put to the Australian people in a referendum on 6 November 1999.

There have been a number of Constitutional Conventions in Australian history. The prominent Republican Constitutional lawyer Professor George Winterton defined the term "convention" as literally a "coming together" and has generally been employed in Australian politics to denote a meeting convened for the purpose of drawing up or amending a constitution. This usage has a long pedigree.

The first Australian Federal "Convention" was a meeting of representatives of the seven Australasian colonies and Fiji held in Sydney in November-December 1883. It led to the establishment of the Federal Council of Australasia, which New South Wales and New Zealand never joined.

The 1891 Constitutional Convention was held in Sydney in March and April 1891 to consider a draft Constitution for the proposed federation of the British colonies in Australia and New Zealand. There were 46 delegates at the Convention, chosen by the seven colonial parliaments. Among the delegates was Sir Henry Parkes, known as the "Father of Federation". The Convention approved a draft largely written by Andrew Inglis Clark, which is a close ancestor of the present Australian Constitution.

The 1897-98 Australasian Federal Convention, which essentially produced the present Constitution, was the only Australian Convention to be popularly elected and the only one whose efforts were crowned with success in the sense of seeing its proposals implemented. The 1897-98 Constitutional Convention was held in stages: the first in Adelaide in March 1897, the second in Sydney in August and the third in Melbourne in the sweltering heat of January 1898. At Melbourne, the Convention finally produced a draft Constitution which was eventually approved by the people at referendums in the colonies.

The 1973 Constitutional Convention was established by the Whitlam Government in 1973 to consider possible amendments to the Constitution which could be put to the people for approval at a referendum. The Convention, which was not elected but consisted of delegates chosen by the federal and state Parliaments, met through 1973–75 but was mired in the partisan atmosphere of the Whitlam years and achieved nothing.

The 1998 Constitutional Convention debated whether Australia should become a republic. It attracted enormous public interest and built the sort of awareness needed to hold a referendum. Republicanism emerged as an issue of major public debate during the 1990s.

Australians have long discussed the idea of replacing the Constitutional Monarchy with a republican constitution, even during the 19th Century, before Federation in 1901. In the 1960s, Republican activity was restarted by authors Geoffrey Dutton and Donald Horne. At the same time, the student magazine Oz lampooned the Monarchy. A decade on, the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the appointed Governor-General on 11 November 1975 outraged many Australians.

The 1975 Constitutional Crisis drew attention to Australia's Constitutional arrangements and, since those turbulent days, several notable Australians have declared a commitment to an Australian Republic. There were many Town Hall meetings and calls to "maintain the rage". During these years, the Australian Labor Party edged towards declaring itself for the republic. This it eventually did in 1982.

In the 1990s, the popular definition of "republic" was simply the removal of the British Monarch as head of state. This was seen as the last step in Australia’s political development. On 7 July 1991, the Australian Republic Movement was established, with the author Tom Keneally as the inaugural chair. 

The Australian Republican Movement was formed as an organisation with the single goal of Australia becoming a republic no later than 1 January 2001.

In December 1991, Paul Keating was sworn in as Prime Minister of Australia after deposing Bob Hawke as leader of the Federal Australian Labor Party.

As Keating came to power in the early 1990s, his support for the republic and issues of national identity was widely known — and he continued to campaign for it throughout his time in office and beyond.

In April 1993, Prime Minister Keating appointed the Republic Advisory Committee, led by Malcolm Turnbull, to examine options on how to achieve a republic with minimal constitutional change.

The Republic Advisory Committee published its report in 1993, in which it stated:

'... a republic is achievable without threatening Australia's cherished democratic institutions.'

On 7 June 1995, Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating formally announced his support for an Australian Republic in a televised speech to Parliament entitled, 'An Australian Republic The Way Forward'. This was the culmination of nearly a decade of discussion on constitutional change. In the course of his speech to the House of Representatives, he announced his Government’s intention to transform the Commonwealth of Australia from a Constitutional Monarchy into a republic.

Keating proposed a minimalist plan for a republic, concentrating on the single task of installing an Australian as head of state, one with the same role as the governor-general. The president of the Commonwealth of Australia would be nominated by the prime minister after consultation with all parties and elected by a two-thirds majority at a joint sitting of Parliament. 

The 1998 Constitutional Convention helped to strengthen the debate for a republic as a major issue in the late 1990s. However, the debate became caught up in an argument about the best selection method for the Australian head of state and it was on this crucial issue Australian Republicans divided.

The 1998 Constitutional Convention delegates consisted of 152 Australians from all walks of life, half of whom were elected by the people and half appointed by the Federal Government. In 1997, the Australian Electoral Commission ran a national postal vote to elect 76 delegates to attend the Constitutional Convention in Canberra. The voting began on 3 November 1997 and closed on 9 December 1997. The postal ballot was unusual in that it used a Senate-style voting system, and did not require compulsory participation. The participation result of the voluntary nature of the postal vote was 47 per cent of eligible voters. The election was heavily contested, with many candidates standing as part of a Monarchist or Republican "ticket", but many others stood as independents.

In the popular election of delegates to the 1998 Constitutional Convention, Republican candidates won a majority (56.4 per cent) of the total votes cast and a majority in four States. Of the 76 elected delegates, 27 were Monarchists, 27 were affiliated to the Australian Republican Movement, 19 were Republicans with other affiliations, and two were of unknown affiliation. The appointed delegates group comprised 40 Parliamentary delegates from Federal, State and Territory Parliaments, as well as 36 non-Parliamentary delegates. Of these delegates, 17 were constitutional Monarchists, 30 Republicans, and 29 undeclared.

Speaking to the delegates on day one, then Prime Minister John Howard said that embarking on a republic might be dangerous.

“I oppose Australia becoming a republic because I do not believe that the alternatives so far canvassed will deliver a better system of government than the one we currently have ... I go further — some will deliver a worse outcome and gravely weaken our system of government.”

However, in the end, the Constitutional Convention concluded with "in principle support" for an Australian Republic with a referendum to be held in 1999: 89 to 52, with 11 abstentions.

The four models that emerged were:

1. The Direct Election Model where the popular election for president would be held at the same time as those for the house of representatives.
2. The Hayden Model proposed the popular election for president where a person had been nominated by one per cent of voters.
3. The McGarvie Model proposed the president be chosen by the prime minister and appointed or dismissed by a constitutional council.
4. The Bi-Partisan Appointment of the President Model developed by the Australian Republican Movement, where the president was appointed by the prime minister after ratification by a 2/3 majority of Federal Parliament.

At the end of the 1998 Constitutional Convention, 73 delegates voted in favour of adopting the bi-partisan appointment model, 57 against and 22 abstained. Not one Constitutional Monarchist delegate voted in favour. The policy of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM) and other Monarchist groups was to oppose all republican models, including the minimalist McGarvie model.

Peter Costello, then Federal Treasurer, addressed the Constitutional Convention on Tuesday, 3 February 1998 arguing the deeper problem revolved around the presence of monarchy in Australia:

The temper of the times is democratic. We are uncomfortable with an office that appoints people by hereditary. In our society and in our time, we prefer appointment for merit.

I judge that the disquiet or uncomfortableness on the concept of monarchy to which I have earlier referred will continue to build and we should address this, not allow people to use it to build other agendas.

I believe there is an unease at the centre of our Constitutional arrangements, not because they do not work – they work extraordinarily well -– but because the symbols which underlie them are running out of believability and this gnaws at legitimacy.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said during his speech to the Australian Republic Movement’s (ARM) 25th Anniversary Dinner on 18 December 2016:

So if the job description is to be a non-political head of state, the best way to appoint them we felt at the time, was in a bipartisan manner. This exposed us of course to the claim that the ARM model was “a politician’s republic". We were told that you can’t trust politicians — ironically most vocally by politicians.

Just under two years later, the dreams of Australia’s republic supporters lay in tatters with the failure of the 6 November 1999 Referendum. On that evening, the then ARM National Chair, Malcolm Turnbull, said John Howard "broke this nation’s heart" over the Republic Referendum result.

Nevertheless, for most of the time since, the republic issue has been an important part of public debate through several prime ministerial statements of personal commitment to the change, several opposition leaders' election promises of action, Parliamentary inquiries, many books and articles, advocacy by numerous Australians of the year, and the tireless efforts of supporters.

Recently, Benjamin T Jones published This Time: Australia’s Republican Past and Future, in which he charts a path to an independent future and discusses the best way to choose an Australian head of state. This hybrid model which encompasses both the direct election model and the Parliamentary elected model is called the Jones-Pickering model. Perhaps this is the answer, as the lesson of 1999 is that an Australian Republic can only come about if Republicans unite.

The seeds of republicanism go right back to the early days of the Australian colonies but despite several attempts – the last one in 1999 with the Referendum – we've never managed to get the idea across the line. We are a nation still looking for our "republican moment".

At its peak at the end of the 1998 Constitutional Convention, 76 per cent of Australians favoured a republic but were then split during the Referendum campaign between a minimalist and direct-election model. Supporters of the latter voted "no" and delivered victory to the Monarchists.

In 1999, the band, Powderfinger, told us how "These days turned out nothing like I had planned", but continued a few lines later that "it’s coming round again, the slowly creeping hand of time". The Australian Republic will happen — we are a republican people, it’s now a matter of making us a republican nation.

Australia's future Republic Day - the 9th of May

Today is Australia Day 2018. While January 26 in Australia has become an unofficial marker of the end of the summer season, and an occasion for barbecues, flag-wearing and no small amount of jingoism, it has also become increasingly controversial. Should it or should it not be changed?

Over the past week many have argued that we cannot be a unified and mature nation while the national day is one so divisive for indigenous people. The argument is that by changing the date, #changethedate, Australia can show that it is ready to truly accept and include Indigenous histories, cultures and contributions as a valued part of the Australian story.

As the debate continues over whether Australia Day should be celebrated on January 26, one of the unresolved issues swirling around Australia Day is whether Australia should become a republic and reconciliation. Over the past few weeks, the republic has said to be again "on the public agenda". This time, the immediate impetus came from the release of some Keating government cabinet papers, recalling the debates about how best to proceed on the republic question within the government during the 1990s, as well as Malcolm Turnbull's teasing encouragement that he might just be ready for a reprise using his newly found process of a voluntary postal survey. Whether Australia should become a republic or remain a monarchy is a perennial topic of debate, particularly around the time of Australia Day.

David Donovan, the Managing Editor of Independent Australia wrote recently about former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s explanation on why he thinks Australians should celebrate Australia Day.

"Sure, not everything’s perfect in contemporary Australia; and it’s possible that Aboriginal life could have continued for some time without modernity bursting upon it, had governor Arthur Phillip not raised the Union flag and toasted the king on January 26, 1788, but it’s hard to imagine a better Australia in the absence of the Western civilisation that began here from that date."

Donovan points out that Abbott confirms here that the annual festivities in remembrance of the landing on 26 January 1788 celebrates the raising of the British (Union) flag, the claiming of the land for the British monarchy, and the superiority and dominance of Western civilisation over Indigenous Australian culture.

The question of our Australian identity and reconciliation with indigenous people is due to the continuing presence of the British monarch as our Head of State.

But let’s say it for what it actually is.

Australia Day, 26 January is the annual celebration of the arrival and establishment of the British monarchy on the Australian continent. Up until1788 the political concept of monarchy was foreign on the great southern continent. Fifteen years before Governor Arthur Phillip established the penal colony of New South Wales when he stepped ashore at Sydney Cove in 1788, planted the Union Jack, and claimed the colony in the name of the British monarch, King George III, the American revolutionaries had thrown the British monarchy over the side of the ships into Boston Harbour along with boxes of tea with taxes. In 2016, the Australian Republic Movement surveyed all Federal MPs and Senators and found that a majority wanted to ditch the British monarch as the Head of State of Australia. Perhaps it’s time our own politicians also threw out the British monarchy.

Monarchist's can prattle on endlessly about how retaining the monarchy brings stabilty and is cheaper than having a home grown head of state and the like. But when you boil it all down, you can't escape the fact there's something a little unnatural about a grown child of, shall we say, 230 years, still electing to live in mummy's back bedroom.

Deciding to pack our bags and finally leave our Buckingham Palace nursery room isn't being rude to the Queen. It's just the natural order of things, and she's reportedly acknowledged as much to past prime ministers. How many more Ashes tours must we endure with the Barmy Army taunting us with their song God Save Your Queen? Time to cut the apron strings, assert our independence, and let one of our own people serve as head of state.

As Australia Day 2018 drew closer, the debate about the future of the day itself became tied to a future republic. Peter FitzSimons, National Chair of the Australian Republic Movement, has made clear his view on Australia Day.

"But what I do say is, the very obvious solution is we move to celebrating Australia's independence day - the day we became a republic. It's the right thing to do in terms of progressiveness and inclusiveness."

There is a lot to be said for this view held also by former Australian Republican Movement chairman, Professor John Warhurst, that Australia Day should be celebrated on the date we become a republic. This is a view supported by a federal minister, Ken Wyatt, that the day should be renamed only after Australia becomes a republic. Then the day Australia becomes a republic would become Australia Day.

So, when would be this new Australia Day?

When Australians finally decide we must complete our independence, the obvious day of the year to inaugurate the Republic of Australia is the 9^th of May.

The 9th of May is a beautiful time of the year, with breezy, high-skied blue days and golden blossoms around Australia.

It is also a date that resonates in Australian civic history.

On 1 January 1901, after years of debate, the various colonies in Australia joined together to form a Federation. While the new Constitution of Australia called for a new capital to be constructed, away from the major cities, until that time Melbourne would act as the seat of government of the new nation. Elections were held for the first Parliament of Australia and, on 9 May 1901, the newly minted federal parliament was sworn in at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.

The opening of the new parliament was commemorated in oil on canvas by one of Australia’s best known artists, Tom Roberts.

Roberts’ painting is titled The Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York, 9 May 1901 and is widely known as the ‘Big Picture’ in recognition of its grand scale. Measuring 5.65 metres across, and 3.6 metres tall, it is painted on three separate pieces of canvas, stitched together.

There was no national capital city when the Australian Federation was formed in 1901, so for the first 26 years as a nation, the Federal Parliament met in the Victorian State Parliament in Melbourne. However, provision had been made in the Constitution for a seat of Government of the Commonwealth, to be located within Commonwealth territory in the state of New South Wales, but not less than 100 miles from Sydney.

The site for the national capital was finally announced in 1911 and an inauguration ceremony held on Capital Hill in 1913.

On 9 May 1927, Old Parliament House in Canberra ‒ known formerly as the Provisional Parliament House ‒ was opened. The building began operation as a temporary base for the Commonwealth Parliament after its relocation from Melbourne to the new capital, Canberra until a more permanent building could be constructed.

Soon after its completion, the ‘Big Picture’ was presented to King Edward VII, and sent to England. It remained there for many years, hanging in St James’s Palace until 1957, when Queen Elizabeth II agreed to return the painting to Australia on permanent loan.

The painting was too large for its intended home at Old Parliament House in Canberra, and for many years it was in storage and only occasionally displayed. In 1981, after a major conservation project, it was hung in the new High Court of Australia building in Canberra.

When the new Parliament House was designed, a dedicated space for the painting was included in the foyer to the Main Committee Room, at the very heart of the building. This area includes architectural features such as a skylight and balustrade that were designed to echo Roberts’ original composition and connects the painting with other artworks from the Historic Memorials Collection. The ‘Big Picture’ has been on permanent public display there since 1988 and is undoubtedly the principal work of art recording Australia's Parliamentary History.

On 9 May 1988, the Federal Parliament transferred to the new Parliament House on Capital Hill, Canberra.

In Walter Burley Griffin's plan for the city, this was the most prominent location in Australia's national capital. The new Parliament House is one of the largest buildings in the southern hemisphere. The designers of the new Parliament House were mindful of the need to provide an appropriate space to display the ‘Big Picture’ in the new building and made space to place the painting in the Main Committee Room Foyer.

The National Capital Authority controls the placement and operation of national monuments, buildings and spaces in Canberra. New Parliament House is situated in-line with Old Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial and Mt Ainslie in the area known as the Parliamentary Triangle. Another civic space in-line with both Parliament Houses and directly beneath Old Parliament House is John Dunmore Lang Place, a spacious grassed area below King Edward Terrace.

John Dunmore Lang (1799 – 1878) was a turbulent Australian Presbyterian clergyman from Scotland, writer, politician and activist, was the first prominent advocate of an independent Australian nation and of Australian republicanism.

In 1850, he founded the Australian League to encourage national identity, resist convict transportation and promote a federal republic. He did much to achieve separation for Victoria and Queensland and the introduction of responsible and democratic government.

In 1850, in a series of lectures in Sydney, John Dunmore Lang promoted republicanism, including the end of convict transportation, and independence and federation for the Australian colonies. He promoted his ideas in The Coming Event; Or, the United Provinces of Australia, published in 1850, in which he predicted an independent Australian federal republic.

By 1852, John Dunmore Lang’s republican activity culminated in the publication of Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia — an appeal for the establishment of a United States of Australia. This was the first argued case for an Australian republic and has become an established slogan of political radicalism and republicanism in Australia.

Freedom and Independence synthesised the fragmentary republican ideas that Lang had been widely disseminating in Australia during the previous two years into a single statement on the potential of Australian economic and political development. The ideas and their expression within Freedom and Independence were to influence republicans for the rest of the nineteenth century. Like many of the time, Lang thought of self-government as logically inconsistent with the Imperial connection.

The basis of Lang’s republicanism was a feeling for nationalism and personal Liberty. Nationality was a feeling justified in terms of natural law. Natural law was at the basis of his child-parent analogy. Lang used this analogy as his main argument for independence. He seems to have been the first in Australia to use the father-son relationship analogy to explain the connection between Britain and the colonies. He answered those who might accuse him of being disloyal with the challenge that the right to independence took precedence over filial duty.

The Republic of Australia Inauguration Day will take place in a grassy republican space named after Australia’s greatest republican advocate on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra.

Standing on Australian soil with a blue sky canopy on a late autumn day under a southern sun, the 9^th of May will be our future Republic Day.

Australian Republic Advistory Panel announced

2017 has been an exciting year of momentum for the Australian Republic Movement. 2018 is scheduled to be a year of conversations, as the Republic moves up the national agenda.

In politics, the Prime Minister restated his support for change, as did every Premier and Chief Minister; the Opposition leader promised a national vote by the end of the forst term if elected; and the Leader of the Australian Greens formally joined our federal Parliamentary Friendship Group.

In December 2017 the ARM launched the Republic Advisory Panel, a group of leading Australians who are committed to an Australian head of state and who have agreed to serve as patrons for our cause. The panel is a diverse group of women and men who have each made significant contributions to Australia in fields including government, media, acadamia, business and the law. For each of these individuals, their decision to join the Panel is a great sign of their confidence in the Australian Republic Movement and their commitment to the idea of an Australian head of state.

"The campaign for an Australian head of state is a big Australian cause - with a big head of steam building up. We're drawing on support from every community and every section of society and today is another big step forward," said Peter FitzSimons, Chair of the Australian Republic Movement.
"These leading Australians have generously offered their time and energy to a great campaign. They share a simple belief: Australia's head of state should be a citizen of Australia. Who could seriously argue anything different!"

THE AUSTRALIAN REPUBLIC ADVISORY PANEL

(Link to full member profiles)

Louise Adler, Chief Executive, Melbourne University Publishing
Kim Beazley, Former Deputy Prime Minister, former Leader of the Australian Labor Party, former Ambassador to the United States
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Managing Director, Transfield
Larissa Behrendt, Professor and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney
Steve Bracks, Former Premier of Victoria
Tim Fischer, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Nationals; Former Ambassador to the Holy See
Ross Fitzgerald, Author and historian
Marina Go, Chair and non-executive director
Catherine Harris, Chairperson, Harris Farm Markets, Rugby League Commissioner
Robert Hill, Former Minister for the Environment, Former Ambassador to the United Nations
Helen Irving, Professor of Law
Simon McKeon, Philanthropist and 2011 Australian of the Year
Jane Needham, Senior Counsel and former NSW Bar Association President
Kim Rubenstein, Professor, Law School, and Public Policy Fellow, Australian National University.
Clare Wright, Historian, author and broadcaster
Talal Yassine, Managing Director – Crescent Wealth

Earlier this year, the Australian Republic Movement opened an essay competition inviting students from across the country to tackle the statement, 'An Australian head of state will better represent Australian values and identity'.

In his winning entry, published here by The Sydney Morning Herald, Victorian Dan Crowley explains that he's a republican because 'we have forged our nation, our identity and our values'.

The next generation of Australian republican leaders are stepping forward, though many weren't even born at the time of the 1999 referendum.

The future looks bright.

Oaths of Allegiance are out of touch

Between now and Christmas there will be a lot of swearing heard from politicians around Australia.

So, let me get this straight...

Federal MP has dual citizenship with Britain? Disqualified. Head of State is 100% British? No problem! How can we keep chucking out MPs with dual citizenship when our head of state isn’t even a citizen at all.

On Monday 13 November 2017, the constitutional storm over the dual citizenship debacle blew in replacement Senators for those who had been declared ineligible by the High Court to hold political office in Australia’s Federal Parliament as they contravened s44 of the Australian Constitution. Some of the senators were declared ineligible due to having British citizenship by descent. But how will the replacement senators reconcile the absurdity that to become a member of the Federal Parliament they must swear an Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch.

As at 10 November 2017 there were 12 Senators and federal MPs who were under constitutional question. Currently there will be at least two by-elections held due to federal MPs acknowledging they hold dual citizenship. There may well yet be more by-elections unless a general election is held. Yet when the by-election results are finally tallied, or a double dissolution election is held and the next federal parliament is elected, these same MPs and senators will be required to swear allegiance to the Head of State of the country of which their colleagues are citizens and as a result had been declared ineligible to be elected to the federal parliament.

Say what?

Surely this is the elephant in the room. How is it possible for the High Court to disqualify members of parliament on the basis of Section 44 of the Australian Constitution, as being (unknowingly) citizens and therefore subjects of a foreign power, when these same MPs and ministers swear allegiance to the monarch of this same foreign power (and her descendants), who happens to be our Head of State?

There can be no doubt that the "Queen of Australia" is a British woman, yet we, here in the Antipodes, are quibbling about people we have elected to our Federal Parliament whose dad or mum was of British ancestry.

It’s worth remembering that, on 3 December 2007, one week after the election of the new Rudd Federal Labor Government, a "very republican moment" occurred when Kevin Rudd and his ministry swore an oath to

"...the Commonwealth of Australia, its land and its people."

The significance of this moment was the new Federal ministers swore an Oath under Section 62 of the Australian Constitution to the people of Australia rather to Queen Elizabeth II, a foreign monarch.
When Kevin Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, wearing R.M. Williams boots and a grin as wide as the verandah of his suburban Brisbane Queenslander, he declared:

“I, Kevin Michael Rudd, do swear that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people, in the office of the Prime Minister, so help me God.”

Taking the office of Prime Minister (Executive Councillor) involves swearing an Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation. However, under Section 62 of the Constitution, the form of the Oath of Office is not prescribed for a minister, but by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister.
Of course, the new Oath was given to the Governor-General on Rudd’s advice, yet he could not have technically given that advice until he became an Executive Councillor. No doubt, this advice was relayed earlier, perhaps through or with the approval of the caretaker, John Howard. In taking this Oath, Rudd acknowledged the republican ideal that ultimate political authority lays with ‘the land and the people’ of Australia rather than with the British monarch.

The Rudd Oath should not be confused with the Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation under Section 42 of the Constitution required to be made by a Member of Parliament or Senator before taking his or her seat.

Section 42 involves swearing or affirming to
'...be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors according to law.'

This Oath was also used for ministers until the Keating Labor government removed reference to the Sovereign. However, with the election of the Howard Liberal government in 1996, the Oath to the Queen was restored but without any reference to 'Her heirs and successors'.

The real issue behind the question of the Oath of Allegiance or Affirmation concerns where political authority ultimately resides. Should Australian political authority continue to be derived from the British monarch and, ultimately, God — or should it be acknowledged that popular sovereignty resides in "the land and the people" of Australia? This is a fundamental question for the republican debate.

The historical position of the Divine Right of Kings was that the power of the monarch was derived from God.

Indeed, Romans 13:1 states:

'...there is no authority except God which God has established.'

Queen Elizabeth II had to first attend a three hour Coronation ceremony to almighty God, which in turn gave every citizen in her realm immediate sovereign protection. But how does a divinely ordered constitutional monarchy fit into a modern multicultural society?

In recent years, there has even been discussion in Britain about changing the Coronation Oaths. This begs the question: What relevance do Coronation Oaths have to Australia when they can themselves be changed? But even though the current British monarch swears a Coronation Oath and is anointed in the same way as the Kings of the Old Testament, the Coronation Oath is essentially a human construct. It has a historical basis rather than a biblical basis.

The Bible is not really interested in the system of government under which God's people live, it is more interested in the compassionate nature and morality of government. The Old and New Testament show God's people living under a variety of different systems of governments, from the theocracy of Moses to the Roman rule of the New Testament. But even if ultimate authority does come from God, it doesn't necessarily flow through the forms and symbols of the state. The evangelical Christian tradition says authority flows through God's direct relationships to individuals.

In 2007, Kevin Rudd, Christian and republican, asked for God's help, not authority, to serve as Prime Minister of Australia. Republicanism does not acknowledge God as the ultimate source of authority in our society, rather it is ‘the land and the people’.

In 1887, Henry Lawson wrote in his ‘Song of the Republic’:

Sons of the South, make choice between
the land of the morn and the land of the e’en,
the old dead tree and the young tree green,
the land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,
and the land that belongs to you.

It was during the 1963 Royal Tour that Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who was "British to his bootstraps", said of the young Queen Elizabeth II:

"I did but see her passing by, and yet I'll love her 'til I die."

The tide appears to be turning towards a republican future, a future grounded more in a love of country, perhaps even in Dorothea Mackellar's My Country, where she wrote

'I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains.'

One of the essential definitions of a republic is a state based upon popular sovereignty, in which all public offices are held by persons deriving their authority from the people, either through election by the people, or appointment by officers themselves elected by the people. The exclusion of the reference to the Queen in the Federal ministerial Oath is a tangible step towards repositioning political authority for a republican Australia. Symbols are important and the words in this Oath reflect more meaningfully the reality that our Ministers serve the people of Australia and not a foreign monarch.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard continued with the Keating/Rudd Oath with swearing allegiance to Australia. However, on Wednesday, 18 September 2013, the newly minted Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott returned to the past by swearing allegiance to the Queen.
Responding to this, the then national director of the Australian Republic Movement, David Morris, said in a statement:

'Our elected representatives should swear allegiance solely to Australia, rather than loyalty to someone born to rule over an Empire long gone. We call upon all elected representatives to pledge 100 per cent loyalty to Australia.'

It is interesting that the Federal minister's Oath has been a republican intellectual battleground over the past 25 years. Australia's three most recent Labor prime ministers – Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard – all used similar words when they were sworn in. But Tony Abbott, an avowed monarchist, reverted to the previous pledge to Queen Elizabeth II, as did John Howard, and as did also Malcolm Turnbull.

Australians need a head of state of our own — someone who can lead the dignified part of our national life away from the day to day screaming match of Parliament and Q&A. Australia shouldn’t be looking backwards to Britain and the monarchy rather we should be confidently facing the future. It’s no longer appropriate in today’s Australia to have divided loyalties. Back in the early 20^th Century, Australians were still called “British subjects” and many still sang 'God Save the Queen' — but no more. Today, our loyalty and our identity is Australian, not colonial. Australia should always come first for our elected representatives.

In an oath that has barely changed since Australia federated, anyone enlisting in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) today – Army, Air Force or Navy – must swear that they

'... will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law ... and resist Her enemies.'

Say what? Is there a single member of the 80,000-strong ADF that signed up to serve the Queen and resist her enemies? What about Australia's enemies? Surely they deserve a mention as well?

In 1994, a different pledge was introduced at Australian citizenship ceremonies.
It replaced the pledge of allegiance to the Queen with

'I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect and whose laws I will uphold and obey.'

In 2014, polling undertaken by the Australian Republic Movement found that seven out of ten Australians supported pledging allegiance to Australia and its people, rather than to the Queen.
The "currency lads" of the mid-19^th century would often use the toast "To the land, boys". Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appeared to have taken Henry Lawson's advice and chosen "the land that belongs to you" over "the land that belongs to the lord and Queen".

Our nation’s values are democratic. To have an institution sitting above our Parliament, over which a foreign family is born to rule, is out of date with our identity as an independent nation. It’s about time our oaths of allegiance were changed to reflect this.