While the Australian Republican Movement was out and
about in Tasmania throughout October and November talking to everyday
Australians, Prince Charles and his wife skipped around a few states
talking to almost no-one.
THE ARM HAS BEEN RETHINKING the way forward to a republican future. In October 2012, they announced they were starting a new campaign for an Australian republic.
The rebranded
website described the purpose to the new campaign:
‘We want to get Australians talking about us, our
country – and the future we will share, together. This campaign is about
our identity, as Australians, the way we see ourselves and the way we
want to be seen.’
The purpose of the new campaign is to get Australians talking about
our identity and asking, “Who do we want to be?” It’s about seeking to
build a consensus about our identity that can include all Australians. A
republic is for all of us. It’s about Australia, our identity and our
place in the world.
The new campaign footing for the ARM started in early 2012, with the
appointment of a new national director, David Morris. Morris grew up in
Tasmania and worked for the late premier Jim Bacon. He
resigned from his diplomat job to devote his energy towards an Australian republic. On his appointment, he stated:
“It’s a big ask and it’s time to start the
conversation again … The first step is to find what we agree on as a
nation rather than what divides us.”
David Morris has described Tasmania as “
one of the staunchest republican states”. It was for this reason the Australian Republican Movement chose Tasmania as the place to revive Australia’s republic debate.
In Tasmania, ARM national director David Morris (right) with comedian Julian Morrow and Senator Lisa Singh.
On 21 March 2012, eminent Australian historian
Professor Henry Reynolds delivered a Public Lecture at University of Tasmania titled
The Tasmanian Roots of the Republican Issue.
In this lecture on the history of the republican issue in Tasmania,
Henry Reynolds focussed on Australia’s pre-eminent republican,
Andrew Inglis Clark.
Andrew Inglis Clark is still well-known in Tasmania. Andrew Inglis
Clark was a passionate republican, an engineer, founder of the
University of Tasmania, designer of Tasmania’s Hare-Clark voting system,
editor of small, vibrant literary magazines and, above all, a believer
in inalienable human rights. He had a lifelong fascination with the
United States. He recounted how this began in his teenage years when the
American Civil War broke out. His enthusiasm for the ideals of the
American republic never died. Clark came to understand the principles of
federalism from the captains of the Boston whaling fleet which fished
the great southern oceans and regularly came to port at his home town,
Hobart. As Alfred Deakin suggested, republicanism was a key feature of
Inglis Clark’s intellectual character:
“Small, spare, nervous, active, jealous and
suspicious in disposition, and somewhat awkward in manner and ungraceful
in speech, he was nevertheless a sound lawyer, keen, logical and acute.
A persevering student, his sympathies were republican, centring upon
Algernon Sydney among Englishmen, upon Mazzini in Italy and especially
upon the United States, a country to which in spirit he belonged, whose
Constitution he reverenced and whose great me he idolized.”
Henry Reynolds stated that Inglis Clark was a member of the American
Club in the 1870s with other “young, ardent republicans” and, at its
annual dinner in 1876, he declared:
“We have met here tonight in the name of the
principles which were proclaimed by the founders of the Anglo-American
Republic … and we do so because we believe those principles to be
permanently applicable to the politics of the world.”
As a result, Inglis Clark entered Tasmanian politics in 1878 under
attack for his ultra-republican, if not communist, views by Hobart’s
The Mercury.
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| Andrew Inglis Clark |
Modern scholars agree that Andrew Inglis Clark wrote the first
recognisable version of the Australian Constitution and it was through
his draft that a strong republican element was introduced. Before the
1891 National Federal Convention commenced, work had already been
undertaken to collect information to assist delegates in understanding
the different ways of structuring a federation. Alfred Deakin had urged
delegates at the 1890 Australasian Federation Conference to study James
Bryce’s three-volume,
The American Commonwealth (1888).
In addition, the now Tasmanian Attorney-General, Andrew Inglis Clark
had prepared a draft Constitution that was circulated to some of the
delegates. It was written in the same form and language as an Act of the
Imperial Parliament, and consisted of clauses extracted and adapted
from the
British North America Act, the
United States Constitution, the
Federal Council of Australasia Act 1885 and the Constitutions of the Australian colonies.
Andrew Inglis Clark’s draft Constitution contained the familiar
structure of a House of Representatives directly elected by the people
in electorates with approximately equal populations. A Senate
constituted by an equal number of representatives of each State was
already an accepted basis of Inglis Clark’s draft Constitution. The main
differences with the final Constitution accepted at the end of the
1890s were that Inglis Clark’s Senate was to be elected by the State
Parliaments rather than directly elected by the people, and there were
no appeals to the Privy Council. Inglis Clark’s draft also provided for
the election of State Governors by State Parliaments, and for amendment
of the Constitution by federal legislation confirmed by two-thirds of
the State Parliaments. Inglis Clark’s draft gave a form to the concept
of federation and had a strong influence on the 1891 National
Convention. He was later to state:
“…the authors of [the American Constitution were] … also the primary authors of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.”
Despite many subsequent changes and the work of others, especially
Samuel Griffith and
Charles Kingston, modern scholars agree that Andrew Inglis Clark wrote the first recognisable version of the Australian Constitution.
On 15 October 2012,
Associate Professor James Curran
also delivered an address on Australian republicanism at the Stanley
Burbury Theatre in Hobart. In this lecture, Curran explored the history
of Australia’s post-war ties to Britain and argued that the country’s
shaky exit from the empire can help illuminate the path ahead for the
Republican movement. He also argued that one of the keys to Australia’s
republican renewal is dispensing with tired metaphors and stale
narratives about national ‘immaturity’ or cultural ‘dependence’ and
instead focusing on the story of Australia’s remarkably rapid political,
economic and social transformation since the 1970s. Curran proposed a
revitalised republican conversation that seeks to harness a shared sense
of community and place along with a new and more inclusive narrative of
the nation.
In Hobart on 20 October 2012, David Morris launched the republican
campaign to start a month of activities throughout Tasmania in a trial
run for a campaign in every state next year. The new republican campaign
is about defining who we are, where we live, where we call home and who
we want to be as a nation. This is an important conversation for all
Australians, no matter where they live across all states and
territories.
The ARM’s
new national campaign
is to be led from the bush and the regions, without pushing a preferred
model. It is to avoid politicians and seek to re-engage ordinary
citizens via a “conversation” about what it means to be Australian. Even
so, the Tasmanian Premier, Lara Giddings
threw her support behind the idea of Australia becoming a republic:
“I’m personally a strong supporter of an Australian
republic. I hope that we will see a better way of having this debate and
discussion with the Australian people so we can move towards a republic
and become one.”
Other political class supporters include Andrew Wilkie (pictured above with David Morris) and
Senator Lisa Singh. Mike Steketee wrote in
The Age, 20 October 2012 how
'the republicans today move from a passive approach
to a campaign footing. The focus will be on Australia’s identity and
values, with a new website asking ”Who do we want to be?” It invites
people to sign up and join the conversation about ”what are the values,
identity and characteristics that make us unique?”
For the next four weeks, David Morris and the Tasmanian republicans travelled around Tasmania talking to
everyday Australians
at various shows and fairs culminating in a fundraiser dinner at
Hobart’s spectacular Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) on 18 November
2012. During the Tasmanian republican campaign, the heir to the British
throne, Prince Charles, with his wife the Duchess of Cornwall, toured
Australia as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations — then
left.
During their visit, they attended the Melbourne Cup, where they spent
their time in the Flemington’s committee room and presented trophies.
Both these areas were closed to the public. The theme for the Royal
visit was the
lack of opportunity
for everyday Australians to meet the Royal couple. For the people of
Tasmania, the contact with the republicans was the complete opposite –
open and engaged.
Back in Canberra, the republican historian and Manning Clark biographer Mark McKenna presented
Starting all over again: Rethinking the republic of Australia for the 21st century as the 13
th Dymphna Clark Lecture on 14 November 2012 at the National Library of Australia. McKenna argued:
“…rather than waiting for the Queen to die, we need
to start rethinking the case for a republic now. We need to rethink the
arguments for a republic and make them relevant to Australia in the
twenty-first century.”
This theme of rethinking the republic was continued
on 24 November 2012, when the National Republican Lecture brought to a national close the republican campaigning for 2012. In
James Curran’s Resetting the Republic
lecture he presented his insights into the republican movement moving
into the future. In essence, he claimed that the Australian Republican
Movement “is being held captive by outdated nationalist rhetoric,” and
identified anti-British sentiments as a key problem in modern republican
argument. James Curran told his audience:
The republic can be part of that great story of
Australian adaptability and change, but we cannot, and must not, lecture
the people or treat the issue as some sort of pantomime about pathways
to maturity. Australians, particularly the younger generation, simply don’t feel the nagging compulsion to trash a Brit.
Curran argued that the republican movement was “being held
captive by out-dated nationalist rhetoric” and the debate suffers from
”rhetorical arthritis,” with leading Australian republican thinkers
continuing to use ”hoary old platitudes” from the 1970’s.
It is time to avoid politicians and seek to re-engage ordinary
citizens via a “conversation” about what it means to be Australian.
To participate in this conversation go to http://www.ouridentity.org.au
Even though Malcolm Turnbull has played no active role in the Australian Republican Movement since the 1999 republican referendum defeat, for many Australians he is still the face of the call for an Australian as Head of State. It is his name that many ordinary Australians first mention when the republican argument is brought up. On 10 May 2013, Turnbull will have star billing at an ARM fund-raising dinner at Lilyfield, Sydney, where diners will witness a ”conversation about our Australian identity” between him and Geoff Gallop, the current chairman of ARM and a former Labor premier of Western Australia.
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