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Leader of the Constitutional Monarchists Team, Dr. Glenister Sheil is a former Senator and former Minister of the Crown. He is a retired medical practitioner and private hospital owner who is a keen player of veterans' tennis.
18th March 1998
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND GROWING UP
Republicans claim that the Queen is our Head of State. They
are wrong again and also claim that she is not an Australian,
and she lives faraway, and represents England overseas and not
Australia. They also claim Australians must "cut the apron
strings" and "take the last small step to get rid of the
vestiges of English Colonialism". Republicans claim that
Asians (their own Monarchies and Despotisms aside), cannot
understand our absent Head of State, and will trade with us
better if we throw off the colonial yoke! Republicans find
the Union Flag in the hoist of our flag offensive, and they
are pushing for a replacement depicting our "freedom and
independence".
Our Constitution, Crown and Government have done a lot of
growing up since Federation on 1st January 1901. Admittedly
it took both England and Australia 30 years to realise that
our Constitution had created a sovereign, independent nation,
and that we had stripped the English Monarch of all her powers
in Australia, and given them to our Governor-General.
Our Constitution was written with a view to having an absent
Sovereign, and the Sovereign did not even visit Australia for
54 years! When she did, we realised that she had no power to
perform any of the formal duties we required of her. The
Parliament quickly, and unanimously, passed an Act in 1953 to
give her some power back, but only for the time that she was
personally in Australia. At the same time the G-G kept all
the powers of the Crown. This situation has never been
abused. Incidentally, this Act made her an Australian
citizen, just like other immigrants who are all made
Australian citizens by an Act of Parliament!
Originally the English Monarch appointed our Gs-G, who acted
under "Letters Patent" from the Monarch. After 30 years we
requested the Monarch to cease this practice, and to appoint
and remove our G-G on the advice of our democratically elected
Prime Minister. This was assented to, and later we requested
that our G-G stand in the same relationship to the Australian
Parliament as the British Monarch stands to the British
Parliament. This was also given assent.
That Australia was already an independent sovereign nation is
shown by the fact that no Constitutional amendments were
necessary to make any of these changes.
Heads of State cost their countries big money - just look at
the cost of flying our present G-G about! The Queen does not
cost us one cent. In fact the English gave us seven Crowns,
free, and much else besides, such as the English language, law
and genius. We have never been asked to pay taxes or tribute
to England.
After our period of English Colonial Government, we became six
independent self-governing Colonies, each with its own Crown,
Parliament and Governor. The Governors were initially
appointed, and removed, by the English Monarch on the advice
of English Ministers; but now this is done on the advice of
our democratically elected State Premiers.
At Federation the six Crown Colonies created another Crown for
their Federal Government. All these Crowns were children of
the English Crown, but they have grown up and they are now
independent, sovereign Crowns. One day we may even have
someone we think is worthy of wearing them. In the meantime
the powers of the Crowns are exercised by our State Governors
and our G-G.
In days of yore the Crown represented total power. Today it
represents the denial of total power. While the Crown is at
the head of all our great Institutions of State, nobody else
can be the head of any of them. Thus the Crown represents
the ultimate and untouchable guarantee of our freedom and our
genius.
Republicans resent the power the Crown denies them. They
resent the Senate having the power to block supply to a rogue
Government. They resent the G-G's ability to sack a rogue PM.
The Crown and the Constitution are the rules by which we have
agreed, by referendum, to be governed. We chose the Crown, it
was not forced on us by a jack-booted England. Any problems
we have now are ours to fix - such as an unworldly High Court,
that is raining down hammer blows on our Federation, and from
whose decisions there is no appeal.
Republicans consider the Constitution "out of date for a
modern, industrial, multicultural society". They claim it
is "unrepresentative" because it was written by men only, and
had no input from minorities and women.
The wanton rebelliousness of the republicans shone out of the
recent Constitutional Convention. They had no real
proposition to put to the Convention. They could not
agree that any of their four "models" should be put to a
referendum. They do not even support the model that was
deemed to win the most support!
Republicans claim, obviously erroneously, that there is a
groundswell of public support for a republic; but how can
there be, when they cannot answer the key question as to what
sort of republic that groundswell supports? Nevertheless
the republicans insist that they are no less "Australians" for
making their BLATANT POWER GRAB. The important feature of
all the republican "models" is that they discard our Crown as
well as our Constitution.
The fundamental requirements for Australia's democratic rule
are: the appointment of an apolitical G-G and the sacking of
a rogue G-G, or a rogue PM, without causing a revolution.
We have a simple way of doing this now, and all it causes is
an election - what could be more democratic than an election?
The reserve powers of the G-G are not a problem for us now,
and all these jobs are done at no extra cost, and with no
interference from the English Sovereign. Our G-G is his own
man, and responsible only to the PM and the Australian People.
The republicans can offer us nothing that even comes near
what we have already.
Glenister Sheil
18th March 1998
The Constitution is not a political issue. It belongs to the people, not to governments, not to oppositions, not to political parties, not to the media, academics nor lawyers. The Australian Constitution represents the agreement by all of us with the rules by which we are governed.
It has kept us so safe that few people have actually read it. The following observations explain the present constitutional position. It is important that people defending our present way of life should be familiar with the text of the document which so successfully preserves our freedoms. Even more important is that people who are thinking of voting for constitutional change should firstly be aware of the detail of the document they seek to alter.
Republics have a Head of State and usually a Prime Minister. Constitutional Monarchies have a Sovereign, a Governor General and a Prime Minister. The Australian people, by referendum, gave us a Constitution on 1st Jan 1901 which established the Governor-General as our Head of State with all the powers of the Crown, at the same time keeping the Sovereign, whose sole remaining function was to appoint the Governor General on the advice of our democratically elected Prime Minister.
It took both the British and Australian people thirty years to grasp the full significance of the fact that the British Sovereign had been stripped of all power in Australia.
Later, in 1953 during the planning for the 1954 visit to Australia of Elizabeth II, the first reigning Monarch to visit our shores, the Menzies government acknowledged that Her Majesty would be unable to perform any formal functions, because she had been left no powers under the Constitution. The Parliament quickly and unanimously returned to the Queen sufficient powers for Her Majesty to carry out her duties during her visits, and this was done without detracting from the powers of the Governor General. This position has never been abused.
For the last thirty-five years our Constitutional Head of State has been an Australian. The Governor- General is not answerable to anyone but the Prime Minister and the Australian people, and exercises all the powers of the Crown according to our Constitution.
The Crown is the head of all our great institutions; the Parliament, the Defence Force, the Public Services, the Judiciary, and no individual or political party can usurp that role. This is why the republicans want to remove the Crown, which denies them the unfettered power which they crave.
It is less than the truth to proclaim that our Head of State lives in another country and is not an Australian. Our Sovereign has been an Australian citizen since 1953. The Queen never represents Australia abroad, a task performed by the Governor-General. The participation of the Sovereign in our political process provides at no cost a simple mechanism for appointing an apolitical Governor-General who is answerable only to the Prime Minister and the Australian people. Our time-honoured institutions are valuable to all Australians, and the republicans have nothing to offer in their place.
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