THE mood has changed quite dramatically and even Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who had called for ideas on the future directions of Australia, was surprised.
It emerged with wild enthusiasm and spontaneous applause at every mention of the word “republic” at the conclusion of the 2020 summit in Canberra attended by 1,000 delegates. In effect, the delegates have given Rudd a new mandate to lead a fresh push for Australia to become a republic with a Bill of Rights.
The push, once a political hot potato as it were, is in sharp contrast to the mood nearly 10 years ago when the referendum to sever ties with the British monarchy was rejected after supporters split over whether the new head of state should be elected or appointed.
Apart from the delegates, who may be accused of being elitists because they were chosen from the best brains across the country, the momentum for a republic seems to be increasing, generally, outside the summit. A rigorous debate can be expected later this year.
Recent opinion polls show that more people are now prepared to support the issue, but the method of choosing a new head of state has still not been resolved.
However, the delegates to the governance group – one of the 10 policy-stream groups set up to deal with different issues at the summit – proposed that a fresh two-point approach be taken.
The first is to have an initial referendum on severing ties with the monarchy while retaining the governor-general with existing powers for five years.
The second is to hold another referendum to coincide with the next federal election and then examine a model for the new republic, including how the new head of state is to be chosen.
The proposal was contained in a 38-page document presented to the Prime Minister at the summit last Sunday.
It also endorsed the Rudd Government’s move to reform income and company taxes, business regulations, infrastructure and regulatory changes to create a “seamless national economy”, climate change as a whole-of-government priority, and a pledge that “the federation needs to be fixed”.
The call for the federation fix reflects an observation of a delegate, Prof George Williams of the University of New South Wales, who claims that the Australian system of government, in many respects, has become second rate and that its federal arrangements waste billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money each year.
“We remain a constitutional monarchy and the conventions of ministerial responsibility are often ignored,” he writes in a paper. “Australia also has more than 500 laws with secrecy provisions that undermine freedom of speech.”
Onward the republic
Like Prof Williams, members of the public outside of the political parties have been given an unprecedented opportunity to put forward their views and ideas on building modern Australia.
The fact that about 8,600 submissions were received – plus 4,000 comments that came through the Internet – proved the summit was not only a great success but had also inspired many people to be involved in the dialogue.
On federalism, Prof Williams says the system “is rife with buck-passing and administrative duplication, something the Business Council of Australia estimates to cost at least (A)$9bil a year and probably more like (A)$20bil when red tape is factored in”.
His strongest argument for a republic is what he describes as “unthinkable” that Australia’s head of state will still be “the monarch of a foreign nation” in 2020, let alone “one born to the position according to a 1701 British statue that ranks men over women and rules Catholics ineligible”.
Prof Williams cites section 59 of the Constitution, which states that the Queen may “disallow any law” passed by the Australian Federal Parliament.
And the Constitution is also reprinted in Australia only as part of the British Parliament’s Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900. The implication, he says, is that it is not the Australian people who are the source of the power and authority of Australian laws.
“The conflict between the text of the Constitution and the reality of Australian independence remains unresolved,” he adds. “This compromises our sense of identity and distorts perceptions within and outside the country.”
Rudd, although a long-time republican, has insisted that the issue is not high on his list of priorities. However, he is now forced by the summit to act on it and has acknowledged that there is a big groundswell of support for a republic.
But he stressed that he would have to be cautious and carefully build a strong case for widespread community support so that the referendum for republic would not suffer the same fate as it had almost a decade ago.
Queensland Governor Quentin Bryce's appointment as the next Governor-General is, among others, a boost for girl power in Australia.
FOR a fleeting moment, the grandmother who was hailed last month for her “serene, perfect and age-appropriate elegance” was somewhat embarrassed when one of her grandchildren made funny faces and flashed her undies to a group of media photographers.
“Oops,” Quentin Bryce exclaimed as she raised her hands to cover her mouth in obvious horror. But she quickly recovered her composure and did not chide her granddaughter for the unexpected, bold stunt.
What the grandmother did, however, was to show, as her daughter described it, “measured patience” and “diplomacy” – the kind of characteristics that would augur well for Bryce to become the new Governor-General of Australia.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s announcement last week that Bryce would succeed the present Governor-General Maj-Gen. Michael Jeffery, who retires in September, was a surprise to many Australians although some believed it would happen sooner or later.
Her appointment, in itself, is a unique milestone because it breaks a 107-year tradition in which only men had been the nation’s vice-regal. In effect, it has symbolically broken the so-called glass ceiling that is supposed to prevent women from rising to the top.
As the first female Governor-General, Bryce will be looked upon by many women in the country as a role model to lift their status and their rights to a better life.
Bryce acknowledged this in her message to the women: “What this day (the announcement of her appointment) says to Australian women and girls is that you can do anything, you can be anything, and it makes my heart sing to see women in so many diverse roles across the country.”
In fact, Rudd, who has made several key changes since he came into power four months ago, has made it quite clear he wanted to spread equally the responsibilities and duties of the nation to men and women. No one thought it would go so far as Australia’s top non-executive position, however.
Bryce’s elevation will capture “the spirit of modern Australia”, said the Prime Minister.
This spirit means giving proper voice to the rights of women, proper voice to people in the rural and regional areas, and proper place to someone who is committed to improving the lives of the Aborigines.
There is no doubt that Bryce, 65, has achieved much in her professional and academic career, for which she was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia not so long ago.
Yet, she is not only unassuming and a down-to-earth person, but also someone who is prepared to share her skills and experiences to improve the lives of many people.
Born in the bush town of Ilfracombe in western Queensland, which once boasted it was part of the biggest sheep station in the world, Bryce rose to become one of the first female barristers in the state.
As a talented lawyer and academic, she became a prolific and dedicated contributor to a range of community organisations.
Her outstanding career includes being the first director of the Queensland Women’s Information Service, director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and federal sex discrimination commissioner. She was also a member of the Australian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a lecturer of law at the University of Queensland.
In the past five years, she has served with dignity and passion as Governor of Queensland.
Much of the choices she has made in her life reflect her strong sense of responsibility to the community. Her commitments to advancing human rights and equality, the rights of women and children and the welfare of the family are much admired.
Her love for the bush is unquestionable. “When Quentin Bryce visits the outback, she falls in love with the outback and the outback falls in love with her,” remarked close friend and Barcoo mayor Bruce Scott.
And Longreach mayor John Palmer, whose jurisdiction includes Ilfracombe where Bryce grew up, said of her: “The outback people admire her greatly. She’s one hell of a lady and she can communicate with anyone.”
But is Bryce the right choice at the time when the issue of Australia becoming a republic is being reignited for a great debate later this year?
Will she be the first woman and last vice-regal if and when the position is made redundant?
Bryce, who is known to have admired the monarchy without admitting to being a monarchist, refuses to say whether she supports Australia becoming a republic.
Her only comment is that she expects a robust and stimulating debate on the issue.
Like Bryce, Rudd is carefully choosing his words on the question at this point in time.
He acknowledged that the Labour Party’s commitment to a republic might soon make the Governor-General’s position redundant.
But he would not elaborate, adding that the republic issue is not a priority for his government.
And he denied launching a “pineapple coup” by favouring his home state of Queensland, which has now formed what his critics claim a “trilogy” with all the nation’s top jobs going to Queenslanders – Rudd, (Federal Treasurer) Wayne Swan and now Bryce.
Coup or not, most Australians applauded Rudd’s decision to appoint Bryce as historic as it is fantastic.
In gender terms, Bryce, a mother of five children and a grandparent of also five grandchildren, represents more than 50% of the nation’s population. But Rudd would like to remind the public that, as Governor-General, she, in fact, represents all Australians.
The discovery of the wreck of HMAS Sydney last month was met with excitement and jubilation for most Australians although why there had been no survivors will never be known.
THE greatest Australian mystery is still unsolved – and unlikely to be satisfactorily resolved – after 66 years of extensive search, scientific researches, critical analyses and deep probing to get to the truth.
Although the Naval Association of Australia regards last month’s finding of the wreck of HMAS Sydney, which was the nation’s pride during World War II, as having solved the mystery, the Chief of the Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Shalders, insists there is still work to be done to unlock the mystery.
In fact, the crux of the mystery is not what happened to the cruiser after it was engaged in a battle with a German raider Kormoran off the coast of Western Australia on Nov 19, 1941.
It is really the question of why none of the 645 crew had survived or jumped overboard from the sinking Sydney when it was torpedoed by the freighter disguised as a Dutch merchant ship. How could it be that all of them had disappeared without a trace – until now, assuming that their remains are in the wreck?
Yet, 317 of the Kormoran’s 397-strong crew survived after the freighter, which was burning, also sank about 1,500m away from the Sydney.
But last month’s significant discovery after more than six decades of numerous searches also surprised the team of the government-sponsored Finding Sydney Foundation and the Royal Australian Navy that the wrecks were further apart than it was originally thought.
The 7300-tonne Sydney was the biggest warship from any country to be lost with no survivors during the war.
There had been no messages from it, no distress calls and no visual sightings or violent explosion except the statements of the German survivors of the Kormoran, who were picked up and held as prisoners of war.
Ever since then, the fate of the Sydney had fascinated Australians with numerous TV programmes, articles and books about it.
Its disappearance has remained an enduring mystery – and controversy with all sorts of conspiracy theories and some kind of official cover-up – of what actually happened.
One theory by author Michael Montgomery of the book Who Sank The Sydney? and son of the cruiser’s navigation officer, claimed that the cruiser was not sunk by the German raider but by Japanese submarines at a time when Japan was about to enter the war.
His claim seemed plausible but a 4,710-page report of the Australian parliamentary committee of inquiry in 1999 dismissed it under its methodology of determining “what a reasonable person would believe and looked at the balance of probabilities”.
So was the dismissal of another theory that Kormoran was working in conjunction with the Japanese whose aircraft were seen flying over Western Australia’s country towns of Geraldton and Derby and the Townville areas in northern Queensland at about the time.
One question raised in a document is quite intriguing. It argued that why ask an official historian to produce a historical record of what happened to the cruiser when he was also told at the same time that certain information relating to the ship’s disappearance was classified as restricted.
It pointed out that certain documents and records have not been made available to the public even today, not even to the next-of-kin of the Sydney crew.
However, news of the Sydney’s disappearance shocked the nation, particularly the city of Sydney after which the cruiser was named. The city, described by its mayor as “suffering the greatest heartache in history”, was in mourning as the people could not comprehend how the cruiser had disappeared with its entire crew without a trace.
They found it hard to believe that no survivors had been found. They knew that even when a ship was scuttled or abandoned, there would always be some survivors.
But the discovery of the Sydney’s wreck by the foundation’s search team under US-born David Mearns came with a mixture of emotion, excitement and jubilation for most Australians although the truth on why there had been no survivors will never be known.
Mearns, who felt “a summit of pure delight and exhilaration” when he realised he had found the ship, had used the latest high-resolution sonar device that was dragged behind his vessel Geosounder to locate it nearly 3,000m under the sea and about 10 nautical miles west of Steep Point near Shark Bay. His team also found the Kormoran 24 hours earlier about 100 nautical miles from the shore.
As an American shipwreck hunter, Mearns was responsible for the finding of the wrecks of the British cruiser HMS Hood and the Birsmarck, the German battleship that sank the British ship in the North Atlantic in 1941.
Sonar images, released last week, show that the Sydney is largely intact and upright on the seabed. A section of about 25m at the cruiser’s bow was missing.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has declared the sites of the Sydney and Kormoran wrecks as war graves and placed them under protection.
He hopes the discovery of the Sydney would provide “some closure” for the families and relatives of its crew – words that indicate, perhaps, the mystery of the missing crew may well be one of those “unknown or unknowable” as the parliamentary committee once acknowledged.
NOTHING seems to be out of reach for Australia’s new outward-looking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Even before the local issues of the nation’s future are settled, he has already begun to tackle the global economy, its challenges and the major political and security issues facing the Asia-Pacific region.
The new economic move, together with a new foreign policy that focuses on maximising global and regional stability, is part of the new direction of his government, which will also create what Rudd describes as “middle-power diplomacy”.
The foreign policy’s new direction is contained in a series of speeches he made before and during his 17-day tour of the United States, Europe and China, which began last week.
To a group of international political and intellectual leaders at a conference in Canberra on the eve of his departure, he pointed out that the challenge facing Australian policymakers of the future is “acute”.
“Australia today lives in an increasingly joined-up world,” he declared. “If Australia fails to engage with global economic, security and environmental challenges, we will simultaneously fail to deal with their impact on our own country.
“This means, in order to advance Australia’s interests at home, we must increasingly be engaged with other nations in responding to the challenges to those interests abroad.
“Foreign policy, foreign economic policy and national security policy must increasingly be seen as the natural expression and extension of the nation’s domestic policy interests ?”
He then outlined why Australia will require itself to be more internationally active and why it will need a new period of active, creative middle-power diplomacy.
To achieve the sort of global and regional outcomes that are consistent with Australian interests, Rudd insisted that the country cannot simply rely on its own national assets.
Australia, which will increase its overseas development assistance to 0.5% of its GNI by 2015, must act in partnership with its allies, friends and the broader international community.
One of his immediate concerns is the current uncertainty in the global economic and financial market. The size and distribution of the losses from the sub-prime crisis is still unknown although banks have written down, so far, a total of US$195bil.
The financial crisis and its flow-on effects in the US housing market will cause a wider downturn in the US economy, the largest in the world. In turn, it will adversely affect regional economies and that of Australia’s, the world’s 15th biggest economy.
The Australian Stock Market is valued at more than A$1.9tril – three times bigger than the Singapore Stock Market and about half the size of Hang Seng (which also includes the mainland China-based companies).
In this uncertain environment, the Australian government is now working with other national governments and regulatory agencies on how to co-ordinate the most effective global response to the challenges facing the international economy.
In his address to the US think-tank group, The Brookings Institute, in Washington DC, Rudd said Australia’s sophisticated foreign policy establishment is deeply enmeshed with the countries of Asia and the Pacific.
The issue of human rights in China as demonstrated by the recent violence in Tibet, he said, required dialogue and restraint.
Rudd, who speaks Mandarin fluently and was formerly Australian ambassador in Beijing, said it was worthwhile thinking through how Western countries might try together and draw the differing concepts of “responsible stakeholder” and a “harmonious world” approach as articulated by China.
“The idea of ‘harmonious world’ depends on China being a participant in the world order and, along with others, acting in accordance with the rules of that order,” he said.
Rudd believes that the key is to encourage China’s active participation in efforts to maintain, develop and become integrally engaged in global and regional institutions, structures and norms.
But, at the same time, it is important to be aware that China is rapidly increasing its military spending, developing its inter-continental ballistic missile force and other shorter-range rocket forces and expanding its maritime capability.
Rudd also made it quite clear that whatever one thought of the US, without its involvement in the global interests, the security and economic stability in the world is not possible.