Queen's birthday

Monday was an Australian public holiday for the Queen’s birthday. Yes, you did read that right: a holiday for the Queen’s birthday… we don’t even get that in the UK. It prompted me to see where Rudd had got to with the Labor party’s previous commitment for a referendum on the constitution. It runs out nowhere much.

I’m sure this is probably the right answer from a practical, if not principled, perspective. Of course it is patently absurd for a modern and monocultural Australia to have a Head of State as the British Monarch even if it’s a de jure rather than de facto role. (Indeed in my opinion goes for the UK too). As one amusing line goes, Australia needs “a resident for President”.

But equally constitutional reform is not something to get into lightly. First, it requires have a clear idea of the alternative division of executive, legislative and judiciary functions. It’s not good enough just to have a referendum on whether you think current arrangements are silly or not. One proposed model is to transfer functions to a President (which I guess would be a relatively low profile role like in Germany), but disputes then arise whether this figure should be elected or appointed. Another is to retain the role of the Governor-General while abolishing the functions of the Queen. A more ambitious model is the US-style Presidential model, although this would have quite drastic implications for Australia’s entire constitutional structure.


So, second, and I think the most telling factor why Republicanism is going nowhere in the short-term is that the process of constitutional reform has huge opportunity costs for a government’s entire policy programme. Is the principle of the matter so important to the Labor Government that they are prepared to allow it to hijack the already ambitious reform agenda? I suspect not. After all it took the America over a decade and some of the best brains in history to get their constitutional framework in place, and arguably they had a much easier starting place. If I’m right, it’ll be knocked quietly into the long grass for at least the first-term. After that, who knows…