(no subject)

[theducks]

I find myself reading the Wikipedia article on "Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy" .. and then I have another though.. "what /did/ I vote in that referendum?"

Yes, I was given the opportunity to vote on if Australia should become a republic or not.

And I forgot what I chose. It's clear I held strong views on the subject.

As for my current views, I for one welcome our tiara wearing monarch.

As messed up as it sounds, I think it's for the good of everyone that the only way to become the absolute head of state of Australia (or UK, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis) is to win the ovarian lottery.

I once heard a comedian say "In the USA, anyone can become President, it's just one of the risks you take". I think it's true. There are many people in America who are driven to success, to be the most powerful and rich they can be. Get rich enough and you can become powerful. Get powerful and you can become rich. One day, you could even be President. Sure, not everyone wants that, and sure, you might have to marginalise people individually to get power/money, but hey, if they were successful, they'd be the ones doing the marginalising. It's a dog eat dog world.

Notably, in Australia, to an extent anyway, those who are too successful politically or financially, without remaining down to earth, are vilified by the common man. Look at Paul Keating (previous prime minister) versus Bob Hawke (the guy before). Hawke was Oxford educated, and is now worth close to $50m, Keating wasn't. But Keating was the sort of man to say "get a job you bludgers", while Hawke was more likely to play cricket with them. Hawke's biography claims (somewhat tongue in cheek perhaps) that his world record in beer drinking probably helped him win more votes than anything else he ever did. Hawke had down to earth charisma, Keating didn't. I think this is something we value more (cf: Tall poppy syndrome).

Now that's not for a minute to say that there aren't people in Australia who rise to success by marginalising others or by being ruthless, but no matter how hard they try, they won't become our head of state, and the success of multi-billionaires like Packer and Murdoch is only begrudgingly congratulated by most of our population, whereas American multi-billionaires like Buffet and Gates are lauded by the press in the US.

My point to all this is, as long as the monarch remains a placeholder to stop people from pushing their way all the way to the top, I like to think people are encouraged along the way to stop and smell the roses.

Comments? :)

Comments

[dilettantiquity.livejournal.com]

November 11th, 1975? :P

[theducks.livejournal.com]

Bad example ;)

[goth-grrl.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty hard case to argue when the current monarch is a fucking awesome Queen. In an attempt to put my rose-tinted goggles aside, one thing I've always argued (when it's been demanded that I not debate on emotional grounds; I simply hate the idea of a President) is that a King or Queen is stuck with the job for life, or close to it. A temporary elected dude can happily make short-term crowd pleasing decisions, kiss the babies, and bugger off when his term is up.

Knowing that people are going to point the finger at you in a decade or two or five's time when something you cocked up comes to light certainly helps a person make some judgement calls with a bit more of the consideration I expect of somebody wielding that much power.

[theducks.livejournal.com]

Yup :) Good thing Edward VII abdicated.. otherwise we would have had king until 1977 who was chums with Hitler.

[goth-grrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, getting a complete prat on the throne is also a risk. It will come as no surprise that I voted against the Republic, but I was also motivated by the fact that the government model that was being pushed with the package was TERRIBLE. Always figured that it was a cunning bit of espionage by the Monarchists.

I guess the moral of the story is that a placeholder is just dandy, until you get a Lois the 16th (oh wow, I got that right from memory!).

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

This question is not rhetorical, I genuinely don't know the answer (although I suspect that it's "no").
Has Australia's reigning monarch (or, prior to 1952 the Monarch of Great Britain and her colonies) ever taken any action other than that advised by the Governor General?

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

Sorry, to clarify my "prior to 1952" part, I mean in their capacity as the head of state of Australia.

[goth-grrl.livejournal.com]

My brain wandered into fuzzy theory land, and sort of left out most of Alex's point entirely so that I could air my favorite anti-President rant. The Queen could (if our paperwork allows for it), I suppose, step in if she really, really, really needed to, but 99.9999999999999% of the time she's a figurehead that allows our system of government to...chug along on its own.

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

No "probably" about it. I was amused to see that this was one of the FAQs in the "Why you should vote Yes literature".

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see Britain written out of our Constitution. Most of my ancestors didn't have anything to thank the British for.

The idea that any Queen-replacement would be an "activist President" is a red herring put about by people like David Flint who can't bear the thought of having to extract their heads from the Plural Royal Buttocks. Much like the horror of "activist judges" who, you know, uphold the common law and stuff.

Codify the head of state's powers, no alarmism necessary. Make it a bipartisan political appointment, and no amount of striving gets you there.

Oh, and Keating did have down to earth charisma. Haven't you ever read the Keating Insults Page? And let's not forget that after ten years of government and a forcible leadership change, Keating was able to win the public over against Hewson. I'd like to have seen Costello attempt that at the coming election, not that he will now. Anyway, I think it's a mistake to suggest Keating didn't have charisma - if anything, he was more hated because he was charismatic but unlike most politicians, didn't always seek to be a small target.

[conradin.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I must say, I have always found the question of "What will we replace it with?" to be irrelevant...much like our monarch.

Do we want the queen of England to be our head of state, yes/no?

Ok, now that's sorted, if we have then decided that they shouldn't, how do we want to do this? We then take as long as is necessary to work out how we do this. Howard did a typical job of making it an urgent and there for frightening change. This is an important issue. It is not an urgent one, and not one that needs to be rushed into.

If enough people want the genetic lottery, we find the Tasmanian family that has been inbreeding longest, and set them up with the same powers as her maj...

[theducks.livejournal.com]

To be picky, our head of state is the Queen of Australia. She just happens to be Queen of England too :P

[conradin.livejournal.com]

"Just happens" is an interesting phrase :P Makes it sound like she came to both roles independently.

Anyway...half my morning coffee just ended up in my usb keyboard...

Grrrr

[infamyanonymous.livejournal.com]

The current political conditions say no. "President"? Eww. Queen? She's like that pair of shoes you wore to your first ball, and still love even though they don't fit anymore.
The model that was layed down for voting was, no question, edited together by the monarchists.
By the time the final referendum question was put together, it had pretty much been squished into a model that was only worthwile if you were a politician. It became less of a "Do you want to ditch the Queen?" and more of a "Do you want the current government to be an autocracy?"
Funnily enough, the only state in which that question passed was the ACT (63%). The 'rural' areas said "Fuck no", but despite the government situation we'd have had being absolutely shithouse, we still got a lot of people saying yes. Which means, according to my TEE research assignment (:P), that Australia as a whole (aside from the ACT, which I don't personally count as a territory) had no idea what they were voting on. The best way to sabotage a referendum is to make the question rambling and complicated (see conscription). Effectively, in 1999, people were saying "Monarchy meh", except that the referendum system is fuxed. Another way to get a referendum 'No' is to tack on an unpopular question. Hey presto, the completely random question of adding a preamble, which mainly just kisses butt of everyone under contention (war, indigineous Australians [remember the "Sorry" deate?], imigrants [Tampa]), which didn't even get passed by the people who wrote the question.

Also, right now, changing the political system has the unpalatable taint of "Revolution". I hardly need to point out that, in times of political turmoil and international instability, the People will vote conservative, and not want change. Thank god that it didn't go ahead, in retrospect.

(Oh, and I've found that, Australians being what we are, the vocal minority forms the basis for each side. And most of us are standing there shrugging out shoulders saying "She'll be right, mate." We're not a red state/blue state country.)

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

So in light of the fact that you have researched this more than I, do you have a short list for why you think the proposed model's president was worse than the current system of governor general?

[infamyanonymous.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't really care whether we're a monarchy or a republic.

The main problem with the proposed model was that the President, who would have the powers of both the Queen and the Governor General, would not be directly appointed by the electorate. He or she would be appointed by Parliament by a two thirds majority.
So, that means that we're only replacing the monarchy with someone chosen by the people he's supposed to be acting independantly of, if that makes any sense. From memory, the President would be a member of a political party, and considering that one party often has majority in both houses, it'd be one of them and hardly likely to be impartial, like the GG is supposed to be.
From that side, it's not really an improvement, or step forward.

The other thing is, if Aussies want to be a Republic, we'd more likely conform further to the Washington system, but without the stupid first past the post system and using the compulsory voting. Having a Prime Minister and a President? This will definately not aleviate the 'issue' of people not understanding the system of government, which the Republican movement said was an issue.

And we'd be removing another level of veto. Queen can veto the GG, who can veto the PM, who can veto Parliament. There's other rules which come into play, like the third strike thing, (where a bill that fails both houses can be forced through, or GG can call a double dissolution), and so forth.

A Republic wouldn't be so bad, but really, not that way. There's a reason the only state that passed it was where all the pollies live.

[singularity.livejournal.com]

I'm not as knowledgeable about how much power the Queen actually has over the various countries...but for the most part, we've become independent states and the Queen doesn't do squat with our internal affairs. Yeah we have the Queen's representative but again, no real power. It's all ceremonial as far as I know.

That is why so many want to get rid of the Monarchy, because it's not doing anything to benefit our country since she has no power over it. That's been the big debate here anyway. But there's been no big movement of people (aside from Quebec and some in the West of course) who want her gone. I figure she's a connection with our past that should be acknowledged and understood to help guide our future. If you know where you came from it's easier to know where to go type of idea. After all, there's no harm in her being in that position.

Unless of course, I'm completely wrong on her powers ;)