VI(> 1
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH PAUL LYNEHAM, SPECIAL EDITION 7.30 REPORT,
ABC TV, 8 JUNE 1995
E& OE PROOF ONLY
PL: Prime Minister welcome.
PM: Paul.
PL: Now John Howard says that under your system we won't get what we
the people want, we are going to get what you want in the end.
PM: I think his colleague Jeff Kennett said it very eloquently today.
He answered Mr Howard's point that what can be more democratic
than a referendum where everybody has a say. I mean the
Government and the Parliament could propose, or put a proposal to
the community, that every person in the community has a say, has a
vote, and they can reject it, or accept it.
PL: But what happens between now and the referendum, we just all sort of
mill around talking to each other do we?
PM: No, we will do what we have intelligently done since this debate began.
That is, we will consider the prospects of an Australian person
becoming our head of state, consider what it means for Constitutional
change, how it might be approached, how the change might be made,
what it will mean to the country. Now that's happened already. We
have seen a lot of debate, where now all of us, I think, are better in
touch with the issues than we were then. We commissioned the
Republic Advisory Committee Report, they consulted widely, that was
reported, that debate has been had. Now I have, on behalf of the
Government, put a set of proposals. This is promoting this debate
between you and me tonight, Mr Howard etc and that will go on.
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PL: But the Civic Experts Group presented you with a report recently that
said there is a great deal of ignorance in the community about the very
basics of our political system, isn't there?
PM: That is probably right. But you'll never have perfection about that. But
that is not to say that we are then incapable of changing anything.
Look at the changes Australia has made, both economically and
socially, over the last 12 years they have been profound.
PL: But how do we make sure that John Howard's fear that it is going to be
divisive doesn't occur. I mean we wouldn't want to risk the
PM: Well the thing is tonight, he squibbed the central question. There was
only one question to answer and that was does he, forget the
modalities, but does he believe an Australian should be our head of
state. He wouldn't answer that question. He did everything to skate
around that question, but he wouldn't come to the central question. In
the final analysis he had to say " let's go to a peoples' convention" and
then he had the temerity to say he would actually appoint half the
people going to it. And so you would have a small cabal, half
appointed by him, and in some way that supplants the rights of
18 million people, a nation of 18 million, of the electorate of this
country, the people of this country, to vote on a set of proposals in the
most democratic of acts.
PL: Nevertheless I think many Australians would have agreed with him
when he said that it ought to be as non-political as possible this
debate.
PM: Oh well I mean that is like saying we want the air outside to be as full
of oxygen as we would like it. I mean who is going to disagree with
that? What I said last night was that, and today, if we can get
agreement on the central point, that an Australian should be our head
of state, the rest of it will fall into place. But that requires some
leadership and he wouldn't provide it. You see in some respects I
have got more respect for the Leader of the National Party who says
he believes in the Constitutional Monarchy. He believes in the Queen
remaining the head of state of this country. What Mr Howard
wouldn't do anything. He is basically in favour of the Monarchy, but he
wouldn't come and say so because he thinks it will offend too much
Republican sentiment.
PL: He says the system is working quite well and you have got to prove to
him why it should be if it isn't broke, why fix it?
PM: In other words, if I have to lead and if I lead sufficiently he may follow.
Well, in that case, why does he want to supplant me as the leader. Let
me get on and go on keep on doing it.
PL: Today in Parliament it looked like a real red-hot partisan issue, didn't it
though? I mean your side yes. Their side raising all doubts and
questions. I mean if this is the flavour we are going to have
PM: No, it's like it has been for all the years I have been here, the Party of
social attack. The Party of change, the Labor Party, keeps on
advancing Australia, moving it forward and the lead weight is dragged
along behind. Mr Howard always spotting the most conservative
position he can adopt and you remember they said that, you know, we
shouldn't have the Australia Act, appeals to the Privy Council should
be maintained. All of that baggage has gone, we are the better for it.
We will be the better for it for this change. I mean it is not just that
those of us who want to see Australia's culture, identity perfectly
reflected in this way should have to drag them along with us. But they
should at least provide some leadership and say we believe. I mean
here he was tonight talking about he said " I'm going to have a
convention with 50 per cent appointed and I am going to put some
people in there 18-25, young Australians". But he wouldn't let one of
those young Australians become the President of the Commonwealth
of Australia. He wants instead for Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain
to be our head of state and not one of those young Australians.
PL: Well let's hear from some of these young Australians. While
Mr Keating was delivering his speech to Parliament last night,
Andrew Olle went to James Ruse High School in Sydney's North West
to see what impact the Prime Minister had on the students and their
parents.
( panel discussion)
PL: Well, pressured into it? Keating's personal baby?
PM: That's called leadership. That's what leadership is about getting a
country a choice, and that's what is involved here. The choice is to be
exercised only by a majority of voters, in a majority of States, and a
majority overall. I mean, the first person who spoke [ in the panel
discussion] talked about " Keating's cronies". Well, the " cronies" are
the Australian people they are the only people who can carry a
Constitutional change. There's no way the Constitution can change,
other than by a referendum provided for in the current Constitution.
PL: There seemed to be a belief in that statement that you and your
cronies would be choosing this head of state, as distinct from the idea
that they wanted to choose this person themselves?
PM: No. I thought more that the question was put " what difference does it
make he and his cronies are choosing?" Well, for a start, the public
alone choose this, in the most democratic of acts, across the country
have a singular decision to make it, the point a referendum is put.
That referendum will be some years from now, so some of these
concepts will be much better understood. But when it is put, then there
will be a process whereby a head of state will be selected. That head
of state it would be my wish that head of state is not a political
person. But, if it is, by the way by popular election, it has to be a
political person, because the candidate on the Labor side would be
chosen by the National Conference, or the Executive of the Labor
Party, and the same would go for the Coalition. Now, it is not
necessarily to say that they would win, but both parties have
demonstrated a capacity to out organise anyone else that has come
along. So, if people want a non-partisan, if you like, non-political head
of state of the kind of the last , say, numbers of Governors-General Sir
Zelman Cowan, Sir Ninian Stephen then the proposal that I have put
on behalf of the Government is the best way of getting that.
PL: There does seem to be some discomfort about appearing to reject or
deny the Queen, who, of course, has wide respect in the community?
PM: That's true. But somebody said " the Queen is not seen by anybody as
representing Australia" well, that is exactly right. That's part of the
problem. When the Queen travels abroad, she travels as Queen of
England, and the Monarch of Great Britain. She never travels as
Queen of Australia, other than to Australia. So, if the Queen goes to
Europe or North America, she doesn't go there as Queen of Australia,
she goes as Queen of Great Britain. But if an Australian head of state
were to go to Asia or to Europe the same as we have seen in
Australia [ where] the Irish President, or the German President come
here the whole embodiment of the country comes with them. And
that's the point, we lose that opportunity. When Governments or Prime
Ministers or Ministers travel abroad, they are there to represent
Australia and do the business, but they are not there to embody the
nation the way in which the head of state is able to do.
PL: All right. Let's go back to school for a few minutes. According to the
opinion polls, Australians overwhelmingly prefer to elect the proposed
President directly. It's one issue on which nearly all politicians agree
to disagree with their electors. The students of James Ruse High
School and their parents are no different. As Andrew Olle found, they
seem to be deeply suspicious of politicians.
( panel discussion)
PL: Well, what happens, if at the end of this whole process, you find the
people still saying we want to make this a direct election?
PM: Let's wait and see. The Government has put a proposal down and we
have put it down for good reasons and that is that you can see by
those comments Paul, people are saying they are suspicious of the
policitical process. One person there insisting that politicians are not
to be trusted et cetera. But, there are in the Parliament roughly 200
people representing the constituencies of this country. It is a very
diffuse Parliament. Therefore it is a safe power. Diffuse power is safe
power. That is why the representative nature of the House of
Representatives and the proportional nature of the Senate, electing
Senators for a state at large, gives the people of this country a system
where no one is above it. The Prime Minister is not elected Prime
Minister by the people, but appointed by the Parliament, by the
Caucus. That is why the Government is saying don't elect a head of
state, that is not the preferred model because to do it you lose that
diffusion of power and you have one person only who becomes one
person who becomes the embodiment of the nation and is potentially
vested with substantial powers.
PL: Far more political clout than the Prime Minister of the day?
PM: Well, if you have an elected President and you were not to seriously
delineate the powers, you would have a complete change of
government. You would have a French presidential style system on
your hands and the power would move from the Westminster style
Cabinet and Prime Ministership and Parliament to that single person,
because that person would be the only person in the system who is
elected to it. I don't know whether it is generally understood. On
election night 1993, I wasn't elected Prime Minister, I was elected
Member for Blaxland. I was appointed Party leader at the subsequent
meeting of the Parliamentary Party which had a majority in the House
of Representatives and I was appointed Prime Minister by the
Governor-General. I could be unappointed. Ministers could be
unappointed. Opposition leaders could be unappointed. In other
words, one has to be relevant and at the same time there is a test on
you perpetually. But once one person and one person only is
popularly elected across the nation for, say, a five year period, they
are beyond the reach of the community and the power will gravitate
from the representative system we now have to that person.
PL: And you can only get rid of them by a vote of two-thirds of the joint
sitting of Parliament.
PM: Well, if they were elected you couldn't be rid of them other than
through a process of impeachment. As President Nixon had to
PL: Does this mean that we really ought to be writing down these powers,
spelling them out and isn't it really a political problem rather than a
legal one? If we sat down with goodwill couldn't Australians do this in
a weekend?
PM: No, I don't think so. Can we do it in a weekend? No. Could we do it?
Possibly, but you then have to understand, Paul, that we are writing for
the next 100 or 200 years, could you and I, in our crystal ball, see what
contingency may arise, that some person in the system should have
power to address. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing that that
power exists.
PL: But if they are not explicit, don't you become vulnerable to what
Professor Donald Horne has called the ' Queen Mother of all scare
campaigns'?
PM: I don't think so, no, because that is why we have proposed, last night,
that by providing some of these powers, not written, in other words,
reserve powers to the head of state, but where the source of the power
comes from the two Chambers of Parliament. No head of state can
wander around saying ' I am here by virtue of being blessed by
hereditary monarchy' or ' I am here, by the grace of God go It is only
by the grace of the House of Representatives and the Senate and the
House of Representatives and the Senate can unmake them. In other
words, there is a limited basis and source for the power, but there is a
substantial useful power there. But, if it is abused, they can be
unmade.
PL: And you can't be a candidate if you have been a politician within the
previous five years. Does that really, do you think, rule out the
prospects of President Keating?
PM: Well, it certainly rules me out. I have always, in this, ruled myself out.
This is not about me and it never will be. I would never ever contest
such a post however it was available. But, the important thing is, I
think, what we are seeking in the proposal that I have put on behalf of
the Government is basically people who have served the community
with distinction and who can enjoy the support of both major parties,
but there is no doubt as one of the younger members of that audience
made clear, if that person is elected you will have election campaigns
for President, just like you have in the United States and it is pounds to
peanuts that a politician will win. Whereas under the proposal that I
have put on behalf of the Government it will be a Ninian Stephen or a
Zelman Cowan or someone of that variety.
PL: Prime Minister, thanks for your time.
PM: Thank you, Paul.
ends