TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH ANGELA CATTERNS, TRIPLE J, 8 JUNE 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
AC: In the Morning Show with Angela Catterns, and joining us now from the
Lodge, to fill us in more on his vision of an Australian republic, is the
Prime Minister Paul Keating. Good morning, Mr Keating.
PM: Good morning, Angela.
AC: What sort of person do you think should be President?
PM; Well, someone I think who commands the broad respect of the
community, who can be the embodiment of the nation while ever he or
she holds the office, and who can secure the support of the major
parties.
AC: Why should the Parliament choose the President, and not the people?
PM: Because I think that were we to go to a popular election, the President
would be the only person in the Australian political system who is
popularly elected, and enjoying wide powers. You see, at the 1993
election where people think I was elected Prime Minister, in fact I
wasn't. I was elected the Member for Blaxiand. I was elected a
member of the Labor Parliamentary Party. It's the parliamentary party
who chose me to be Prime Minister, and it was the Governor-General
who appointed me. And that goes for the Ministers they were elected
to their seats, and they were chosen by the Caucus of the
Parliamentary Party, and then appointed by the Governor-General.
So, the system is at the moment diffuse it is wide, and there is no one
person enjoying the preponderance of power. But if you elect
somebody who has an election at large, who is there for say 5 years,
and who can't be if you like unelected, and who also enjoys wide
powers, the whole system of Government that we have of
representative democracy, of people voting in their constituencies, of
MP's relating to their communities, of shifts in public opinion becoming
very manifest and obvious on various issues as you see now that will
become a thing of the past. And we would go to a far more
Presidential system, such as France, where basically, the head of
government is the head of state, and a President can just bring on and
dismiss Prime Ministers as they see fit.
AC: But won't leaving the choosing to politicians mean that they will choose
a politician for the job?
PM: No I think the opposite of that is true. It has been left to politicians
now, and we have rarely ever chosen politicians for the job, other than
those who have distinguished themselves. But what I said last night
was that sitting parliamentarians can't run for office can't be
considered nor can MP's who haven't retired 5 years earlier. The
most likely because you would have to get the support of both major
parties the most likely situation would be that you would get people
like Sir Ninian Stephen, or Sir Zelman Cowan people who have long
periods of distinguished service to the public and the community, who
can command the support of say in this case, the Labor Party, the
Coalition or the minor parties that's the sort of person you would get.
But if you have an election, you will have the Labor Candidate for
President, you will have the Liberal Party Candidate for President, and
then you will have party election campaigns, and a party politician will
win it, probably.
AC: Mr Keating, so your suggestion is that the President be chosen by a
two-thirds majority of parliament at a joint sitting. John Howard and
Lloyd Waddy both pointed out past examples of where one party held
a two-thirds majority of both Houses, had a joint sitting been held how
could a President remain politically neutral then?
PM: There has never been a situation since the War where one party
has commanded a two-thirds majority.
AC: But that's not to say it might not happen in the future?
PM: It may not, and somebody made the point that if Malcolm Fraser had
won one more seat in 1975, that Party would have had a two-thirds
majority. Well, if the Liberal Party was then able to command such
wide community support then, it was entirely appropriate then that that
support be reflected in the choice of candidate for President. You see,
I mean that if they are really saying that all of the rest of the political
system didn't even add up to one-third in other words they had the
two-thirds why should the one-third decide less than one-third
decide who is to be the candidate?
AC: What about the idea of having a referendum to determine how we
choose the head of state, so that everybody at least has had a say?
PM: Well, the problem about that is that it's not a simple matter if, for
instance, were we to decide to have a popular election, we wouldn't be
in a position to leave the so-called reserve powers with that person.
That is, were we to have a popular election, we would have to decide
what powers the President had, compared to the current Governor-
General. Now, under the proposal I outlined last night, they are the
same powers. So, we are leaving quite substantial powers with the
President, but we are saying the source on authority for the President
is constrained by the mode of his or her election by the two houses of
Parliament. But if it's to be a public election, where the president
would be above the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and the
Parliament, then we would have to seriously consider delineating the
powers. That means, by Constitutional change, so there can be no
simple referendum. Your question was why don't you let the people
decide what the nature of the appointment is, but it can't be say
popular election, or non-popular election, because to say popular
election comes with a heap of qualifiers. But who says.. . who is to say
what the qualifiers are? I mean, for a start the Liberal Party won't
agree, and remember this that every word, every dot point, dotted " i"
and crossed that goes to a referendum, has to go through the
Federal Parliament. And then to be agreed, it has to be agreed by a
majority of voters in a majority of States. So, in this one, you have got
to be fairly sure the first time around that you have got an adoptable
proposal. Because if you are not, the history of referenda in Australia
is a very poor one.
AC: You said you would let each State decide if they want to have an
Australian head of state. Couldn't that lead to a ridiculous situation
where the Commonwealth might be a republic, but certain States still
keep the Queen as their head of state?
PM: It would mean any State government that so decided that would have
to run the gamut of public opinion. I mean, we would have the
president of the Commonwealth of Australia and we would have the
governor equivalent position in a number of States and then we would
have somebody who was a representative of Queen Elizabeth the
Second. Now, I think, most States, all States, would probably once the
country decided to have a republic that they would quit on the idea.
But you never know, but it would only last until the next Labor
government came along and it would change anyway.
AC: Mr Keating, should we have the right perhaps as suggested by the
Democrats to at least make nominations for our president?
PM: Well, the Democrats and the Liberal and National parties with this
Government for instance, would have a right of consultation because it
would be intolerable for a candidate to have the government of the day
saying ' well look, we won't consult you, we will just propose at a joint
sitting your name, we won't consult the parties, we will just propose
your name at a joint sitting'. What would happen is that person would
be defeated. So, it will mean that the government of the day, if we are
speaking of now, as Prime Minister I would need to approach the
Coalition parties and the Democrats and say ' look, this is what we
have in mind'. And so, that is the best form of consultation, I think, If
they say ' oh no, we don't think that is the right person, will you come
back with another person?' That is how a process like this would work.
At the moment, the Prime Minister alone can at his or her nomination
propose to the Queen the name of a person. For instance, as you
know the current Governor-General is reaching the end of his term.
Very shortly, I will open a process up with Queen Elizabeth about his
replacement, but I have to secure no support from the Coalition or any
other party. In this proposal it is a complete change. It would mean
that the government's nominee has to have the support also of the
other parties.
AC: What would the referendum ask in 1998 or 1999?
PM: It would be framed so as to competently make a constitutional shift to
the republic. I don't think I am in a position now to give you the words,
but the sense of it would be that the position of Governor-General
would be removed from the Constitution and in place thereof the words
' President of the Commonwealth of Australia' and there would be a
change to the Constitution saying that that person should act primarily
on ministerial advice and it would be framed pretty much as I said last
night.
AC: What is your reluctance about having a constitutional convention?
PM: Because they are basically just elitist and they are not the initiating
body. You see, the Constitutional Conventions nearly everyone in
Australia who doesn't want to do anything says ' let's have a
convention' because that is the great black hole of constitutional
proposals. They are the dark holes of constitutional reform. They
have nearly all failed since the war and we have held over a dozen of
the things and as a consequence we have to face this fact: that we
now have a Constitution this is not the 1890s in the 1890s the
convention was the proponent of the Constitutional proposal. But once
we adopted a Constitution and a Commonwealth of Australia, once we
had the Constitution the Parliament and the Parliament only is the
initiating body for a referendum. John Howard has been running
around saying ' oh, let's have a People's Convention', but the greatest
Peoples Convention is a referendum. We have got to get a majority of
electors in a majority of States and a majority overall. There is the
public expression, the democratic expression. But, to have a little elite
group of 10 or 12 parliamentarians from each State, a representative
sprinkle of the community groups, that is not a peoples convention, it is
just an elite discussion group.
AC: But, if it transpires that that is what most Australians want, are you
open minded about the way that this republic might come about?
PM: Want, in which sense do you mean?
AC: Well, if it transpires that during the debate now, that most people do
want to have some kind of a convention, that they want to get together
and discuss it more in more formal ways, are you open minded about
they way it will come about?
PM: I don't think people will want to be in a ruse. That is, the notion that a
convention can propose a constitutional amendment when it can't. Do
you understand? We have a Constitution which says the only initiating
body is the Parliament. So no convention and no party leader not
me, not John Howard, not anybody can give a convention that power.
The power only resides with the Parliament. You see when pressed..
you have got to read Mr Howard's text finely, someone said to him
the other day and certainly to his predecessor ' does that mean that
if you had a convention, you would then adopt the outcome of the
convention?' ' oh, no, no, we would only take it as some advice to us.
We wouldn't be under an obligation to actually put it into place'. In
other words, what he wants is a talkshop. What he really wants is not
to say where he stands. You see, I put the simple question to Mr
Howard a number of times: does he believe an Australian person, an
Australian, should be the Australian head of State? It is not a complex
question. It is a very simple issue. He has a chance tonight to tell us.
He is more likely to tell us, on his record of the last couple of days, he
is more likely to tell us that he will have a constitutional convention
which will discuss the Senate powers or discuss the external affairs
power. In other words, he will do anything but say that he believes in
the monarchy which is what, I believe, he still believes in. He believes
in having the English Monarch as the Australian head of state and the
only way he can dispel that notion of belief in that system is to say he
stands for an Australian being our head of state.
AC: Mr Keating, how will you gauge public reaction and opinion and debate
about your proposals. How will you keep your ear to the ground?
PM: You can tell with these debates, all of us, you are in the broadcasting
business Angela, and you can feel the opinion change on your
program you can talk to people, you can say ' look, that's going poorly'
or ' that's going well' and if you look at the debate today, the ambient
climate within which this proposal has been launched compared to,
say, two and half years ago when I first mentioned it in the policy
speech at the election. It is a completely different climate. And, what
we are saying is from here to 1998 or 1999 which is a number of years
away, there is an adequate opportunity to debate for the first time a set
of proposals. Last night I gave the nation a set of proposals to debate.
Not just a waffly idea about a republic, but actually saying what the
modalities of such a change would be. What the mode of such a
change might be. What we will do is listen to the debate, hear what
people say and cut our cloth accordingly. But, I bring you back to that
central point, the only body in the Constitution able to propose a
constitutional amendment is the Parliament. So, it must come back to
the Government in the House of Representatives.
AC: Mr Keating, was that an exciting thing to do, to give that speech in
Parliament last night? It was quite exciting to watch.
PM: I think it was a great pity, in a sense, that in the telecast the ABC
completed it the moment I stopped speaking, because they wouldn't
have seen the public galleries break out in spontaneous applause
which was very surprising and pleasing to me. Normally the public
galleries are very restrained in the Parliament, but as far as I could
see, it was unanimous. There would have been 700 or 800 people
there. So, it was a fair test, I thought, of whether the proposals in the
speech were capable of engendering, as I have said before, a touch of
excitement. I think, it probably did.
AC: Who do you think will be most resistant to change?
PM: I think John Howard. The reason I do is because I think he is a 1970s
politician with a 1950' s view of the world.
AC: Mr Keating, you said no former politician can run for five years after
leaving politics if they were to run for the position of president. If you
stepped down next year, that means you could be up for the post in
2001, is that an attractive career option for you?
PM: No, and I would never nominate for it, ever. Not ever.
AC: Why not?
PM: No, because, I think, this [ PM] is the paramount political job in terms of
the capacity to effectively change and reform an economy and society
and I also don't believe that anybody so associated with a
constitutional change like this should, in some way, exploit it or take
advantage of it. So, for my part, I would never consider the position.
This is not about me. This is about Australia being able to adequately
represent the country we have become. The people we are and the
clear notion that the head of state could only, really, represent
Australia well when that person is one of us.
AC: Mr Keating, just finally, who do you think might be the last Governor-
General, given that your model is accepted and goes ahead?
PM: That is something the Government has got to think about in the next
few months.
AC: And assuming that there is an election before his term is up, might you
take into account Mr Howard's views and wishes regarding who would
be the Governor-General?
PM: If I asked Mr Howard or Mr Fraser in the last period of their office,
would they desist from making an appointment of Governor-General or
a legitimate appointment of that government within the capacity of that
government, within the gift of that government. They would reject such
a proposal out of hand. This is an appointment which the Government
will soon have to put into motion. Normally, the protocols are that the
Prime Minister starts to enter into a discussion with Her Majesty about
six months before the appointment is made and the position changes
and that period is coming up now and were Mr Howard to be Prime
Minister and were I to ask him to delay this into the next Parliament, he
would laugh at me.
AC: Mr Keating, thank you so much for your time this morning. It has been
terrific to have you on the morning show.
PM: Good Angela, thank you indeed.
ends