November 1999 and the Shaping of Modern Australia

More than any other comparable democracy in the English-speaking world, Australia puts constitutional change in the hands of its citizens. Count us all as equal, make the case for and against, and then ask the tens of millions of us if we want change. It is a remarkably democratic approach and outlook.

Nothing like that is true in the US, or in Canada, the country most similar to Australia in the world. In Canada constitutional change is something that politicians can impose on the people, just as they did back in 1982 when there was no referendum, indeed not even a single election (national or provincial) on the issue of whether to repatriate the Canadian Constitution with a new, highly potent Charter of Rights added in. The country’s politicians and chattering classes arranged this wholly without consulting the people.

Not so in Australia, no doubt to the immense annoyance of many politicians and inner-city bien pensants. Anyone asked what clearly has shaped modern Australia must point to this somewhere near the top of any list. Allowing for an argument from New Zealanders, we are the most democratic of the countries in the Anglosphere, lacking as we do any sort of national bill of rights and requiring all big-ticket change to be put directly to the voters. (That fact, of course, also explains the absence of a bill of rights.)

To see this most clearly, go back to early November 1999. The issue is whether to become a republic. Ranged on the Yes side are most of the newspapers, as well as virtually all of the Labor side of politics and a significant chunk of the Coalition. Messrs Whitlam and Fraser have made common cause in favour of ditching the monarchy. So have Paul Keating and Greg Craven. Malcolm Turnbull is leading the charge. The great and the good—at least in terms of how they see themselves—reckon this is a no-brainer.

A few stalwarts disagree. The prime minister at the time, John Howard, is one. Tony Abbott is another. One might go so far as to say that Mr Abbott’s opposition to the republic was both the making of the man as well as a prime cause of the unending loathing of him by self-styled opinion-formers in the ABC, where Mr Abbott remains an inexplicable figure.

On the day, the people—you and I, the voters—give a massive thumbs down to the proposed change. It loses nationally and in every single state. It even fails in Victoria. And as every cutting-edge progressive knows, if you can’t win in Victoria you can’t win anywhere. The gnashing of teeth of those adhering to the ABC worldview is audible throughout the inner cities. Malcolm Turnbull afterwards goes so far as to blame the defeat on Mr Howard, not grasping that in Australia the need to ask the voters imposes real constraints on the utopian plans of the great and the good. It is the millions of voters, not Mr Howard, who have said “No”.

Why, though, is that date in early November 1999 one that must rank as a key event in the making of modern Australia? It is tempting to answer by pointing out the obvious. Had the people said “Yes”, and we had become a republic, there would be no question as to the event that most observers would pick as having most shaped today’s Australia. Indeed we would have taxpayer-funded prizes and competitions galore and ABC-sponsored lectures celebrating the event. Much like Groundhog Day, every day would be a variant on the same theme. Think of Kevin Rudd’s now embarrassing 2020 Summit, held back in 2008, in which North Korean-style levels of the invited cognoscenti said they favoured a republic, and you’d have some idea of what things in a modern-day “Republic Australia” would be like. Amongst polite company, there would be no room to doubt what had most shaped modern Australia.

And if that answer would be good enough for all those pro-republic geese, why not too for the ganders who favoured the status quo? Why would an imagined Yes vote back in 1999 be a pivotal event, but not so a real-life No vote? What sort of preconceptions and presuppositions must you bring to the table to make that plausible?

As I said, it is tempting to ask such questions to anyone who doubts the centrality to today’s Australia of the vote to retain our constitutional monarchy. But let us suppose we can resist that temptation. There are two further reasons for counting this No event as pivotal.

First, there is the attitude of mind that it exemplified. Give Australians a choice between a soppy, utopian, “symbolism is all that matters” option and a hard-nosed, “weigh the costs carefully against the supposed benefits” alternative, and most Australians will prefer the latter. It seems to lie at the heart of who we are as a country today.

If you doubt that, just consider the saga of Julia Gillard’s carbon tax. In at least one sense this was a replay of the republic debate, again with Mr Abbott on the winning side.

You have on the one hand the crowd that deals in symbolism and bumper-sticker self-righteousness, and on the other those who want to weigh claimed benefits against costs and who are suspicious of grandiose moralising. Australia has more voters of the latter inclination.

For me, this is an immensely attractive national characteristic, one to be celebrated. For those toiling away as producers and presenters for the ABC, or who dwell in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney, it is a trait they would no doubt describe in different terms. Yet it lies at the heart of our country today. We saw it at work back in November 1999 and we see it today still.

The second reason for seeing the No vote as pivotal to shaping Australia today is because it reinforced Australia’s amazingly sturdy democratic credentials. On big-ticket issues, not even politicians can operate behind the backs of the voters. They have to ask the rest of us. This is not the case in the European Union, where the words democratic and deficit go together more easily even than farm and subsidies or structural and unemployment. As for Canada and the United States, one sometimes wonders if there are any important social issues these days not ultimately decided by nine unelected ex-lawyers in their Supreme Courts, rather than by the voters.

Even Tony Abbott, he of Australians for Consti­tutional Monarchy and anti-carbon-tax fame, and our most recently kneecapped prime minister, is finding this out. So, soon, will his kneecapper, our present prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. You see, neither Mr Abbott nor Mr Turnbull can go behind the backs of us voters, not even on an issue laden with such good intentions as wanting to change our Constitution in some way to recognise our indigenous population.

And that, too, means that any such desired constitutional amendment may well lose, as voters weigh up the costs and benefits of the proposal, rather than satisfy themselves with puffed-up symbolism and vague, undeliverable promises of some better world down the track.

That is the messy reality of democracy, after all. Count everyone equally, ask the question, and then count heads. The majority wins. There is no special weighting for you because you see yourself at the vanguard of changing social values, or because the cause really, really matters to you, or because you happen to be employed by the ABC or the Human Rights Commission or some progressive think-tank. Or because you are a politician who hopes to avoid consulting the voters, the people who gave you your job. (If any readers’ thoughts are digressing to the same-sex-marriage debate, well, they can be forgiven for that.)

Come what may in Australia, you have to get your hands dirty by going out and convincing a majority of your fellow citizens that your preferred option or policy ought to prevail. If you can’t do that, you lose. That is what democracy is all about at its core. That, too, is what sets Australia apart from countries otherwise similar to us, the world’s Canadas and Britains and United States. We take democracy more seriously than they do.

So yes, this infuriates a good many of the bien pensant class, who prefer their democracy with a hefty dose of judicial oversight and imposed international law. But that’s not the Australian way.

We saw this hard-headedness and commitment to democracy on display back in November 1999. We see it still. It lies at the heart of Australia’s success and greatness. So celebrate it. And be thankful you live in a country where you and everyone else have to be asked before big changes can take place. To paraphrase Tom Jones, “It’s quite unusual to be asked by anyone.”