This is the transcript of the speech that Daniel Deniehy gave at the Victorian theatre in Sydney, and the speech that effectively removed William Wentworth's desire to have an aristocracy created in Australia and reflected in a titled upper house of NSW. It was no longer publicly palatable. As it was, the NSW government ended up with an appointed Senate anyway.

Deniehy had a habit of writing and speaking of himself in the third person. Which can make his speeches and writings confusing. In this speech when he says, "he" he means himself in the third person. Deniehy is putting himself in the position of the naive outsider looking into Australian society and being shocked by the "Dunghill Nobility" and "Bunyip Aristocracy" . It was all in one big chunk, so I have taken the liberty of editing it so that it is more palatable to the internet medium. I have added paragraphs, and added small blockquoted notes to describe historical aspect that he is lampooning.

This speech was also published in; Our First Republicans. Lang, Harpur and Deniehy , Editors are David Headon and Elzabeth Perkins. The publication of the speech in the book carries, "Sydney Morning Herald, 16 August 1853".

The Bunyip Aristocracy Speech

Mr. Deniehy seconded the resolution [that this meeting pledges itself to resist, by every constitutional means in its power, the formation of a second chamber which is not based on popular suffrage]. Why he had been selected to speak to the present resolution he knew not, save that as a native of the colony he might naturally be expected to feel something like real interest, and to speak with something like real feeling on a question connected with the political institutions of the country. He would do his best to respond to that invitation 'Speak up,' and would perhaps balance deficiencies flowing from a small volume of voice by in all cases calling things by their right names. (Cheers.)

He protested against the present daring and unheard-of attempt to tamper with a fundamental popular right - that of having a voice in the nomination of men who were to make, or control the making of, laws binding on the community - laws perpetually shifting and changing the nature of the whole social economy of a given state, and frequently operating in the subtlest forms on the very dearest interests of the citizen - on his domestic, his moral, perhaps his religious relations.

The name of Mr. Wentworth had frequently been mentioned there that day, and that on one or two occasions with an unwise tenderness, a squeamish reluctance to speak plain, English , and call certain nasty doings of Mr. Wentworth by the usual homely appellatives, simply because they were Mr. Wentworth's. He for one was nowise disposed, as preceding speakers had seemed, in tapping the vast shoulder of Mr. Wentworth's political recreancies, to 'damn him with faint praise and mistimed eulogy. '(Loud cheers.)

Note : William Wentworth (1793 - 1872) was the Sydney Lawyer, Explorer and later New South Wales politician. Wentworth along with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson became the first non-aboriginals to cross the Blue Mountains. Wentworth received two land grants after 1810. He founded the the newspaper, "The Australian" and drafted the initial NSW Constitution, as well as having a hand in the drafting of the NSW Constitution of 1855.

Wentworth's draft bills included limiting suffrage to land owners, and renters who earned as much as their landlords. The electorates were to remain the same as the gerrymandered ones of 1851 that gave undue power to landed interests. The bill also created a colonial aristocracy to populate the upper house and ensure the power of the landed interests.

Wentworth left Australia in the late 1850's and lived the rest of his life in England.

He had listened from boyhood upwards to grey tradition, Mr. Wentworth's demagogic Areopagitas - his speeches for the liberty of unlicensed printing regime of Darling; and for these and divers other deeds of a time when the honourable member for Sydney had to the full his share of the chivalrous pugnacities of five-and-twenty, he was as much disposed to give Mr Wentworth credit as any man. But with these perpetual fantasies, these everlasting variations on the 'Light of the other Days,' continually ringing in his ears, he (Mr D.) was fain to enquire by what rule of moral and political appraisal, it was sought to throw in a scale opposite to that containing the flagrant and shameless political dishonesty of years, the democratic escapades, sins long since repented of in early youth. '(Loud cheers)

The subsequent political conduct-rather the systemic political principles of Mr. Wentworth - had been such as would have been sufficient to cancel the value of even a century of action. The British Constitution had been frequently spoken of that afternoon in terms of unbounded laudation. That Constitution certainly deserved to be spoken of with respect; he (Mr. D.) respected it, no doubt they all respected it.

But his was a qualified respect at best, and in all presumed assimilations of the political hypotheses of our colonial Constitution-makers with the Constitution of Great Britain, he warned them not be seduced by mere words and phrases-sheer 'talkee talkee.' Relatively, it was not only an admirable example of slowly growing and gradually elaborated political experience, applied, set in action, but it was also eminent and exemplary as a long history, still evolving, of political philosophy. But it was after all but relatively good for its wonderfully successful fusion of principles the most antagonistic.

Circumstances entirely alter cases, and he would warn them to be seduced by no mere vague association exhaled from the use of venerable phrases, that had, what phrases now-a-days seldom could boast, genuine meanings attached to them. The patrician element existed in the British Constitution as did the regal, for good reasons-it had stood in the way of all late legislatorial thought and operation as a great fact; as such it was handled, and in a deep and prudential spirit of conservatism allowed to stand-but as affecting the basis and foundation of the architecture of a Constitution-the elective principle neutralised for all detrimental influence, by conversion, practically, into a mere check upon the deliberations of the initiative section of the Legislature. (Loud cheers.)

And having the right to frame, to embody, to shape it as we would, with no great stubborn facts to work upon as in England, there was nothing but the elective principle and the inalienable freedom of every colonist upon which to work out the whole organisation and body of our political institution. (Loud cheers.)

But because it was the good pleasure of Mr. Wentworth and the respectable tail of that puissant Legislative body, whose serpentine movements (loud laughter) were so ridiculous, we were not to form our own Constitution, but instead of this we were to have an Upper House and a Constitution cast upon us, upon a pattern which should suit the taste and propriety of political oligarchs who treated the people at large as if they were cattle to be bought and sold in the market (loud cheers); or as they indeed were in American slave States, and now in Australian markets (tremendous cheering), where we might find bamboozled coolies and kidnapped Chinamen. (Immense applause.)

And being in a figurative humour, he might endeavour to make some of the proposed nobility to pass before the stage of our imagination, as the ghost of Banquo walked along in the vision of Macbeth, so that we might have a fair view of these Harlequin aristocrats (laughter), these Botany Bay magnificos (laughter), these Australian mandarins. (Roars of laughter.)

Let them walk across the stage in all the pomp and circumstances of hereditary titles. First, then, in the procession stalks the hoary Wentworth. But he could not imagine that to such a head the strawberry leaves would add any honour. (Cheers.)

Next came the native aristocrat Mr. James Macarthur, he would he supposed, aspire to the coronet of an earl, he would call him the Earl of Camden, and he suggests for his coat of arms a field vert, the heraldic term for green-(great cheers and laughter)-and emblazoned on this field should be a rum keg of a New South Wales order of chivalry. There was also the colonial starred Terence Aubrey Murray, with more crosses and orders-not perhaps orders of merit-than a state of mandarinhood. (Loud laughter.)

Note : James MacArthur 1767 - 1834. MacArthur as a lieutenant was sent to the New South Wales colony where he quickly established himself as the paymaster for the New South Wales Corps. MacArthur used the military unit's funds to purchase imports and effectively made rum a de-facto currency in the colony. It is from this the New South Wales Corps became known as the "Rum Corps". The Rum Corps established monopolies on imports, local trade, policing and the justice system. This was broken with the coming of Governor William Bligh to the colony. MacArthur resisted Bligh's changes and ultimately through Major George Johnston, overthrew Bligh as Governor of NSW. This became known as the Rum Rebellion . MacArthur managed to secure 60,000 acres of property through his contacts in England and this became the large sheep farming concern at "Camden".

Another friend who claimed a colonial title was George Robert Nichols, the hereditary Grand Chancellor of all the Australias (Roars of laughter.) Behold him in the serene and moody dignity of that portrait of Rodius' that smiled on us in all the public-house parlours- (loud laughter) - the gentleman who took Mr. Lowe to task for altering his opinions; this conqueror in the lists of jaw, and the victor in the realms of gab. (It might be well to ridicule the doings of such a clique, but their doings merited burning indignation-yet, to speak seriously of such a project would too much resemble the Irishman's kicking at nothing, it wrenched one horribly. (Laughter.)

But, though their weakness was ridiculous, he could assure them that these pigmies [sic] might do a great deal of mischief. They would bring contempt on a country whose interest he was sure they all had at heart, until even the poor Irishman in the streets of Dublin would fling his jibe at the Botany Bay aristocrats. In fact, he was puzzled how to classify them. They could not aspire to the miserable and effete dignity of the grandees of Spain. (Laughter.)

They had antiquity of birth, but these he would defy any naturalist properly to classify them. But perhaps it was only a specimen of the remarkable contrariety that existed at the Antipodes. Here they all know the common water mole was transferred into the duck-billed platypus, and in some distant emulations of this degeneration, he supposed they were to be favoured with a bunyip aristocracy . (Great laughter.)

Note : Antipodes is often used in England to refer to Australia and New Zealand. The genus is from "Antipodal points" which are diametrically opposite on the surface of a sphere.

He trusted that this was only the beginning of a more extended movement, and from its auspicious commencement he augured the happiest results. (Cheers.) A more orderly, united, and consolidated movement he had never witnessed. He must say that he was proud to belong to Botany Bay.

He took it as no term of reproach, when he saw that there was such a keen sensibility on the subject of their political sights-(cheers)that the instant the liberties of their country were threatened, they could assemble, and with one voice, declare their determined and undying opposition. (Cheers.)

But he would remind them that this was not a selfish consideration, there were wider interests at stake. In the present disturbed state of Europe, they must calculate on having to receive the poor Russian flying from the knout of his oppressor. (Cheers.)

And also, looking at the gradually increasing pressure of political parties at home, they must prepare to open their arms and receive the fugitives from England, Scotland, and Ireland, who would hasten to gain a security and a competence, that appeared to be denied them in their own country. (Cheers.)

The interests of these countless thousands were involved in their decision on this occasion, and they looked, and were entitled to look, for a heritage befitting the dignity of free men. (Great cheering.) Bring them not here with delusive hopes-let them not find a new-fangled aristocracy haunting these free shores. (Cheers.)

But it is to yours to offer them a land, where man is rewarded for his labour, and where the law no more recognises the supremacy of a class, than it recognises the predominance of a religion. (Great cheering.) But there is an aristocracy worthy of our ambition. Wherever man's skill is eminent, wherever glorious manhood asserts its elevation, there is an aristocracy that confers honour on the land that possesses it. That is God's aristocracy. (Great cheering.)

That is an aristocracy that will grow and expand under free institutions, and bless the land where it flourishes. (Cheers.) He hoped they would take into consideration the hitherto barren condition of the country they were legislating for. He was a native of this young but glorious continent. Its past was not hallowed in history by the achievements of men whose names reflected a light on the times in which they lived. They had no long line of poets, of statesmen, and warriors; in this country art had done nothing, but nature everything. It was theirs to inaugurate the future. (Great cheering)

In no country had the attempt been successfully made to manufacture an aristocracy pro re nata . It could not be done. They might as well expect honour to be paid to the nobles of King Kamehameha, or the ebony earls of the Emperor Soulouque of Hayti.

The aristocracy of England was founded on the sword. The men that came over with William the Conqueror were the masters of the Saxons, and so were the aristocracy. The soldiers of Cromwell were the masters of the Irish, and so became their aristocracy. But he should like to know how Wentworth and his clique had conquered the inhabitants of New South Wales - (great cheering) - except in the artful dodgery of doctoring up a Franchise Bill. (Great laughter.)

If we were to be blessed with an aristocracy he would rather it should not resemble that of William the Bastard but of Jack the Strapper. (Great laughter.)

But he trespassed too long on their time (no, no) and would only seek in conclusion, but to record two things. First, his indignant denunciation of any tampering with the purity of the elective principle, the only basis upon which good government could be placed; and, secondly, he wished them to regard the future destinies of their country.

Let them, with prophetic eye, behold the troops of weary pilgrims, from foreign despotism, which would, ere long, be floating to their shores, and let them now - give the most earnest assurance, that such men as composed the Wentworth clique, were not the representations of the spirit, the intelligence, of the freemen of New South Wales. (Vehement and prolonged applause.) The resolution was put and passed unanimously.

The history of Australian Republicanism has been dominated by the primary figures having a libertarian streak, and an individualistic stance that often placed the Republican movement on a back foot for lack of organisation. John Dunmore Lang founded the Australian League in 1849 to promote Republicanism, but it did not have any staying power. Until the Australian Republican Movement's founding in 1991 there was no real formal Australian Republican organization. Prominent Australian Republicans, such as Charles Harpur and Frederick Vosper have been more inclined to view Republicanism as an individualistic expression of civicism.

The Australian League

An early backer of John Dunmore Lang's Australian League was Henry Parkes, who had a flirtation with Republicanism before becoming a strident, and fawning monarchist. But Parkes soon dropped his support of the League once he determined that Lang was not getting the numbers to make the League a strong and permanent political entity.

Lang's early recruitment drive ended up with him being stuck in a Tasmanian jail, for debt, and the Melbourne chapter of the Australian League ended up having a drive to raise money to get Lang out of jail. Lang then used the Melbourne chapter as his electoral office in order to get elected to the Victorian seat of Port Phillip. Between Lang's jailing, and his spending time in Sydney, he was defeated at the polls.

Lang's speeches, did not overtly mention the establishment of a Republic, but contained many of the policies that were synonymous with Australian Republicanism in 1850. These included universal manhood suffrage, removing malapportionment and the cessation of convict transportation. Monarchists such William Wentworth who were entrenched in the squatter dominated Legislative Council, opposed such reforms, and moved to have Lang removed from the ballot, by attempting to exclude clergymen from public office. This was over-ruled by the NSW Attorney-General.

The Australian League had not been used by Lang as a political organization to advance Republicanism in Australia. It had instead been used to advance Lang's political aspirations for election, and once he was elected, it lost influence. When William Wentworth advanced his vision of a Kings, Lord and Commons version of NSW government in 1854, which Dan Deniehy pilloried as the "bunyip aristocracy" , Lang tried to revive the Australian League again, but to no avail. Possibly because Australian Republicans did not want their cause usurped to support Lang's political ambitions.

Charters Towers

Labor supporters in Queensland prior to the Shearer's Strike in 1891 formed an Australian Republican Association (ARA), which despite the contentiousness of the name, the association did not include a republic as one of its objectives. But this is a good example of what the word republic has come to mean in Australia. In 1890 it meant the establishment of individual and political rights.

One of the great Republican firebrands of the era, Frederick Vosper, became the editor of the Australian Republican, a publication which came out of the ARA's movement in Queensland. If the ARA didn't advocate open Republicanism, Vosper most certainly did, proclaiming;

a grand United Republic under the Southern Cross which, profiting by the experience and errors of others, shall be as pure and perfect as it is possible for things human to be.

Vosper was a purist, believing the Republicanism was an expression of the civic individual, and not subservient to factional politics or religion. I use one of his well known republican motto's in my signature on south sea republic - that of;

Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.

This was despite Vosper writing for a Labor backed publication. Audrey Oldfield wrote that, "Vosper sometimes forgot the political leanings of his audience" . During the Shearer's Strike, Vosper advocated the use of force, and threatened a Republican Revolution. This brought him before Horace Tozer's Queensland courts on a treason charge. Not a pretty notion at the time, as Tozer had enabled the arms of government, including the military, to act in violent and arbitrary manners against the Shearers. The judge which heard the case was an advocate for freedom of speech, and a republican to boot, but it required two juries for Vosper to be acquitted.

The Australian Republican newspaper only lasted fourteen months, and with the Shearers focusing on establishing Labor as a political party, and as a voice for their individual and political rights, the notion of an Australian or Queensland republic was not pursued. The ARA was replaced with what to become the Australian Labor Party.

The Lawsons

Another attempt to create a movement was by the Lawson family in 1887 to complement their newspaper, the Republican. The Australian Republican Union initially contained the same members as the contributors to the Louisa Lawson's paper. The Union gained some momentum, before being replaced by George Black's Republican League. Black later went on to become an editor of the rabidly Republican Bulletin .

The experience of the Lawson's and Black were similar throughout the country. Australian Republicans maintained a individualistic streak, not collapsing their belief in the superiority of a Republican form of government, and the precedence of individual and political rights into a popular political movement. For Australian Republicans it has been a personal belief system.

This is not to argue that Monarchists and Conservatives have been benign in the suppression of Republicanism. They have not, often going to tyrannous lengths to thwart, isolate and silence Republicans. As a consequence Republicanism in Australia has been one of individualism, and the resistance to government tyranny. This can be seen in the actions of people, and groups such as the Ballarat Reform League, whose charter contained ;

That it is the inalienable right of every citizen to have a voice in making the laws he is called upon to obey - that taxation without representation is tyranny.

That, being as the people have been hitherto, unrepresented in the Legislative Council of the Colony of Victoria, they have been tyrannised over, and it becomes their duty as well as interest to resist, and if necessary to remove the irresponsible power which so tyrannises over them.

This formal statement, is not much different to what Vincent Lingiari faced from the Vesteys. When Lingiari led the Gurindji people off the Wave Hill station to Wattie Creek in 1966, he did so as a strike against oppression and tyranny from the Vestry's and the Northern Territory government. Lingiari is under-celebrated in this country, his stamping his foot in the ground for his rights and liberties, led to the land rights movement. Vincent Lingiari is quite simply, Australia's greatest patriot.

Charles Harpur

No Australian Republican represented the individualistic streak more than Charles Harpur. Like Vosper, he was unable to give himself to a political faction to further the cause. His early beliefs were that Republican government was the natural evolution of social organization from monarchism as long as humanity was pursuing perfection. He later became depressed by the imperfectability of humanity, in corruption, nepotism, nomineeism and other negative factions. But his dominant belief that Republicanism was the natural social and moral progression of humanity was not shaken. Elizabeth Perkins writes;

Harpur regarded all other forms of government as unnatural, although explicable in terms of primitive social organizations and stunted human moral development. In the nineteenth century, it was only the continuing influence of courtly and aristocratic traditions, he believed, that prevented civilised people from embracing equality in the political and social obligations. Freed of these traditions, within a few generations, nations would abandon the aristocracy of the privileged. Civilised people, Harpur told the readers of the People's Advocate in 1849; 'are republicans ... and mostly democrats also, before they can render a definite reason, it may, for the faith that is in them.'

His last quote is a very apt description of the history of Australian Republicanism. Most have seen republicanism as an individual doctrine, a philosophy that is pursued as an intrinsic part of our social, moral and political being. I too see Republicanism in this way. One of the failings of the modern Republican movement is in communicating this aspect. A republican form of government is not only superior to a constitutional monarchy, but is a more accurate reflection of the people's inherent social, moral and political nature - it will mirror the values that we carry inside us.

We Are All Republicans

Harpur's and Vosper's view of Republicanism shows why Monarchists see it as a such a dangerous philosophy to their belief system. It cannot be eradicated while it is an internal expression that stretches to all aspects of our individual interactions in the social, cultural and political sphere.

This also explains why Republicans have not been able to form into a popular political movement, for Australian Republicans, it is fait accompli, the inevitable republic, as utterly rational. This describes why the Australian Republican Movement during the 1990s just said, "republic" to the Australian people and expected it to be accepted. Ironically it nearly was, Australians are republicans inside, but they are pragmatic ones, and know when conservative professional politicians are pulling the wool over their eyes.

The next step for Australian Republicans is take it beyond Harpur and communicate a wider Republican philosophy and doctrine. One which reflects the republican leanings of the Australian people, and the Australian desire to transcend themselves. From such a point the difficult process of Constitutional change to one of Australian Republicanism can begin - and be ratified via referendum.

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The debate over a Republic in the last thirty years has become one-dimensional and focused on removing the Queen of England as the Australian Head of State. Obviously there is no place for a hereditary position in the constitution of a free people. The Australian Republican Movement has limited their campaign and advocacy to this aim; but the history of Australian Republicanism is broader. Australian Republicans have been democrats (as opposed to plutocrats or aristocrats) as well as republicans; constantly seeking wider enfranchisement, greater political equity, improved political process and the eradication of arbitrary government.

The Success of Republicanism

When NSW and Victoria started making the first moves to self-government, the Australian Republicans of the time concentrated on expanding the involvement of citizens in the process of government. In contrast, the monarchists sought to exclude the popular voices, and add barriers to citizen participation. The most obvious of these was William Wentworth's attempt to establish a titled NSW upper house. It was defeated due to political campaigning by Australian Republicans, but unfortunately the NSW Legislative Council remained an appointed house until the 1970s.

The monarchists in the 1800s tended to be conservative, saw Britain as the mother country and all Australian legitimacy stemming from that connection; they were also often landed. This was the squatocracy's as Dan Deniehy called them. The squatocracy dominated the NSW Legislative Council for a long time, and helped establish the practice of nomineeism. Another non-merit process which Republicans like Deniehy and Charles Harpur fought against.

The Legislative Councils around the country were often skewed heavily to ensure that the popular houses, the Assemblies, could not over-ride the interest of the landed or propertied Councillors. This malapportionment and inequity was targeted by Australian Republicans such as William Lane who advocated one person, one vote. It is interesting to note that this has been a long campaign, and even today, Western Australian remains in the throes of a malapportioned Legislative Council.

In the 1930's P.R. Stephenson advocated that Australian growth, socially, culturally, economically and politically; remained impossible while Australia was subordinate to Britain. This has been the basis for late 20thC republicanism which has focused on eradicating external interference on Australian affairs, especially judicially, legislatively and constitutionally. The enacting of the Westminster Act in 1941 and the Australia Act of 1986 are examples of Australia ensuring its legislature and judicial can act without interference.

The hardest to change is the constitution, and as a consequence the Queen of England remains embedded in our system of government. The other area where Stephenson's philosophy has not been adopted is in foreign policy. The current Imperium is the United States. Australia followed the US into Iraq with the same uncritical blinders as we followed Britain into war in WWI and WWII. It was just accepted that because our "Great and Powerful Friend" was at war, then so were we. There was no debate about our own interests.

Twenty First Century Republicanism

South Sea Republic is now the most prominent place for the advocacy of 21stC Republicanism. The topics covered are within the traditions of Dunmore-Lang, Harpur, Stephenson. South Sea Republic incorporates the dual republican and democrat traditions, where a Republican Constitution is but one part in a system that has wider inclusion of those being governed. Where innovative processes such as sortition, ratification, crowd wisdom and even technology are debated to ensure a more perfect policy and political outcome. This is no different to Deniehy advocating the most advanced political technologies of the day such as one person, one vote.

Australian conservatives argue that the highest form of social order comes from a national purpose, and a national culture. The individual must subjugate themselves to this in order for there to be national prosperity, and consequently individual prosperity. Australian Republicanism focuses instead on the political structures and involvement of the individual in those structures. It is through this inclusive process that higher, and more perfect social organisation is found. Aspirations are discovered through the interactions of individuals, secure in their maximum liberty.

This is the goal of Australian Republicanism. Without maximum liberty, prosperity is impossible. Each liberty taken, and coveted by government adds an inefficiency into the process of prosperity. Without maximum inclusion only inefficient forms of social, political and economic organisation are possible.

Conclusion

Australian Republicanism is arguably the most successful political movement in Australian history. The Australian Republican tradition incorporates the Republican values such as liberty, rights, equity, merit and separation of powers while borrowing heavily from democrat and Chartist traditions to ensure the integrity of the political and parliamentary process. Republicanism has crossed partisan divides, and been a constant source of innovation in Australian politics.

In 2005 we find Australia largely free of malapportionment, appointments in popular houses, nomineeism, and other non-representative aspects of government. Monarchists often argue that Australia is a republic already, and there is no need to change anything. This is testament to the success of two centuries worth of Republican advocacy. But Australia cannot truly be a Republic until the Australian Constitution adheres to Republican principles.

Government suffers from entropy. Parties constantly seek absolute power by collapsing authority around them. For the Australian Republican, who is equal parts republican and equal parts democrat, the battle to ensure maximum liberty, maximum enfranchisement, freedom from arbitrary government and the integrity of the political process; is never-ending. Republicanism is an ongoing process, constantly seeking to perfect our social organization and moral structures through maximum liberty and universal participation.

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The Menzies government sought to define Australia in terms of a pre-WWII identity. It looked to Britain as the Empire, race and foundation of Australian nationalism. By the time Menzies retired and younger politicians such as Harold Holt and John Gorton took over, it was obvious that was no longer a description which could tie the polity together. It was in this environment that Donald Horne and Geoffrey Hutton wrote their arguments for an Australian Republic. Their call was fairly limited, and argued very little in change. It was mainly remove the Queen and Britain as the centre of Australian politics and nationalism. The Australian Republican Movement has adopted this same philosophy, but Republicanism is built on universal values of liberty and governance. The Dutton/Horne view of a Republic is too small for the Australian people to accept.

Single Issue Republicanism

Mark McKenna writes of the Republicanism of the 1960s;

... when Geoffrey Dutton and Donald Horne raised the question of a republic in 1963-64, the parameters of the modern republican debate were already evident. What Dutton and Horne said in the early 1960s did not differ greatly from what republicans would say in the 1990s.

That style of republicanism rested on;

• Australian nationality was not British, and Australia required an Australian head of state.
• The Queen was an obstacle to an Australian identity and perpetuated " a culture of political, economic and cultural dependence ".
• Australian and British foreign policy and economic interests were diverging. A British head of state weakened Australia's identity in these areas in Asia.

Mark McKenna also added the final point that republicans of the 60s and 90s agreed that; " The Australian Republic was inevitable ". Those points mimic exactly the message that the Australian Republican Movement took to the people prior to 1999 referendum. This is a pretty small view of Republicanism, and ignores much of the intellectual ground work done in Australia by Republicans such as Dunmore-Lang, Deniehy, Harpur, Vosper etc. It also ignores much of the development of Republicanism by international figures such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The ARM view of Republicanism suffers a poverty.

Universalism

Republicanism, both Australian and international, carries universal values. The most obvious of these is the absence of political and social privilege under government. A monarchy has no place in a Republic as it entrenches constitutionally the privilege of political and social position. The position of King or Queen is achieved without merit, or periodic popular vote. The main claim to a monarch's position is accident of birth.

With the entrenchment of political and social privilege often comes entitlement, impunity and soon after, tyranny. When Dan Deniehy fought against the bunyip aristocracy and squattocracy he was fighting for universalism, egalitarianism and merit. When Charles Harpur wrote his preface to the Tree of Liberty he was arguing for the universalism of individual virtue and how an unmeritorious political system filled with privilege can pollute that virtue.

Universalism is an Australian Republican value, for after all, Republicans are Democrats too. This principle has often guided the discussions on South Sea Republic. For instance; Avocadia's Bill of Rights does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, or more importantly; citizenship. Individuals under the jurisdiction of a government have universal rights that are a result of their being an individual. There is no privilege attached to being a member of a majority or minority. This is an intrinsic value .

Suffrage is another universal Republican value. I have edited the Electoral Act in a previous article to ensure Universal Enfranchisement . We are both an immigrant nation and diasporic people at the same time. Migrants are constantly coming to Australia and remaining, while at the same time Australians are leaving our shores in ever-increasing numbers to work and live overseas. Neither group should be denied suffrage due to geographic circumstances of birth, or present location.

Other Australian Republicans have argued for a more universal approach; Wayne Hudson argued for Planetary Republicanism while Peter Botsman wrote in the Great Constitutional Swindle that;

... it is important for Australia to make the leap towards a broader concept of citizenship. The global citizen must have roaming rights. He or she must be entitled to certain indivisible rights wherever they may be in the world: a vote of equal value, the right to stand for political office and to advocate a cause or a positions, the right to liberty, free speech, freedom of association and the right to basic social, economic and cultural living standards. If multiculturalism has a positive endpoint it is this one.

I disagree with this final rights to, they are better expressed in liberty, rather than a right to. For instance, you have the liberty to pursue your own social, economic and cultural interests. Rather than guaranteeing a living standard. But other than this, Botsman approaches the issues of the universality of an individual under any government in typical Australian Republican terms.

Head of State

Dunmore-Lang and numerous other Republicans railed against the divine-appointment with a monarch as Head of State. The Australian Head of State poses an issue because of the poor separation of powers in the Australian parliamentary system. Separation of powers is a strong Republican value which saw it expressed in utilitarian form by James Madison in the American Republic.

The Westminster style of embedding the Executive in the Legislature is hack, or a patch, to route around the Executive power of the monarch while maintaining their ceremonial power. It is entirely unnecessary in the Australian system to maintain the monarch, but some fluidity between the constitutional monarchy and republic will need to remain. The Australian Parliamentary system has also proved fairly stable. It would be unwise to throw it all away in a revolutionary moment, far more prudent to adopt an evolutionary approach.

Australians want to elect the Governor-General, but an individual appointed to that position by direct election might clash with the Prime Minister over who has ultimate Executive authority. Currently the Prime Minister advises the Governor-General, but this can lead to what software developers call a race condition. This was seen in 1975 when the Governor-General gazumped the Prime Minister and democratically elected government.

Universalism demands a Bill of Rights which limits government's intrusion into individual liberties is present in a Republican Constitution. Any Parliamentary based Republican system also requires a firm separation of Executive responsibilities between the Governor-General and the Prime Minister. As a result, the Governor-General should be constitutionally required to defend individuals from laws which conflict with the Bill of Rights. The Governor-General becomes a Rights Referee .

This would stop the Governor-General and Prime Minister stepping on each other's Executive toes. It would give the Australian people the reason to vote for the Governor-general based on who will ensure their rights are protected (the GG however can only veto bills which directly contradict the Bill of Rights). The Governor-General becomes an elected representation of Republican and Universal virtue. This is a very positive role model and structure for liberty.

Opposing-isms

The universal values of Republicanism bring it into direct conflict with conservatism and nationalism. Both of which seek to use the legislature to entrench privilege for majorities and minorities that fly in the face of liberty.

Dan Deniehy and Charles Harpur were contemporaries. A common strand in their writings is that humanity's destiny is moral perfection. Deniehy argues that the main impediment to achieving that goal is tyranny and despotism. This is a very modern argument of natural rights.

Deniehy moved to Goulburn in 1850 and set up a law practice in the town. This gave him direct access to the regional newspaper, the Goulburn Herald, which he wrote constantly for over the next three years. He developed the moral basis for Republicanism and his political philosophy while at Goulburn before joining the NSW Legislature in 1857.

Like Harpur's for the faith that is in them , Deniehy saw humanity's destiny as achieving moral perfection;

Few individuals who have traced the progress of society even from a semi-barbarous state to its present condition, will venture to deny that man is destined in this world to attain a state of moral perfection., in comparison with which the most refined and polished communities of ancient and modern times are sunk in the shade.

Deniehy was also a technologist and believed progress meant the constant improvement of the political and social systems, presumably until moral perfection of the individual, society and humankind was obtained.

The progress of events as viewed in the visible outside world around us, bespeaks an era of moral and social enjoyment, when an ordinary member of the community looking down through the sombre vista of time upon the philosophy of past ages, dimly shadowed in the distance, will exult in his destiny having placed him so far in advance of the wisest and greatest who preceded him.

So irresistible if the onward course of man in the march of improvement that even the trammels which the despotism of a northern dynasty has for centuries been weaving to enthral the human mind in a state of perpetuity, will at no distant day, snap asunder, and regenerated and intellectual man proclaim from the highest point of the Septentrion the triumph of a great social and moral revolution.

To Deniehy, tyranny and despotism are external afflictions on the moral nature of the individual and society. They hold back humanity from attaining its destiny of moral perfection.

Essentially, tyranny becomes a crime against the individual and the society. Since Deniehy writes that humankind's natural state is pure moral perfection, tyranny becomes a crime against nature as well.

He was so far ahead of his time. This is a very modern version of the natural rights argument.

The Virginian Republicans prior to the American Revolutionary War used the natural rights argument to advance a Bill of Rights in the Virginian government. They argued that natural rights were divine right and granted by God.

Enlightenment liberals like John Locke has trouble reconciling the autonomous individual of liberalism with religion. The religious natural rights argument is an outcome of this.

For the Virginian Republicans it was also an adroit political argument. It countered the monarchs argument of divine right to rule and was pretty unassailable from other quarters. Hate natural rights and well, you must hate God!

Deniehy's argument make no appeal to God or divine right just the perfectibility of humankind as the natural goal of the individual and society. Republicanism as an organisational technology is Deniehy's means to create a system of constant improvement in social organisation.

Explicit in Deniehy's description is the eradication of tyranny. Implicit is the protection of liberty in the organisational technologies of Republicanism such as the constitution.

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A common question asked of political rights is where do they come from and how are they granted. There are several different justifications for the inclusion of rights in a constitutional system. These vary slightly depending on how the political philosophy views the individual.

Since the enlightenment focused social endeavour on individual autonomy as the primary source, the notion of universal political rights have risen. This is present in republicanism, liberalism, libertarianism and progressivism. All these political philosophies focus on the individual as the dominant political entity.

Republicanism views the purpose of government as ensuring the liberty of the individual. Tyranny or despotism has no place in a republican system. The rights or just demands of an individual's agreeance to follow the will of the majority in a government system come with the assurance of freedom from tyranny or arbitrary government.

A bill of rights becomes a political technology that ensures the liberty of the individual and describes tyranny. It creates a sphere of exclusion for government that it cannot legislate over.

As covered in a previous article, Dan Deniehy took a natural rights view of republicanism. This describes moral perfection as the end result of human achievement, maturation and growth. Deniehy writes that tyranny and despotism are the dominant affliction against this purpose.

Consequently the tyranny becomes a crime against mankind's destiny - a crime against nature. This is a non-religious argument for natural rights. The religious argument for natural rights is quite simply that rights are granted by God. This is less sophisticated than Deniehy's argument and reliant on faith.

Progressives view rights as an intrinsic function of being human. For this reason they are often called Human Rights by the progressive movement. The progressives view rights as being greater than the simply eradication of tyranny and protection of liberty as republicans do and often include more ambiguous rights of a social nature such as the right to dignity or the right to education.

These are fine principles to maintain, however, they do not have a place in a constitutional document as they are nearly impossible to quantify. For instance writing brutally explicit language on the right to dignity is impossible.

Libertarians view rights in terms of the intrinsic value of the individual. This philosophy often terms them individual rights. Libertarianism does not have the same focus on tyranny as republicanism does and is merely interested in the primacy and dominance of the individual as a political being.

Of these justifications for rights I believe the republican definition to be superior. It is constitutionally achievable through explicit constitutional language and separation of powers.

The focus on the eradication of tyranny and political equity are important principles in democratic and representative systems.

Under republicanism rights are a very essential political technology which better serves the protection of liberty from arbitrary government.

Australian Republicanism is a political egalitarian philosophy. It makes no room for the social or political elevation of an individual or group through claims of divine right, accidents of birth or the physical imposition of coercion and tyranny. This leads to universal principles of political rights.

The Imagining Australia folks have a section in their book titled Poverty and Inequality ;

Implicit in the notion of disadvantage are two important, but crucially different, concepts: poverty and inequality. On the one hand, poverty refers to the inability of a person to meet the basic needs of life, including food, water, housing, health care and education. Inequality on the other hand refers to the income differential between the rich and the poor within a society.

South Sea Republic carries the byline; Freedom, Liberty, Equity and an Australian Republic . Which is a nice, perfunct statement of principle.

This site predominantly focuses on issues of political technology and organisation; infested as it is with software developers, engineers and scientists. Consequently we touch little on issues of poverty and economic inequality. I will not go into them here, they are covered better on other sites such as Andrew Leigh 's and John Quiggin 's.

The equity in the byline of South Sea Republic refers to the absence of political inequality. The forms of political and social organisation are a human choice. They are human technologies and politics itself, especially liberal democratic organisation, is a technology developed to equilibrate power relationships.

As adam commented on a site with a roped off area;

I must say I admire the boldness of asserting the nation exists but the individual does not, when readers have at least one counter-example of an individual to hand, and the nation-state is a piece of technology constructed by the Treaty of Westphalia around 350 years ago.

Too often we assume that our present condition or state is static and impermanent, having always existed the way it currently does. Constitutions, Federalism, Nation-states, etc; these are all human developed and implemented political technologies.

Technologies are difficult to develop, hard to implement and often the best technological form loses out for a myriad of social, economic and irrational reasons. There are numerous wrecks of superior technologies which have suffered darwinism at the hands of the distributor and consumer.

Since politics deals in power of the state and the public purse, those that skew the power relationships to one person or a small group usually try everything they can to maintain that advantage. Consequently, the establishment of new political technologies has often come at the hands of a revolution.

Disruptive technologies in the market often mean an entrenched competitor re-organises and seeks to capture new markets or the capital which sustained that entity is removed and passed onto a new company that is able to compete in the new market.

Sadly, this is rarely the case in politics. Australia likes to pat itself on the back by claiming it came to self-government without a revolution or blood-shed. The reason Australia achieved this was because it entrenched the interests of the existing ruling elite.

William Wentworth was the main agitator here. He wanted NSW to organise along the lines of King, Lords and Commons. This meant establishing a titled class in NSW. This was ridiculed by Dan Deniehy in his Bunyip Aristocracy speech , but the result was that NSW had an appointed upper-house.

This entrenched what Deniehy called the squatocracy into NSW politics as they could not be removed by the ballot. It was not until the 1970s that the appointed members of the Legislative Council were replaced by elected representatives.

A poor choice of technology and organisation in the 1850s took over one hundred and twenty years to remove. Harpur was not impressed either, though he was happy that self-governance had come as it was an improvement over colonial governorship;

Thank God that we at length have the new Constitution! In itself I despise it, as a disgraceful hotch-potch, that shames us by the side of our younger sister, Victoria: and awards us but a second - nay, but a fourth place in a race, in which we should have been first.

Victoria had instituted an elected Legislative Council when it came to self-governance. The other states have all faced issues of mal-apportionment in the upper houses; Western Australia is yet to solve its problems there.

Poor technology choices have long term ramifications. NSW has spent a long time flushing Wentworth from its system, just as the federal system is yet to remove the last vestiges of Deakin from itself.

Political equality is an important principle. It often exists in slogans such as one man, one vote or no taxation without representation and other proclamations of an individual's political rights, dignity and respect.

Equality requires that no there be no political or social elevation for reasons of divine right, accidents of birth, coercion or tyranny. Republicanism represents political egalitarianism from which universal principles stem.

A mate of mine made this tongue in cheek comment the other day to a Canadian fellow;

Why do you hate America so much that you decided to be born somewhere else?

Which is an appeal to the absurd in nationalism and the arbitrary nature with which it deals with individuals, citizens and non-citizens alike. Charles Harpur believed that mankind's natural destiny was moral perfection and it was the imposition of our social and political frameworks which acted as the main deterrents against mankind achieving that goal. He called it "for the faith that is in them" and made the point that Australians, once free of the inequality imposition of an aristocracy, will discover the equality in themselves. This republican philosophy was also the basis for Dan Deniehy pillorying William Wentworth's bunyip aristocracy when Wentworth tried to create a titled upper house in NSW.

Deniehy and Harpur both believed that tyranny was the most destructive external affliction on the moral and ethical nature of human affairs. To Deniehy tyranny becomes a crime against the individual, the society; and since mankind's destiny is moral perfection, it becomes a crime against nature itself. Tyranny is man as violence against natural order.

We recognize absolute tyranny quickly and easily these days; dictators, despots, even tyrants. They stand out like sore thumbs in a world where the most advanced forms of social order are constitutionally based liberal democracies. The technological innovation of the American Republic and the enlightenment was the recognition that tyranny does not have to be absolute to be destructive. We know the insidious form of tyranny as arbitrary government or arbitrary executive governance. The US Bill of Rights was the use of constitutionalism to limit arbitrary government.

The twentieth century has seen Executives claim "state of emergencies" to get around restrictions of constitution, convention and representation. This goes back to the myth of Cincinnatus who left his farm to become dictator in order to save Rome, and then gave up his powers sixteen days later to return to his crops. We have seen this enacted out on an absolute scale in Thailand, where the military had to nullify the constitution in order to save it - a ridiculous notion.

At an insidious level we have seen liberal democratic systems, both presidential and parliamentary, claim the war on terror places our nations in a state of emergency, enabling all manner of arbitrary executive governance. Due to the nature of party discipline in these structures we have seen arbitrary government become a part of legislation, enabling executive whim.

To Dan Deniehy the executive 'state of emergency' is unrepublican and illiberal. It places the government at violence with; the individual, the social order that supports it and even nature. For Deniehy and Harpur the removal of tyranny in government, in all its forms, is an important step toward wider moral improvement.

x-posted on clubtroppo

Republicanism is focused on political technologies in order to maximise liberty and minimise tyranny such that tyranny is non-existent. The philosophical under-pinnings for republicanism is liberalism which also has the goal of maximising individual freedom. Republicanism is the political science that under-pins liberalism. Since they are heavily focused on the individual and the technologies to support maximal liberty the counter-argument is that they have blind spots to hostility outside of the individual and politics. Conservatives like to call this the cultural wars, but it also encompasses social division and national division.

To Harpurian Republicans violence is a moral failing, whether the violence is individual, majority, minority or even state on state violence. Charles Harpur believed that with the growth of the individual under republicanism and liberalism, war between nations would become morally impossible.

Immanual Kant argued that domestic constitutions and domestic stability could not be resolved until the relations between nations were. Kant believed that adopting Republican Constitutions domestically were the first step toward resolving this issue, but his warning about state on state violence remained.

Harpur's argument is that the domestic constitution, the relationships between majority and minorities, and the relations between nations would suffer violence until the individual is capable of growing morally such violence becomes an immoral interaction.

Dan Deniehy argued that the greatest inhibition to an individual growing morally, or achieving moral perfection, was the tyranny from the state. Deniehy extrapolated from history to reach his conclusion that political inequity and tyranny limited the ability of an individual to act morally. Additionally it ensured that the political leaders, or ruling class, were also incapable of acting outside of that restrictive moral framework. The political structure enforced immoral behaviour at all levels of the state in a massive feedback loop which reinforced and strengthened itself with each iteration.

So how does Republicanism deal with political violence outside of parliament or another restricted environment where the violence of political faction has been taken into account? How does Republicanism deal with political factions dragging cultural division into a question of political violence?

There is a binary choice in politics as to who is the dominant political entity, it is either the state or the individual. Republicanism and liberalism is predicated on the individual being the dominant political entity - as such an individual enjoys universal rights in their relationship with the state. These political rights are intrinsic to the individual while under the jurisdiction of the state.

A second tenet of Republican forms of representative democracy is that the minority accept the will of the majority, but with recognition that minorities will be secure in their rights. This requires a technological structure of constitutionalism such that the mob-branch of government (legislative) and the discriminative-branch (executive) can be sued by the individual who appeals to the judicial branch which must follow the enumerated rights in the constitution.

Consequently an abrogation of an individuals or minorities rights, as well as any violence toward them, especially political violence such as legislative or executive, become a moral failing of the political leadership.

Tyranny does not have to absolute to be destructive. Insidious tyranny, which we commonly call arbitrary governance, is just as damaging. As per the republicanism of Harpur and Deniehy any addition of tyranny or violence into the political system not only indicates the moral failure of the political leadership, but also negatively affects the moral actions and capability of individuals under the government's jurisdiction. The political system becomes increasingly immoral with each application of violence.

Political and cultural liberty are important concepts for the moral health of the individual and the state. The insight from Harpur and Deniehy was that the immoral behaviour of political leaders is not isolated, it is interdependent, having wider effects through the political system and the individuals who have to exist inside it.

In the 19thC Australians knew their convict heritage as 'the stain' and did all they could to prove they were loyal to crown and above such social and genetic bottom-dwelling. For modern Australians the fear of 'the stain' is more curiosity than any deep cultural resentment.

Halily apparently said on Egyptian television:

Anglo-Saxons came to Australia in chains, while we paid our way and came in freedom. We are more Australian than them. Australia is not an Anglo-Saxon country - Islam has deep roots in Australian soil that were there before the English arrived

Which is ignorance really and the same issue that conservatives face in trying to tie some Anglo-Briton history into the current Australian psyche. The modern Australian personality and state has little to do with such historical curiosities.

Halily is making the same mistake that conservatives do and arguing that historical events inform the modern pysche such that a negative event is a permanent chain. This is obviously false.

Recently my father in law gave me Thomas Keneally's A Commonwealth of Thieves . My father in law is American, and apologised when he gave me the book, meaning, he didn't intend to imply I was a convict or a thief. I laughed, Australia's modern founding is a curiosity for me, nothing more. It does not inform who I am, nor do I get upset if someone called me a convict and brought Australia's national honour into disrepute by slurring all Australians as the sons and daughters of whores and thieves - whatever.

My father in law and I have more in common than Thomas Kenneally's book would suggest. His family came out from Wales to work in the coal mines of the Pennsylvanian Mountains. One side of my family came out at from Scotland about the same time to works the coal mines of Helensburg in the mountains surrounding Wollongong.

Interestingly his family moved into New Jersey in World War II following the work that was available in the aircraft engine factories. The Scottish side of my family moved to Balmain during the depression.

I cannot say I am very interested in the convict era of Australian history. Other than a rebellion and a coup, politically the first fifty years was more one of trying to establish European civilisation in an alien landscape, though in Keneally's book Arthur Phillip comes off as a man of the enlightenment. The relationship between Phillip and Bennelong, and the allegory its serves as the connection between European and Eora, is a fascinating narrative. Keneally is a fast paced and interesting read anyway.

The 19thC is where Australian politics gets interesting as currency lads started plotting self-government: and many innovations as well as bad decisions were made. Two of the big currency lads of the 19thC, Dan Deniehy and William Wentworth were products of convicts and in the case of D'Arcy Wentworth - a free/bonded/acquitted transportee. Those two currency lads were to clash with highly competing views of what NSW Government should take - Wentworth a monarchist, and Deniehy a Republican.

Wentworth and Deniehy both became respected statesmen in NSW and leaders of competing political movements. For them the stain probably was a deep chip on their shoulder and an affront to their desire to be seen as respectable and inherently moral. For me - it is a historical curiosity, it carries no personal weight.

I think it is safe to say however, Halily is no republican.

Update

Irfan Yusuf has an article which documents early muslim convicts and sailors during the first few fleets of Australian settlement. The British were not too concerned who they sent to Australia as convicts, and it included native South Africans, Indians and even Canadians and Americans (America by that time was an independent nation, not a British colony!).