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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Early colonial Australia changed when England started shipping Scottish, Irish and English seditionists to Australia . The Governor's of NSW and the local population had an hysterical and irrational fear of the political prisoners, especially the Irish. The late 1700s had seen the republican uprisings in the United State, France and Ireland, the former two being successful, while the latter was suppressed by the British military. The spilling of republican blood extended to Australia; the first martyr being, Mr Boston's pig.

The Scottish Martyrs

Jacobinism was a rising movement in England, which was seen as threat to the power of the English government. Unable to guarantee convictions of Jacobins in England, Scottish Jacobins were instead chosen to be the example trial, as juries more corrupt in Scotland. Thomas Muir was the first Scottish Martyr trailed. His crime was distributing Thomas Paine's Rights of Man . Muir was sent to Australia for fourteen years. Thomas Palmer helped publish and distribute a pamphlet titled, Address to the People . The pamphlet's main subject was parliamentary reform. Palmer got seven years.

Flush with the success of the convictions of the Muir and Palmer in Scotland, Lord Lauderdale pursued Scottish Jacobins active in England with the intention of having them tried for sedition in the stacked Scottish courts. A National Convention of British Reformers met in 1793; from there Maurice Margot, William Skirving and Joseph Gerrald were all arrested. Margot and Skirving received fourteen years, while Gerrald posted bail. Gerrald was not free for long, he was sent to Australia in 1794.

John Boston

John Boston was an Englishmen; an avowed Republican and Jacobin, who had come out to Australia to keep his good friend Thomas Palmer company. Boston carried a gem with him on the voyage; the colony's only encyclopaedia. Later Boston and Palmer used the book for economic advantage, teaching themselves how to brew beer, make soap and eventually ship building.

When Boston arrived in Australia he had desires of establishing himself as a merchant. This brought him into direct conflict with John MacArthur's Rum Corps, the military unit who controlled the police, judicial system and economy. Boston was further tainted by it having been alleged that on the voyage to Australia that he toasted a glass to the King's damnation.

Boston's livestock, including a pig, was penned near the livestock of Captain Joseph Foveaux of the Rum Corps. One of Boston's best pigs was found in Foveaux's pens and was shot by Marines. At the court hearing for the incident, Lieutenant McKeller denounced Boston as a radical republican who publicly drank to the murder of the King. The pig was also denounced as having no respect for boundaries. Mark McKenna writes;

McKeller also explained that the pig was shot 'not in malice or wantonness' but because it had destroyed the property of Captain Foveaux. 'Fences or fastenings were no security against the levelling practices of this animal, practices which I conclude are carefully and industriously inculcated in every part of the house of its master'.

McKenna identifies the use of the word leveller as indicating that McKeller saw the pig as republican. The term leveller in the English language of the day carried strong republican overtones and meaning. McKenna continues;

In the eyes of Lieutenant McKeller, the insidious pestilence of republicanism was even capable of converting farm animals into an active campaign of subversion. Loyalty to the crown was the framework within which all political activity took place in New South Wales. Any person (or pig) seen to be stepping outside those boundaries was branded as treasonous. The result was the shooting of Australia's first republican martyr - John Boston's pig.

Not much changed in the colonies, even with self-government. Compare the hysteria of the early colony to the "loyalty" meetings Henry Parkes held ninety years later.

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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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Judith Brett argues that the Liberal Party's political identity is predominantly nationalism and the subservience of the individual to the national cause. By comparison Labor's identity was derived from the working class and devoted to the economic and social equality of this group. But what of the identity politics of Australian Republicans? Charles Harpur has the answer.

Identity and Narrative

Judith Brett argues that the Liberal Party differentiated itself from Labor, and weaved a political narrative for its political legitimacy through a group or communal style of nationalism;

Liberals conceptualised people's political being first and foremost as citizens. This was a direct challenge to Labor's appeal to people's class consciousness and its understanding of relations between different social interests in terms of class conflict. Liberals set 'citizens', who entered the public world to promote the common good, against the 'workers', concerned only with the interests of a part. To act in politics other than a citizen was illegitimate. Liberals were citizens and they thought everyone else should be too.

Juduth Brett defines what is meant by citizenship though, as it is different to what is taken as the common meaning of the word today;

This meaning of citizenship is quite different from its contemporary use which refers almost exclusively to the individuals formal relationship to the state, and emphasises rights and entitlements conferred by the state, rather than duties and obligations of individuals to their political community.

All the major parties in Australia, Liberals, Labor, Greens and Democrats, construct a narrative in an attempt to create a political legitimacy for electoral appeal, and ultimately governance. What is the Republican identity? Charles Harpur gives insight in his notes to "The Tree of Liberty";

For the republican spirit of this and others, of not all of my national poems, I can offer no apology. Why, indeed, should I? Believing, as I do, that men progress as sequently from monarchial to republican ideas (when they do make any moral and social progress at all), as they do from fuedal and despotic ones to those of a limited monarchy. This is strikingly evident in the political tendencies of all modern colonies.

Let civilized men be but placed for a few generations beyond the direct action of courtly and aristocratical influences, and the idea of Equality becomes fundamental in their sense of political and social obligation. They are republicans, in short, and mostly democrats also, before they can render a definite reason, it may be, for the faith that is in them. And this results, I repeat it, from a moral and social progress purely natural to civilized men, though quickened by peculiar circumstances.

Republicanism is the path to human transcendence. It is constantly striving for the highest form of social and political organisation. This will lead to higher moral and ethical behaviour. Harpur's insight is that it is our political environment which leads to our moral, ethical and social decay. Whether it is Karl Rove, or Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor or their numerous followers and mimics; the moral and ethical has been removed from the political process.

This is exacerbated by the representative form of government effectively isolating the citizen's experience, values and beliefs from the political operations of government. The party marketeers claim to represent, or even embody, these values and beliefs, but this is just cynical, results driven marketing. The representative form of government is not only uncitizen, it often actively hostile to those who's power it embodies. This is why the necessity to secure political rights is paramount. The decay inherent in government cannot be the cause, or means to externalise that violence onto those under its jurisdiction.

Harpur believed that humanity contained within itself moral and ethical perfection; which is blunted by the necessity of having to live, survive and struggle under an imperfect political system. The flaws of the political system of the time, render the individual unable to display their moral and ethical perfection. Representative government has proven itself politically, morally, ethically and socially bankrupt. This is the current environment the individual must live in and the cost inferior and depraved political practice dumps on the polity.

Republicanism is the process of achieving the highest form of political organisation so that the intrusion of the ethical and moral values of individuals by the political process is minimised. Republicans are democrats too. The establishment of constitutional and statutory processes so that the negative passions of government and power politics is minimised is as a Republican goal. Since government skews the perfectibility of social, moral, ethical and cultural found in the people, any process must subsume the pyrimidical and isolated nature of present government. This means introducing the people to government directly.

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Wisdom condensed into short sentence-length (siggable) bites.

adam on globalisation ;

Everyone in the world lives in the 21st century - just in different parts of the consumer spectrum, with different shipping costs.

Avocadia on morality in democracy ;

I put it that the moral force that liberal democracy serves is the morality of liberty.

Barnaby Joyce on politics ;

The purpose of politics is to deliver to you the highest level of freedom that does not impinge on the rights of others.

Thomas Jefferson on Juries;

I consider that [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

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.

OZ Conservative has a well written and interesting article on Michael Ignatieff. The differences between the liberal, nationalist and conservative views on citizenship are looked at in detail.

From the article;

Ignatieff is a liberal. As such, he believes that individuals should be self-defined. Therefore he rejects ethnic nationalism (in which national identity is based on a common ancestry, culture, language and so on)

This is the argument that accidents of birth or geography should not define citizenship. Oz Conservative quotes Ignatieff to display that his take on the liberal side of civics, ie Cosmopolitanism is really quite traditional and conservative in its view. Ignatieff is quoted;

It is only too apparent that cosmopolitanism is the privilege of those who can take a secure nation-state for granted ... The cosmopolitanism of the great cities - London, Los Angeles, New York, London - depends critically on the rule-enforcing capacities of the nation state ...

"In this sense, therefore, cosmopolitans like myself are not beyond the nation; and a cosmopolitan, post-nationalist spirit will always depend, in the end, on the capacity of nation-states to provide security and civility for their citizens."

"I am a civic nationalist, someone who believes in the necessity of nations and in the duty of citizens to defend the capacity of nations to provide the security and rights we all need in order to live cosmopolitan lives.

This is where Ignatieff confuses the intrinsic property of a polity and government system with the emergent properties. Civic identity is a result of individuals pursuing their social, cultural and economic identity.

A conservative reading of that social organisation design pattern would see no difference between the intrinsic and emergent properties of society. The government, law and order, society and culture are all one entity. We see this when conservatives make claims that "our legal system is an Australian value".

Gary Sauer-Thompson writes on this;

Conservatism understands that nationality and society are rooted in biological, cultural and historical heritage. The difference between these two concepts becomes particularly obvious when one compares how they visualize history and the structure of the real. Nationalists are proponents of holism.

Nationalists see the individual as a kinsman, sustained by the people and community. which nurtures and protects him, and with which he is proud to identify. The individual's actions represent an act of participation in the life of his people, and freedom of action is very real because, sharing in the values of his associates, the individual will seldom seek to threaten the basic values of the community with which he identifies.

The liberal viewpoint would be that the emergent property of social organisation does not exist. It is utterly defined by the individuals pursuing their interests. This is the dominance of the intrinsic over the emergent, which is why liberalism and nationalism so often come into conflict.

Again Gary Sauer-Thompson has a discussion of that phenomenon;

The essence of modern liberal thought is that order is believed to be able to consolidate itself by means of all-out economic competition, that is, through the battle of all against all, requiring governments to do no more than set certain essential ground rules and provide certain services which the individual alone cannot adequately provide.

I recently discussed this same issue from an Australian Republican perspective. While the absence of privilege may seem a liberal value, which it is, it is the ground work for enabling the creation and interaction of the emergent properties in a complex system that create social cohesion.

This is a systems view of social interaction and cohesion. In a Harpurian manner the highest form of social organisation, and consequently prosperity, can only be achieved through individual members in the system having the liberty to pursue their social, cultural and economic interests.

The point of greatest cohesion, is the one of greatest interaction and interdependence which by default is an intrinsic system of maximum liberty.

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I believe that modern Australian Republicanism flows through the philosophies of James Madison and Charles Harpur. I consider Madison not only the best US President, but the most principled.

Madison and Harpur

During the war of 1812 news was constantly bad, Washington DC was sacked, the treasury coffers were empty as New England would not finance the war against Britain, he faced a recalcitrant Napoleon in France, a divided Congress at home and a deceitful War Secretary in his cabinet. He also faced a near-fatal illness that left him bed-ridden in the summer of 1813.

After the White House was set ablaze by General Ross's British troops, the American Navy Secretary Jones wrote;

he [Madison] finds difficulty in accommodating to the crisis some of those political axioms which he has so long indulged, because they have their foundation in virtue, but which from the vicious nature of the times and the absolute necessity of the case require some relaxation.

The indulgence Jones speaks of, is the checks and balances, the republican principles that were the corner stone of American strength. Madison believed that if he compromised the principles of the American Republic, he made the nation, the states and the people weaker by giving in to power and executive avarice.

Ralph Ketchum wrote;

It was of course impossible for him [Madison] to be a Caesar or a Cromwell, but it was also against his nature and deeply held principles to become even a William Pitt or a Hamilton.

John Howard, George W. Bush and Tony Blair cannot hold a candle to James Madison either. Madison's faith in the strength of his people was well founded. America survived the war of 1812 and British coercion on their nationhood. The republican principles were to become the basis for twentieth century American power.

The Australian Republicanism of Charles Harpur carries a healthy strand of Madison. Harpur wrote;

Let civilized men be but placed for a few generations beyond the direct action of courtly and aristocratical influences, and the idea of Equality becomes fundamental in their sense of political and social obligation. They are republicans, in short, and mostly democrats also, before they can render a definite reason, it may be, for the faith that is in them. And this results, I repeat it, from a moral and social progress purely natural to civilized men, though quickened by peculiar circumstances.

To Harpur republicanism represents the highest form of social organization at any one time. It is the path to human transcendence - the faith that is in them - and the deadweight of an inferior political system is one that enforces immoral, unethical and avaristic behaviour on the people. Donald Horne's Lucky Country claimed that Australia had prospered despite bad government management. Harpur was arguing the same with political systems. If Australians have liberty, morals, ethics and a strong civic egalitarianism it is despite, rather than because of, the current political system.

War

James Madison was not only a wartime President, but one of the few to oversee a victory and a declaration

of war become a peace treaty. Madison understood the difference between a state of exception, and permanent war. If anyone has insight on the dangers of permanent war and the position of President, it is James Madison;

Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honours and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both.

No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.

In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.

In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.

The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

This newly claimed War on Terror has placed us in a permanent war that is without end. We are witnessing the onward march of Executive power in both the Australian and British parliamentary systems, as well as the American Presidential system. The Madisonian Republic is devolving to something that is other than a Republic and something that is becoming hostile to liberty or criticism. In Australia the Harpurian Republic is as far off as ever.

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One of the problems with the Dutton/Horne style of republicanism which has dominated politics since the 1950s is that it develops no doctrine. It says little more than remove the Queen to make Australia complete. On South Sea Republic we have been developing a republican doctrine, that has wider political application beyond removing the the monarchy from our system of government. One that can inform policy in areas such as foreign, economic, defence, constitutional, federalism etc etc.

The original left were the French Republicans who happened to sit on the left side of the Assembly. There was a time, many centuries ago, when republicanism was radical, but only because it replaced monarchy and aristocracy. Looking on the principles of Australian Republican doctrine that have been written about here over the last couple of years, just how radical are they? Are they conservative? Do they defy ideological closeting? Or is Australian Republicanism just catch-up with past global lessons in social and political organisation?

So what are some of the principles in an Australian Republican doctrine?

• Rule of law This is hardly radical, it is the basis of liberal democracy. One of the problems is that modern political system has been using the state of exception and arbitrary government to get around this principle . A republican system would close these holes or flaws in the political system at the constitutional level.
• Autonomy This is the basis for strong federalism as political organisation, as opposed to confederacy or unitary government (ie one national government and no states). This means that governments have to be entirely autonomous, basically, they cannot tax for other governments. Currently our federal government taxes for the states and then hands it back as GST and Commonwealth Grants to the point that 50% of NSW's budget comes from the federal government. This is an impediment to governments acting independently and innovating in policy. Money always comes with strings attached.
  At the moment, federalism remains the best form of nation-state political organisation, until that changes, republicanism is equated with pure federalism. So is it radical? No. Federal systems have existed for many centuries? Is it conservative? In Australia maybe, but only so much as it means enforcing the political system as it was intended to be in 1901.
  Where else does autonomy apply? The individual. It is the belief that the individual knows what is best for themselves. This is a natural extension of liberty and liberalism. if the government is interfering in an individuals life and liberty it better have a bloody good reason for it, an even then, that reason in 99.9% of cases is not good enough. The onus is on government, not the individual, to explain why it this infringement is necessary.
• Inviolable Rights Australia is one of the few nation-states that has fought off a bill of rights. Rights are exemptions from legislative tyranny and executive oppression. The are an area of executive and legislative action that cannot, under any circumstance, be infringed upon. Simple things such as freedom of association; habeous corpus; discrimination on the basis of colour, religion or sexuality; peaceful protest; etc etc. Is this radical? No. Is this conservative? No. Not in the Australian political tradition anyway. America has had a bill of rights for several centuries now.

• Equity Under The Law A simple principle where all are equal under the eyes of the law. Predominantly applied to common law. This is where republicanism and nationalism depart ways. Australian Republicanism is universal in its approach to rights and citizenship, making no distinction between any individual under the jurisdiction of a government. Nationalism, in contrast, makes the citizen privileged, able to vote, and participate in the polis under the presumption of assimilation. Under republicanism, if you are of the age of majority, and under the jurisdiction of the government then you are a citizen of the polis and entitled to vote and run for public office.
  Is this conservative? No. Is it radical? Only as much as Immanuel Kant mentioned this several centuries ago.

• Decentralisation This ties up partly with autonomy and provincialism, as power, especially political power, has a natural entropy to the centre, or highest political form of government, whether executive or national. Political systems naturally try to centralise. This increases instability and vulnerability of the political system. The Australian experience in on-going collapse of power to the federal government is a result of a poorly written constitution, federal hostility to the states, and political state complicity in avoiding hard political decisions. The first and second components are holes that can be closed constitutionally by an improved constitution over our current 'horse and buggy' constitution.
  Is decentralisation radical? No. It is conservative? Only so much as we have a federalist system now that has largely broken its bounds.
• Australian solutions to Australian issues are superior This is provincialism, or in other words, local politics works. Provincialism is different to nationalism as it doesn't require assimilation; or shared language or culture. When there is genuine shared interests there is positive network effects that go beyond social cohesion or unitary ethnicity. The individual by having a shared interest, is not nurtured by the current system, but instead, manages to participate and have effects beyond what an individual would be expected to otherwise.
  Is this radical? Maybe, it is holistic in its approach as opposed to conservatism which would require the system itself nurturing the individual by giving them a history and a heritage. Is it conservative? Probably, other than federal politics, people act in this manner anyway. It is mainly in the area of foreign and defence policy that Australia falls down in this.
• Self-confidence on the global stage The cringe must go. We had the cultural cringe in the past, and now we have the political cringe. This is over-represented by the great and powerful friends doctrine , as well as the anglo-sphere boosters. Australians have out-innovated others in so many areas that we need to view Australia on as a global innovator.
  Australia is both an immigrant and diasporan nation. Our diasporans march across the globe in a humble self-confidence, achieving no matter where they go. They are an integrated part of globalisation but do not lose their connection home. Our politicians need to find this same courage in foreign policy.
  Is this radical? No, not really. Is this conservative? No, not really.
• Efficient Social Organization This is a Harpurian principle. Charles Harpur believed that everyone was republican, and capable of being fully moral and ethical, except that the form of government can ensure that its own negative passions are reflected in the behaviour of its people. A good recent example of this is when I as in a business meeting and when an issue was raised that needed to be taken to a customer, with possibly adverse effects, the question was asked, "How can we spin this?"
  Charles Harpur sought the maximum and most efficient form of social organisation that was possible in order for people to find the the faith that is in them . He argues that the form of government can be as oppressive, and behaviourally iinhibiting, as its actions. From this stems the principle that maximum liberty is a necessary pre-cursor to prosperity.
  Is this radical? No, Harpur wrote these things in the mid 1800s. Is it conservative? Not really, liberty is a universal value after all.

There are many more, but that covers the main ones. Is Australian Republicanism radical, conservative, or neither? Most of the principles have been put into practice by other nation-states many centuries before, so they are nothing new. If anything they are playing catch-up, which is what the Australian political system needs to do anyway, we missed too many of the innovations of the enlightenment when federalised in 1901.

Republicanism still has a stigma for radicalism in Australia, that belies, and buries, its pragmatic nature. Really though, it is just common-sense.

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This article introduces the Copernican paradigm. The Copernican Group advocates establishing an Australian republic by replacing the Queen with a popularly-elected Head of State. The Copernican Gazette (PDF) was published earlier in 2006 to convey the proposals of the group and they are looking for replies to publish.

This article is to introduce members of the South Sea Republic to the Copernican paradigm. The Copernican paradigm was discovered independently by five contributors to republican debate. The five agreed to collaborate and draw strength from their different backgrounds and interests.

The Copernican Group advocates establishing an Australian republic by replacing the Queen with a popularly-elected Head of State with ceremonial powers and a power to appoint and dismiss the Governor-General and state Governors with limited discretion.

Other proposals implicitly merge the roles of Governor-General and Head of State - a superfluous step which has served only to divide republicans into minimalist and direct-election camps. The Copernicans have found a better way, retaining proven constitutional checks and balances, while delivering true sovereignty to the people through their elected Head of State. A model that changes the least and offers the most is best model to put to the Australian people.

The name Copernican was chosen because of fundamental difference between this new approach and other proposals. The original Copernican paradigm overturned centuries of assumption and doctrine to allow us to observe the universe in a new and more realistic way. The Copernican Group believes that there are unconscious presumptions that have created an unresolvable three-cornered contest between monarchists, minimalist republicans and direct election advocates.

It is only in this incomplete view of our constitutional system would one assume a future republic must involve "the Queen and Governor-General replaced by a president". But that is exactly the formulation of both the 1999 referendum question and models that directly elect the Governor-General. Prof. John Power calls this the "merger assumption."

Sure, it may make intuitive sense to follow this formula. But that's exactly the mistake that ancient and medieval astronomers made when they put the Earth at the centre of the universe. Republican attempts to re-engineer the Governor-General into a president under Australian conditions must inevitably resolve a range of tangential issues, which make such a project unviable. The real objective is to make Australia independent of the Queen and so long as the focus remains on the Governor-General, that goal becomes evermore distant.

As Copernicus demonstrated conclusively, intuitive sense sometimes fails us. He challenged the age-old assumptions and took a new interpretation of the heavens beyond the imagination of his fellows. Likewise, republicans will find a solution when they move their technical focus from the Governor-General to the Queen. After all, the Queen is the fulcrum of the whole debate.

Copernicus did not postulate a more complex view of the universe but a simpler and more elegant one. For an Australian republic, this should be as simple as codifying the one actual duty left to the Queen - the appointment of the representative governor on the advice of the prime minister or premier. To complete the codification, the constitution would vest executive authority in the head of state, but reserve the actual exercise of power in the Governor-General or state governor as required. This would allow the relationship between the Governor-General and Prime Minister, including the exercise of reserve powers, to continue to be guided by unwritten convention.

Absent of real executive power, the new head of state may be directly elected and yet above politics. Separate from the business of government, they cannot implement policy and thus any electoral campaign cannot be based upon promises or establishing a mandate. The fear of a popular President taking power away from the parliament is completely dissipated when the Copernican Paradigm is applied.

The Copernican Group is not an advocate of just one model. Last year members of the South Sea Republic read of the Honorary President Model ( http://www.southsearepublic.org/story/2005/7/3/154653/3937 ). The other named models are The Sovereignty Model and The Egalitarian Model. There is a model involving Council of State and another where the States have an active role in defining the Presidency.

The Copernicans are not automatically opposed to codification, but the paradigm has the unique advantage over other direct-election models in that codification is unnecessary. This gives republicans options. The conventions can be maintained as non-judiciable, unwritten rules that can evolve to suit changing political circumstances. Alternatively, we can make a case for codification, not because we have to constrain Presidential power, but because we'd like to constrain governmental power. In other words, we codify when it makes sense to codify. This is a process that will and should continue over the centuries, rather than completed in one hit.

Critics of the Copernicans have said they understate the amount of constitutional change necessary to achieve a republic. It is interesting that in no particular instance has any model been shown to be deficient in that regard. In reply, it can be pointed out that the amount of constitutional change absolutely necessary has been overstated by republican advocates. This has given monarchists the political ammunition to recast reform as radical social policy and promote themselves as the defenders of the constitutional system.

The Copernican Paradigm is redefining the republican debate. Minimalist and conservative republicans now have a supportable direct-election option that they can support. Codification is no longer required for a directly-elected presidency. The focus of the debate is returning to the Queen and the role of an Australian Head of State. Each of these developments is good news for republicans. More importantly it is good news for Australia.

The Copernican Gazette was published this earlier in 2006 to convey the proposals of the group forward and put the paradigm in the hands of every parliamentarian in Australia, state and federal. For the next issue of the Gazette we are looking for letters to publish to encourage debate on the paradigm, to identify difficulties and extend the range of designs and concepts already available. Read a copy of the Gazette (issue 1) here: http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~dlatimer/archive/Gazette-Issue1-Final.pdf .

REFERENCES

Copernican Information Page http://www.copernican.info

The Copernican Constitution http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=1125

Honorary President Model http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~dlatimer/honpres/

Egalitarian Republic Model http://7gs.com/republic.html

Submissions to the Senate Republican Inquiry
Peter Carden: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/submission s/sub105.doc
David O'Brien: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/submission s/sub126.doc
Prof John Power: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/republic03/submission s/sub28a.doc