What became clear in the post-1999 referendum period is that the Australian people want to own their republic. They want to choose the type of republic Australia would be and a majority believe the best form of republic is one where they have the right to elect the individual who would be their president. This is a notion of ownership that affronts the idea of representative democracy that many politicians and other opinion leaders believe best serves Australia.
That's not what became clear at all. What became clear was that it's easy to be a spoiler in a referendum on anything as complicated as change to the highest office in the land.
Let's be clear about a few things. First, the two-thirds model was not in any way, as the monarchists repeatedly and dishonestly claimed, a "politician's republic". The two-thirds model would have ensured that our new President would be a bipartisan choice, someone not strongly linked with either side of politics - someone apolitical who could represent Australians of all persuasions. It was a less partisan solution than the present system for appointing the Governor-General, which is that the Prime Minister just picks someone he likes. And it was a vastly less "politician" based model than direct election, in which by definition the President would be a politician.
There is no way to have a directly-elected President without an election. And there's no way to have an election without political parties running candidates.
That's a divisive way to pick a Head of State. Not an inclusive one.
Secondly, the idea that the two-thirds model was the "elites" pushing their views on the rest of the country was always farcical spin. There was a constitutional convention, at which all interested parties - not politicians - were invited to submit and debate their views on the subject. All views on the republic were presented at that convention, and debated vigorously. And what emerged was the proposal most candidates supported - including as against the status quo.
In other words, when Australians with different views sat down and thought hard about it, they decided that the best way to combine our present system, which a majority think is better than any alternative systems in place around the world, with having an Australian Head of State, which a majority thought made more sense than some hereditary English family pretending to represent us, was the two-thirds model. Which is why it was put to us.
Let's be clear: this "politicians' republic" line was thought up by focus groups and run by well-funded and shameless politicians. And of course people who aren't particularly engaged in the system bought it. It was a clever lie. If you're asked "should you elect your President, or should some politician do it", of course people answer "I want to elect the President!" But if you ask them - "do you think our present system is better than any alternative system in the world?", "Do you want an Australian head of state?", "Do you realise that a direct election would ensure that the President would be a member of a political party, elected after a US-style Presidential election?", "Do you realise that the two thirds model would require both sides of politics to agree on the President, and therefore he or she would be unlikely to be from a political party", "Would you support the minimalist model, ensuring an Australian head of state but otherwise not changing the balance of the present parliamentary system?" then the answer is quite different. But you have to think about it in more than a glib "of course election is better than appointment" sort of way.
Luckily for the monarchists, the issue wasn't really so important that a majority of Australians would put aside the other issues in their lives to think about it closer.
Apparently Greg doesn't want them to think hard about it any more, either -
Instead of continuing to deny the Australian people the chance to vote on a choice of republican models for fear that they will choose the route of a directly elected president, political leaders, particularly those on the conservative side of the fence, should seize the opportunity. They could renew faith in Australian democracy by placing their trust in the electorate to make the judgement.
Yes, now Greg Barns apparently wants parliament to put a direct-election model, completely changing our system of government and ensuring that we have US-style Presidential elections, to another referendum. Because he has apparently completely taken on board the views of his attackers in 1999 and believes that the defeat of his ARM wasn't due to better campaigning by his opponents, and the traditional difficulty of getting a referendum passed in Australia (what Menzies described as "one of the labours of Hercules"), but due to Australians really, when they think about it, wanting a directly-elected President.
Seriously, Greg - if you put a direct election model, I'll be voting against it. The two-thirds model was an improvement over the status quo. The addition of a US-style President, breaking a hundred years of constitutional convention and ensuring a partisan Head of State, is not. Putting such a model - which should, and almost certainly would, be defeated - just to placate spoiling idiots like Phil Cleary, would be a massive waste of public money.
This time the monarchists wouldn't have to lie and dissemble about the model being a "politicians' republic" - if you put up a direct election model, it really would be.
The sad thing is that Greg Barns of 1999 knew all this. Obviously losing badly to people like Sophie Mirabella has damaged his view of reality, and the way he's coped has been to adopt their bizarre claims on the subject. It couldn't be that we at the ARM were out-campaigned by the cunning bastards at the ACM: it must be that they were telling the truth all along! That must be it! It couldn't be that they were genuinely able to take advantage of ignorance and mistrust of politicians to actually convince Australians to act against their own beliefs; it must have been that the model itself was to blame. I refuse to believe that slick spin alone can derail something as difficult to pass as a referendum. I won't believe it! Sophie, Phil, I'm sorry!
Greg doesn't need our support - he needs our sympathy.
