Comments

  • dlatimer . # .
    Implications for an Australian republic: The potential for the blocking of supply in the case of the federal and state parliaments, means that the only directly elected Head of State which has a chance of passing referendum is that proposed by the Copernican Group.

    Under the status quo, the Governor-General is in a position to respond to the crisis with a degree of freedom and authority. The identification of a crisis does not lead to a permanent change in the nature of the executive (ie dictatorship) because the Governor-General is appointed and a representative of the Head of State. The public conception of this position is the \'constitutional umpire\'.

    A directly-elected Head of State is perfectly reasonable provided that the Governor-General\'s crisis management role is not transferred into that position. If such a transfer were made, then the election issue for the Head of State would always be their approach in resolving a constitutional crisis. This would create an  political question of every election, when the existing system is inherently apolitical.

    There is no system of codification that can get around this. The many problems in attempting to do so include (1) flexibility is eliminated (2) loopholes discovered to late (3) fixing problems requires a referendum (4) judicial review of the crisis resolution (5) obtaining a bi-partisan agreement in the face of 1975.

    The better solution is to retain the current role of Governor-General. This is no impediment to electing the Head of State, as under the Australian constitutional system, the Head of State is the Queen, and the Governor-General is her representative.

    Under the Copernican paradigm, the Head of State is independent and the Governor-General can respond if supply is blocked in a deadlocked parliament.