Page 829 - Week 03 - Thursday, 25 March 1993
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that my very own strongly held view is that the republic is devoutly to be wished for, and even long overdue. I strongly believe also that it will be an invaluable ingredient in ensuring our economic and social well-being as we face the challenges of the next century.
I have been disappointed, and not a little puzzled, by the arguments put forward by those opposing the republic. The three main arguments have been: If it ain't broke, don't fix it; it is just a diversion from the main economic game; and the monarchy has given us - in John Howard's words - "decades of stability". As to the first - and leaving aside the fact that there are now enough people in Britain, let alone in Australia, who take the view that it is broke and does need fixing - the truth is that all human progress has been based on the desire to make something better.
Turning to the second monarchist argument, it is true that the recent election was not fought solely over the issue of the republic; indeed, it was not even an issue of the second or third rank in the campaign. But, as one editorial put it, "Paul Keating stuck his neck out on the republican issue and did not get it chopped off". At the risk of being a little bit political, I say that the Liberals seem to accept that they too need to look at the broader agenda and that the republic is part of that broader agenda. The election seems, then, to have underlined the point that it has been quite insulting to suggest that the Australian people are capable of discussing only economic issues.
In any event, in my view it is erroneous to suggest that the question of our identity is not integrally tied up with our material and social fortunes. Monarchists should simply ask themselves, "Has the success of other nations been advanced or retarded by a strong sense of national identity and national purpose?". As the republican and one-time Liberal Party preselection candidate for the seat of Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull, has said, "I am not saying that the republic will make you rich, but history suggests patriotism is good for business".
As to the third argument by the monarchists and the anti-republicans about stability, it must be said that this really is very offensive to Australians as individuals and as a people. The political stability of Australia is a tribute to Australians and to our traditions of tolerance and mateship and not to the grace and favour of a monarch half a world away. Moreover, it can hardly be said that the grace and favour of the same monarch was able to do much for the Indians in Fiji. To the extent that British institutions have served stability in Australia, it is the institutions of courts of law and parliamentary democracy - aspects of which are found in republics around the world and which, in Australia, have found their own local distinctiveness.
Leaving aside, then, these general questions, I would like to address in particular the issue of Canberra as the capital of a Federal republic. In my view, it is inevitable that Canberra's role in national life will be enhanced by the determination of an Australian republic. In fact, what prompted this MPI, Madam Speaker, was an address by Kerry Stokes, the owner of the Canberra Times, to a Business Council function - supported also by the ACT Government, the University of Canberra and the National Capital Planning Authority - held at the National Press Club on Tuesday of this week.
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