An Obadiah Slope column
Full orbed splendour: Never one to follow the trendy crowd, Ridley Melbourne’s Academic Dean and author Michael Bird (speaking for himself, Obadiah is sure) has declared himself to be a constitutional monarchist. And quite coincidentally, Obadiah’s household Green voter says she likes a system with one decision-making body, parliament, rather than an elected president with a competing authority.
Obadiah thinks she’s been looking across the Pacific at the chaos of the US system of late.
Before we get to Bird’s reasoning, Obadiah notes that Bird also supports Acknowledgement of Country in an even more recent post. Obadiah wonders if that’s possibly the smallest Venn diagram overlap one can find: constitutional monarchists who also favour Indigenous reconciliation and acknowledgement of country.
Bird’s argument is worth a read.
“The separation of king and parliament means there is a separation of authority and power. And the sole purpose of the king is to make sure no evil maleficent ever gets his or her grubby hands on both authority and power. The king should be a symbol of gloriously powerless authority. The king should hold authority over the power so that those in authority can never be all-powerful.”
There’s a powerful appeal to Obadiahj’s egalitarian instincts here. Here’s the idea that a king holds the power of the PM to account, like the slave with a laurel crown telling a Roman commander in their triumphal procession, “momento more,” “remember you are but mortal” to keep their feet on the ground.
Bird was thinking about Charles III, writing on the eve of his Coronation, as a monarch whose power in the UK is symbolic and whose symbolism in the UK is all but pervasive.
But for us, the monarchy is a bit like following a football team only on the grand final day: the significant events get our attention.
Obadiah’s first thought is, why the UK monarch for the powerless authority? Why not borrow Vajiralongkorn, King of Thailand or King Tupou VI of Tonga? Or maybe the Crown Princess of Denmark – Tasmanians would support her as a local.
Or there’s the suggestion that pops up time after time of having an indigenous elder. Of course, it’s actually been done already, with Yorta Yorta man Pastor Doug Nicholls serving as Governor of South Australia.
All of these could have power without authority. Bird’s model has appeal.
There’s one slight problem, though. Our Governors-General have the “reserve” powers that were used in 1975, so perhaps they have more power than the constitutional monarch in the UK using the Bagehot formula: “To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.”
Our constitution gives the Governor General “prerogative powers, ” including dissolving a parliament.”
So the GG is not quite a gloriously powerless authority. This is one issue that needs to be thoroughly considered in any change. What happens if a government loses supply and a budget is not passed in parliament? But Obadiah has no desire to re-litigate 1975. Except to say that he believes Senator Condor Lauke may well have given Whitlam supply rather than have the Governor General act.
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A point to ponder
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Obadiah stood to applaud at the end of the play ‘Gillard’, a fictional reimagining of the rise of a colleague of Obadiah’s on the executive of the Student’s Association of the University of Adelaide to PM and beyond. At one stage in the play, there is a list of “untruths,” one of which struck Obadiah with some force because some Christian speakers have proclaimed it, “It is the role of the woman to make the man look good.”
Obadiah thought it was always his job to help the boss perform well and to labour to that effect at work. But regardless of gender.
Or in the words of Obadiah’s fellow Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7.) A genderless command.