Anthony Albanese condemned the 1975 Dismissal as a partisan ambush. Yet he refuses to pursue the constitutional reforms needed to prevent another vice-regal intervention. Australia remains exposed, and neither government nor public sentiment seems ready for the changes required.

In a speech at the 50th anniversary of the Dismissal of the Whitlam government, Prime Minister Albanese railed at its “injustice” and described it for what it was, “a partisan political ambush”. Hitting his straps, he said “the choice of whether a new government is formed belongs to the people…”. Unfortunately that’s where Albanese’s fizz runs out. Is he going to do anything to ensure the primacy of “the people” and make vice-regal coups impossible? Fat hope.

Insulating Australian democracy against a repeat of 11 November 1975 would require a referendum for significant Constitutional change – something for which Albanese doesn’t have the stomach. He now claims he only wants to hold one referendum while he is the Prime Minister and says “we did that”.

There’s no rational reason why Prime Ministers should put themselves on a referendum ration. They should be held when there is a clear need in the public interest.

At another level, however, Albanese is being rational. He’s scarred by his failure to get anywhere near a majority of the people behind the Indigenous Voice, a campaign in which in numerous speeches he failed to make a clear case for “Yes”. He probably realises that, whatever else he is, he’s an unconvincing advocate who doesn’t want to expose himself to the risk of campaigning for fundamental change to the structure of Australian government when a significant proportion of citizens retain a mawkish, juvenile fondness for the House of Windsor and its unadmirable denizens.

A respected commentator, Michelle Grattan, says: “as far ahead as we can see, the events of 1975 have inoculated the system against a rerun.”

That’s wishful thinking. As far ahead as we can see, it’s likely no government will control the Senate, that chamber will continue to provide a home for unorthodox and unpredictable Senators, and the increasing fractiousness of politics will become more pronounced. The complacency of wishful thinking won’t mitigate the possibility of inappropriate vice-regal meddling in politics.

The current governor-general, Sam Mostyn, makes reassuring noises about not doing what Sir John Kerr did in 1975. But then she has also said that the governor-general “is there to protect the Australian people against the potential of an irresponsible government.” And if a government were to become recalcitrantly irresponsible what would Mostyn do? She’s invented a role for the governor-general that office doesn’t have. As has seen in 1975, these things can get tragically out of hand. Mostyn should pull back and not insinuate herself into the high politics of government “irresponsibility”, however that might be defined.

If a repeat of Kerr’s 1975 dismissal or anything like it is to be prevented, what should be done?

The first step should be to remove the King of England as the head of Australian executive government. This servile set up serves no practical purpose. The King’s website says: “The Sovereign acts as a focus of national identity, unity and pride; gives a sense of stability and continuity; officially recognises success and excellence; and supports the ideal of voluntary services.”

Charles does none of these things in any meaningful way for Australia. Yet as attachment to the monarchy in the United Kingdom wanes, in Australia it might have increased. If these trends persist, the Poms might get rid of the Windsors before we do, leaving us holding the baby, as it were. Australia should grow up, kiss the Windsors goodbye and be a self-respecting independent country in both appearance and reality.

If that were to happen, the worst thing that could be done would be to have an elected governor-general or head of state. It would be impossible for the single such office properly to reflect broad community sentiment in anywhere near the way the election of members of the Parliament does. An elected governor-general would inevitably be associated with a side of politics and the office would become a focus of contention and contest with the government formed from members of the parliament.

That is to say, an elected governor-general with anything like the current powers of that office would make a repeat of the 1975 dismissal more, not less likely. We don’t elect a person to be the prime minister and nor should there be an elected head of state.

The Australian Republican Movement wants an Australian head of state “to ensure the smooth functioning of the parliament and government, safeguard our Constitution and represent us at home and abroad.”

How on earth such an office can ensure the smooth functioning of parliament and government is not readily conceivable – safeguarding of the Constitution is a matter for the courts, while the idea of a governor-general grovelling in Trump’s Oval office is wholly unrealistic.

Whitlam wanted simply to abolish the level of government represented by the governor-general. It is a vestige of the Divine Right of Kings and Queens whose powers British parliaments have gradually strangled into uselessness.

In his 1979 book _The Truth of the Matter_, Whitlam writes: “..we do not need a head of state at all….Experience has shown that a head of state who is anything more than an ornament is a menace….All that is needed is transitional machinery to hand over government from one party to another when the electorate so determines.”

Whitlam’s point, of course, is that political power should wholly reside in the broad-based expression of the will of the people to be found in those they select to represent them in the parliament without meddling from representatives of far distant monarchs or their local proxies.

This is the system in the Australian Capital Territory and it works.

If it were to be adopted in the Commonwealth and the states, government houses could be re-imagined, say, as places for the aged and infirm with spots allocated by ballot. How good would it be for these habitations to be places of utility rather than ornament, pomp and snobbery?

The former Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, recently urged the Prime Minister not to give up on making Australia a republic. Albanese seems already to have done so. Although he has vast reserves of political capital courtesy of hapless opposition parties, he’s run out of whatever referendum puff he had. He won’t press for the Whitlam solution to the problem dramatised by November 1975 because he must know he doesn’t have the ability to pull it off and for this, we the people, can share in the blame.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.

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