Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition will be opposing the Crown References Amendment Bill 2023. This bill is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It is very interesting when you look at this bill and the acts that it seeks to amend, including the Customs Act 1901, the Defence Act 1903, the Defence Service Homes Act 1918, the Royal Commissions Act 1902 and the Superannuation Act 1922. I highlight those acts because, right throughout the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II, those acts referred to a king or His Majesty, and it didn't seem to disturb the administration of the Commonwealth such that we needed a bill like this. Why was that? It was because, as the explanatory memorandum makes very clear here:

In accordance with section 16 of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, existing references to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Commonwealth Acts, are construed as references to the present Sovereign, His Majesty King Charles III.

So this is solving a problem that doesn't exist and is more reflective of the fact that the government's legislative agenda is so thin that they've brought acts before us that are just not necessary.

The Crown References Amendment Bill 2023 makes several amendments to a variety of acts to replace references to 'Her Majesty', 'the Queen' and 'the King' with 'the Sovereign'. The bill creates a new term for senior counsel to include King's Counsel and Queen's Counsel. The bill amends oaths and affirmations by removing references to His or Her Majesty and replacing them with a direction to insert the applicable pronoun. The reason the coalition is opposing this is that when the coalition asked if the government had consulted with the Governor-General on the bill, we were advised that the Prime Minister and the cabinet had no intention of consulting the Governor-General until the bill had reached its royal assent stage. The government wanted to pass the Crown References Amendment Bill without even speaking to the King's representative in Australia, the Governor-General. The Prime Minister wanted to pass the Crown References Amendment Bill before speaking to the Crown. The coalition will not be supporting this bill until we have assurances that the government has consulted with the Crown's representative in Australia, the Governor-General.

The fact that the Labor government is considering this bill clearly illustrates the priorities of the government in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. It's clear that this government doesn't have a plan for our economy. While Australians are hurting, this government's priority is semantic changes to legislation rather than measures to put downward pressure on inflation and support cost-of-living relief. As somebody who supports the constitutional monarchy in this country, I will note that there is one advantage of this particular bill: it bolsters an argument made by constitutional monarchists in the 1999 referendum that the Queen, as she was at that time, was the sovereign, not the head of state; the head of state was the Governor-General. This actually clearly clarifies that the King now, or any future king or queen, is indeed the sovereign, and it helps those of us who are seeking to make that argument in any future republic debate that might occur in this country.

I want to respond to some comments made by the member for Kennedy and, in particular, defend the system of constitutional monarchy that we have here. If the member for Kennedy is right and he's never sworn allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, he puts himself in a similar position to that position that Senator Thorpe put herself in in the Senate, where she refused to swear allegiance and was told that, in effect, not swearing allegiance made her ineligible to sit in the house. So I thought that was a rather interesting admission he made. The member for Kennedy said a few things about the sovereignty of the Australian people. The High Court confirmed in a series of cases in the 1990s that the Australian people are indeed sovereign.

When you look at the legislative changes that have been made to the position of the Crown in Australia over several years, from the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which was adopted in 1942, through to the Australia Act in 1986, it is clear that Australia is an independent and sovereign nation. We make all of our own laws in this country. The UK Parliament has no power to make laws about Australia anymore. Since 1986, Australian courts have been the final arbiters of decisions in this country. Appeals haven't gone to the Privy Council, and English common law is now only one of a series of important, comparable sources that we draw our jurisprudence from; it has no more of a special status than that of any other country. Thirdly, as the events of 1975 demonstrated, where the Queen did not get involved, where she stayed out of those events, the executive power of the Commonwealth is exercised by Australians through the Governor-General as their representative.

I disagree with many of the things that the member for Kennedy said about the position of the monarchy in Australia. I think there are great advantages to having a system of constitutional monarchy in this country. I want to talk about some of them in the remaining time here, because I think it is important to put some of these things on the record.

The Crown in this country is a wonderful symbol of service and continuity. In an ever-changing world it is important to have some symbols that remind us of the long passage from absolute autocracy, which absolute monarchy originally was, through to the rise of parliament and the wonderful system of measured constitutional monarchy in this country that we have today. In the King, in the monarchy itself, we have a living symbol of that continuity of Australia.

I will take the interjection from the member for Kennedy. Of course all people are equal. All Australians are equal. But the beauty of constitutional monarchy is that you have a sovereign above politics. If you want to have a sovereign above politics, there is only one way of doing that, and that is by having a system of constitutional monarchy. In any other way, you end up with a politician as president, whether that politician is chosen by the parliament or by the people.

When you have a politician, they're elected and they have a mandate. Therefore, when you give somebody a mandate, they will look to exercise power. The great benefit of the monarchy, as Churchill famously said, is that 'it's important not for the power it wields, but for the power it denies others.' I think it's good that at the top of our system, despite the inexhaustible ambitions of people who are elected to this place, there is one office that is apolitical, above all others, and that is the Crown in this country.

When you compare our system of government to the United States, the equivalent position is held by a politician who can never bring the country together. We've seen some particularly divisive politics in the United States over recent years with a series of their presidents, including a president that even refused to accept the will of the people when they lost office. I think that that is an argument for why you actually need a sovereign above politics, as we do in our great system of constitutional monarchy that we have in this country.

Our governors-general and our state governors have done a terrific job. They know that their job is to represent the Crown in this country. They have no mandate, they are not elected and they must conduct themselves in accordance with the traditions and conventions of the Crown and bring honour to that office. With very few exceptions, we have had governors and governors-general who have done that. They have been outstanding people who have furthered the position of the Crown in this country because they have acted in accordance with traditions and conventions that have developed throughout the centuries—first in Britain and then in this country, in our own uniquely Australian version of the monarchy.

Secondly, having someone at the top of the political system that is not political allows that role to provide leadership above politics in a way no politician can. We've seen that both in the life of the present King and in the life of his mother, and in the lives of other members of the Royal Family, including in the way in which they've spoken out on issues well before politicians did, such as on climate change, the AIDS virus and mental health. These are some of the issues that they can provide leadership on above politics, which is important.

Our Constitution provides for stability. In recent years, we have had a series of political leaders who have not served a full term of office, whether they were Australian prime ministers or state premiers, so it's often very difficult to know who the next Prime Minister will be. But we know, for almost the next 100 years, who the next King will be—there'll be King Charles, then King William and then King George—and that's a good thing. It is good that we know that there is that stability, that continuity and that certainty in an ever-changing world. That certainty means that at the top of our system the office of monarch is not subject to political intrigue and factional infighting. That elevates the office, and I think that that is a really good idea.

If we were to move to a republic, particularly an elected presidency, you can imagine the sorts of contenders that we would get for that role. You can imagine people who would exercise the extraordinary resources of somebody like a Clive Palmer or a Simon Holmes a Court to try and get themselves or somebody that they could move around elected, and I think that that would be a very bad thing. It would be bad for the stability of our country; it would be bad for the cohesion of this country.

We have been lucky that in the present King, in Queen Elizabeth II, in her father King George VI, in King George V, in Queen Victoria and others, we've had exemplary monarchs who've been committed to serving this country in an important tradition, and I think that has been a wonderful and important aspect of the system of constitutional monarchy in this country.

In great contradistinction to the member for Kennedy, I think another advantage of the monarchy in this country, it's actually one of the huge advantages, is that we share the monarch with a whole range of other countries. In a world that is becoming more international, in a world that is global, I think it's important that we share the Crown with the United Kingdom, with Canada, with New Zealand, with Papua New Guinea, with a whole range of other countries around the world. It brings together a common element, a comity that we have with other peoples—other free peoples—under the Crown in an age that is becoming more nationalistic in a very bad way.

There are many countries in our region that are constitutional monarchies like Japan, like Thailand and many of the Malaysians states. Constitutional monarchies tend to be freer societies. Four of the six of the oldest continuous democracies in the world are constitutional monarchies, including our country, including Canada, including Great Britain.

I think that the monarchy is a great thing. I think we should be proud of it, we should celebrate it and those who seek to replace it should be very careful what they wish for, because there are some significant issues that one needs to address if you are to replace the Crown in this country. What do you do about the Crown at the state level? What do you do about the constitutional conventions, those reserve powers of the Crown. What do you do about the appointment and dismissal of prime ministers? How do you ensure, because I'm not sure you can ensure, that any future president would exercise their powers in the same way in which the constitutional monarchy in Australia has exercised its powers.

The government, I should note, has a very fine man in its midst in the member for Kingsford Smith, but despite the fact he is a fine man, he has this strange title of Assistant Minister for the Republic. One wonders what that title is actually all about and what he is doing, and I note he hasn't spoken on this particular bill either. It seems to be a title without a job and without a role, and I think at the moment the prospect of Australia becoming a republic is further from likely than at any time in our history.

I do commend some aspects of this, but the coalition's position—I will repeat it again—is that when it asked the government if it had consulted the Governor-General on this bill, the coalition was advised that the Prime Minister and the cabinet had no intention of consulting the Governor-General until the bill had reached its royal assent stage. The government wanted to pass the Crown References Amendment Bill without even speaking to the King's representative, the Governor-General. The Prime Minister wanted to pass the Crown References Amendment Bill before speaking to the Crown and, therefore, because of the disrespect to the Crown, the coalition will not be supporting this bill until we have assurances that the government has consulted with the Crown's representative in Australia, the Governor-General.

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