There’s an extraordinary rant from Christopher Pearson in today’s Opposition Organ, beginning with a big spray against Quentin Bryce. Let me just observe that her opinion that the reserve powers can be codified is a respectable one, and that Pearson is committing a significant fallacy when he conflates that opinion with the analytically separate question of the political feasibility of such a change to the Constitution.
The actual occasion for his condescending twaddle seems to be a lamentation about the ideological unsoundness of the Liberal Party leadership:
Until recently, it would have been hard to imagine a candidate with Bryce’s limitations and ideological baggage winning the level of broad acceptance within the conservative wing of the political class necessary for her to function as governor-general. Indeed, since Brendan Nelson, Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull could not be described plausibly as conservatives, it may not be safe to assume that Bryce does enjoy that kind of acceptance. In less than a year, the values for which John Howard, Peter Costello and Alexander Downer provided so formidable a bulwark are no longer taken for granted in the Liberal Party room.
More power to Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott appears to be the suggestion. Yep, they’re electoral gold. Attack Rudd from the hard right, urges Pearson.
It really does show that the Howard years are over when reactionary columnists such as Pearson and Piers Akerman realise that with the ascenscion of Turnbull they don’t have a dog in the fight anymore. However, Pearson does take some comfort from the number of climate change “skeptics” on the front bench:
It leaves the Coalition well-placed in the event that there’s no further global warming or unmistakable cooling in the next few years.
Elsewhere: More on the Quentin Bryce interview that Pearson refers to at Hoyden.
I’m not impressed with her. I saw her on 7.30 Report with Kerry, and she gave the distinct impression she believes she has the right to refuse to sign any bill she disagrees with, even though it just passed through a democratically elected parliament.
I don’t see that at all. She was saying she wanted to inform herself about what legislation she was signing.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2372400.htm
She certainly hasn’t vetoed any bills in five years as Governor of Queensland.
Yeah, ‘cos people like Michael Jeffrey and Peter Hollingworth had absolutely no limitations at all. The cheek! Pearson is sounding like a desperate man.
I had a bit to do with Pearson years ago and nastier person I’ve never met.
You would think even Rupert would cringe at sad stuff like that. Pearson lives on island irrelevance hence the nature of his writings. How silent the vacuum must be now that Howard has gone.
Pearson is desperate. The wheels have come off the hard right train. The new leader of the Libs is -in the view of the fascist cabal within the “Liberal” party - a soft cock liberal. The new GG is a no cock and thus not to be trusted at all. So who is driving the train? Minchin?
Its obviously not bright to uphold a decrepit, redundant institution founded on the bloody severed neck of a women ( Anne Boleyn ) and also the same institution that continues to discriminate against women ( like Queen Anne should succeed over her younger brother Charles) Not bright at all.
Then don’t get me started on the use of reserve powers here, to dismiss people without notice.
That’s already happened here twice. And with Turdbull’s huffing and puffing over money bills and a Fielding in the Senate it could easily happen again. If Bryce has any self-respect she’d resign imo. Btw - I stopped buying the weekend Australian today. I’m trying to boycott all drongo’s as much as possible.
Tony Abbott, have they not seen the performances of “people skills” over the last twelve months - talk about being in denial. It’s one thing to be an attack dog which was Abbotts old function (and which he already overplayed his hand), but you have to have some idea what you are attacking otherwise it just comes out as another hysterical brain-fart.
Maybe she is just acting on the advice of her Prime Minister (to take a more “active” role in the legislative process). Perhaps this is just an attempt to suggest to the Australian public how a president may act, and to get the republic back on the agenda in way which doesn’t divide Australians.
I would find it hard to believe that a Prime Minister who insists on clearing all ministerial statements through the OoP&C is going to let the GG loose without any brief.
From the intrview:
She knows what her role is.
Like I said, it’d be very odd if she didn’t - having been governor of Qld for five years!
If that was your impression then she gave a the correct impression of what the Constitution says her powers are in this regard;
There seems to be quite a gap between the constitution we have and the constitution some folks think we have.
What are you talking about professor rat? The monarchy today is completely and utterly different from Henry VIII.
Henry VIII was a dictator, little different from Saddam Hussein. Since the Magna Karta, the monarchy is a completely different institution. Its comparing apples and oranges.
Stephen, I hope your remark had sarc tags on it. Henry VIII lived centuries after the Magna Carta, but I’m sure you knew that already.
Although Prof. Rat as I write this Geoffrey Robertson QC is working on a case to have laws changed in Britain so that the eldest daughter of a monarch would be first in line, among other reforms that would enable a monarch to marry a person of any religion…even (gasp!) a Catholic!
Would such reforms alter your opinion of the monarchy?
Don’t forget that one of the reason the British monarchy has survived this long is by reforming *just* enough each century or two to remain vaguely within the bounds of what its subjects will cop…from the Magna Carta (that’s 1215, Stephen), to the accession to parliamentary democracy, right down to Betty agreeing to paying taxes in 1997 - and now, so it seems, more reforms are coming…
You go to law with the constitution you’ve got, not the constitution you want.
‘he shall declare, according to his discretion, but subject to this Constitution, that he assents in the Queen’s name, or that he withholds assent, or that he reserves the law for the Queen’s pleasure. The Governor-General may return to the house in which it originated any proposed law so presented to him, and may transmit therewith any amendments which he may recommend, and the Houses may deal with the recommendation.’
Hmm, heck of a lot of “he”s in that section of the Constitution. Obviously not applicable to our new GG. Pearson doesn’t like her because she has the wrong kind of genitals for his… err… taste.
So Bryce has fewer reserve powers because she’s a woman?
Why didn’t Whitlam think of that when he nominated Kerr?
Would have saved a lot of trouble.
Prof Rat also seems a little confused as to the birth order of the Queen’s children - Charles is the eldest, then Anne, then Andrew then Edward. As the line of succession stands, Anne (and her descendants) comes after the sons (and their descendants). If the law were changed Charles would still be first in line for the throne, then his sons, then Anne and her children.
Of course, primogeniture as a system generally sucks rocks anyway. The Scots never had it until Malcolm Canmore became king and brought Norman ways to their system - before that the Thanes elected the King of Scots from amongst their number. That system involved all the politicking and plots one might expect, of course, but at least it didn’t enshrine just one family as the royals.
If Quentin Bryce is ‘not especially bright’, then by comparison light cannot escape from the surface of Christopher Pearson. He is nothing but the void and the howling darkness.
Or, y’know, an idiot.
Whew, I think somebody forgot to take his medication. Quentin Bryce is “not especially bright” eh?
On a positive note, it’s fatal for people to underestimate their opponents, as Pearson does.
In comparison to the last couple? She’s an astral physicist…
Class let review - most Aussies want an Aussie head of state. How best may we facilitate that?
50 words or less
The hypocrisy of right wingers like Pearson is incredulous when you consider the qualities Pearson’s peers swooned over in for eg Sarah Palin. Quentin Bryce shares these very qualities the Right believed acceptable for Palin’s nomination as VP candidate: she hails from a small town, raised five children and is a dedicated family woman, overcame the challenges associated with being a woman in traditionally male-dominated career, and achieved this on merit and commitment, and is a passionate advocate for issues she strongly believes in. Better still, she’s Australian! Yet Bryce is to be regarded with suspicion, a “slave to the zeitgeist”, a person with “ideological baggage”. Isn’t this the same hysteria slated at Palin which the Right sneeringly derided as typical of the hateful Left?
Pearson’s rant has all the hallmarks of the very criticism levelled at Palin that (presumably) he and his conservative peers disparaged. The Oz has lost it of late.
I’m still shaking my head over the notion that the military and religious affiliations of her two predecessors are somehow not ‘ideological baggage’.
I guess it’s only ideology if you don’t agree with it.
Rachel! Wordy-wordy-mcWord!
The military and the church are two of the longest standing and legitimate institutions in not only Australia but most of the world. They are not mere “ideologies” in the sense that feminism, Bolshevism, or some other transitory discourse is.
Bryce was not chosen for her IQ, no GG is, nor should be. She was chosen primarily for her gender and quite rightly. What surprises me more about her than her intelligence, or lack thereof, is just how common her accent is.
Dear PC, I suppose that there’s a sense in which everything can be construed as ideological and in which we all have ideological baggage of one kind or another, but I don’t think it’s very helpful in talking about constitutional umpires. The thing about a powerful appointed office, representing the crown, is that it should be performed as impersonally as possible, free of any suggestion of partisan loyalties. Whatever might be said of the two previous GGs, no-one as far as I know has ever entertained the idea that they couldn’t work with a Labor government and uphold the conventions or that they wouldn’t carry out their responsibilities with a judicial indifference.The fact that one was a bishop and the other a general encourages the assumption that they were old-fashioned and they’d play by the rules but seems to me otherwise irrelevant. Bryce’s assertion that she’d be faithful to contemporary thinking, whatever that might mean, suggests a kind of activism in the new role which invites us to consider her past agendas (baggage)and wonder how she might use the office to further them. If, for example, as she says, human rights are a major focus, which model of human rights? Does it include the right to abort and the right to die? Of course if it were the queen confronted with pro-euthanasia legislation in Britain, we know that she’d be a model of constitutional propriety, would warn it wasn’t wise and contrary to her oath as head of the C of E, but would eventually sign the bill. If Bryce were confronted with a Commonwealth bill over-riding a territory pro-euthanasia bill, would her declared fidelity to contemporary thought take precedence over what the Reps and Senate had decided? The reason such questions can be posed is because she raised them with her ill-considered remarks at the swearing in.
Armagny,
astrophysicists use physics and maths etc to criticise and build astronomical models. Astral??
Christopher Pearson: is there a tradition of refusing Bills? I believe the convention is otherwise in Ausatralia. Certainly John Kerr seems to have been pilloried by his peers for signing a minute for a huge overseas loan, that said it was “for temporary purposes”…and seemed aggrieved that he should cop such flak, BUT could he have refused to sign it?
Are we able to say whether or not Australian GGs advise, warn, cajole etc? Or is it more traditional that strict confidentiality applies; until the extraordinary occurs, and someone like John Kerr tips over the barrow and everyone scurries off to write their memoirs…. ??
“Until recently, it would have been hard to imagine a candidate with Bryce’s limitations and ideological baggage winning the level of broad acceptance within the conservative wing of the political class necessary for her to function as governor-general.”
“Dear PC, I suppose that there’s a sense in which everything can be construed as ideological and in which we all have ideological baggage of one kind or another, but I don’t think it’s very helpful in talking about constitutional umpires.”
In that case, why were you talking about it? And what exactly are her limitations?
If that’s the real CP then I’d hate to be a News subbie.
Paragraphs man, paragraphs!
If you’d limited your remarks (as you have here) to What She Said At The Swearing In, your position would be hanging together a lot better CP. I might even be sympathetic myself - not many fans of appointees wielding executive power round these parts. However you over-egg it grossly, and what’s more about halfway through you cease mentioning Bryce at all, spinning off into a barely-there narrative about the parliamentary Liberal party and how disrespectful Turnbull has been to
tattered remnants of Howard’s sorry legacystalwart pillars of conservative thought like Nick Minchin. Cry us a freaking river Chris - or stay on topic perhaps?It’s a reasonable, if somewhat trivial, question to ask what being “alive, open, responsive and faithful to the contemporary thinking and working of Australian society” might mean for a GG.
It’s entirely unreasonable to construe this as a threat to withhold assent to legislation, since there is no identifiable such school of “contemporary thinking” in Australia, nor any hint of it in her record as Governor of Queensland.
Ambigulous, the dynamics of the relationship between the GG and Executive Council have seldom been matters of public debate except in the aftermath of 1975. But we know a bit about them. The GG has a role as both literal and metaphorical proof-reader of last resort, pointing out drafting errors or incommensurable provisions as between previous and new law. The GG has the right to advise, to warn and to be consulted. The GG has the right to consider bills, to delay and to take advice. Where a government is proposing to seek the viceroy’s sanction of an action which breaks the law (as the Lang Govt did with Governor Game)he or she may warn that persistence in formally advising that course of action will lead to the ministers’ commissions being withdrawn and new advisers being commissioned.The GG needs to have a firm grasp of constitutional law and what is ultra vires, just in case the commonwealth law officers’ opinions are at odds.
And, Christopher, those dynamics are precisely what Bryce does have a firm grasp on, if you give the transcript of the interview a fair reading.
Really, what a crock. Bryce will do what she is told, like all but one GGs before her.
More interesting is the emerging revolt of the Right punditry against Turnbull.
Miranda Devine kicked it off a nanosecond after Turnbull was elected followed by CP on the weekend in the Opposition Orifice, and today in the SMH we have Paul Sheehan. Albrechtson is still holding a torch for Peter Costello.
The problem, you see, is that Turnbull is not One of Them. He is, in Stalin’s memorable phrase, a rootless cosmopolitan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan
http://www.stamfordcosmopolitan.com.au/doubleBaysMagneticHeart.htm
Yes, Spiros. Not One of Them = dangerously unpredictable.
Thank you for expounding at 12.42pm, Christopher Pearson. It is rare that a working-family-person has the opportunity to converse with a working journalist/columnist. But I still can’t see gubernatorial meddling (or a major confrontation brought on) by this GG as likely. Can you?
Ambigulous, the problem is that if this GG proves to be delinquent, one way or another, we may not know until the damage is done, so to speak.
I took her to task for breaking with tradition and giving the 7.30 Report an interview at the beginning of her term, saying how she saw the office and assuring us that she could indeed be both umpire and activist at the same time.What that means in practice, nobody knows. But it sounds as though she envisages a far more engaged role than is customary. Previous GGs have largely been content just to do the job,circumscribed by the awareness that their power derived from representing the monarch and therefore self-effacing.
One of the ways — I should have mentioned it in earlier — in which GGs can make themselves useful in a partisan sense to the governments that appointed them is by acceding to unreasonable but politically convenient requests for general elections or double dissolutions.
I’ll say it again Christopher - your argument is far better than your article.
I think our concern-troll protesteth to much. Mark doesn’t think the republic is much of an issue to worry about - and most folks here take their cues from Mark.
“unreasonable but politically convenient requests for … double dissolutions.”
What is an unreasonable request for a double dissolution? Either the constitutional ctiteria are met, with the Senate twice rejecting a bill, or they are not. If they are met, the PM has every right to ask for a DD, and the GG must dissolve both houses. If they are not met, the GG can’t don’t it.
Exactly, Spiros. If the Coalition doesn’t want to hand the Labor Government the triggers for a DD, then all they have to do is NOT reject any bills twice in the Senate. It’s not up to the GG at all, other than formalising the triggered-DD with a pronouncement.
As to “breaking with tradition” by giving an interview at the beginning of the term of office, are you sure? Isn’t the GG giving an interview to our national broadcaster common practice? If it hasn’t been, why shouldn’t it be - the nation deserves to see the GG on the telly answering questions, surely?
An unreasonable request for a double dissolution in the eyes of those born to rule would be a request acceded to that could result in a victory in both houses of parliament for the present government. Watch for the “unreasonable request” scenario to grow via opposition talking heads.
Indeed, it seems difficult to construe what exactly an unreasonable request for a DD would be, perhaps if the bills used as the trigger were clearly trivial.
OTOH, there are requests for the ordinary dissolution of Parliament that could be considered unreasonable, such as in the first 12 months of a Parliament when the government continues to have a working majority, or when there is a clear new majority formed on the floor of the lower house.
Given that no requests of the first kind have ever been made or appear likely to, and no situations of the latter kind have happened since 1909 and are not likely to again, arguing that Bryce could never be the equal of those splendid chaps Northcote and Dudley seems to be drawing rather a long bow.
Hollingworth gave interviews and press conferences upon appointment.
Jeffery gave interviews and press conferences upon appointment.
I can only surmise that it is talking to Kezza that’s the problem.
Christopher Pearson included this: “The GG has a role as both literal and metaphorical proof-reader of last resort, pointing out drafting errors or incommensurable provisions as between previous and new law.”
Crikey! Now Zelman C was a constitutional lawyer and general legal eagle…., but what a HUGE task this sounds, this checking malarkey. Wouldn’t the GG need a whole staff of proofreaders, research assistants etc, all with good Law degrees, to undertake this properly? Oh, hang on…. don’t we already have a Federal Attorney General? Doesn’t she have some staff who might help out?
I’m not sure that Christopher’s view on this is workable. It seems unwieldy and unnecessary, though I’m all for thorough proofreading!
On all occasions since 1905, the Governor-General has only requested amendments on ministerial advice, when it has become clear that there is an error that needs fixing. Saying that the GG is the metaphorical proof-reader of last resort is fair enough, but again any suggestion that the individual actually needs to be responsible for it is ludicrous.
Wasn’t that the case with the bills Fraser used as a trigger in 83 - bills that he didn’t intend to proceed further with in any case?