Mr COLLINS - I am the Liberal and coalition leader in the New South Wales parliament. I have been a republican since 1967. The first time I went on record in support of a Republic was 30 years ago. I am more a republican and more committed today than I have ever been. Like, I believe, a majority of you and a majority of the Australian people, I feel a sense of urgency. I feel that we must proceed to make this decision to take this final step in our constitutional evolution.

I have been unable to attend the last two days of this Convention. But, looking at this Convention from Sydney for the last two days, I ask where the spirit of goodwill has gone that was here on Monday. Where is the spirit of goodwill - that constructive attitude that we need so much to truly make a representative decision on behalf of the Australian people? We are not going to get through this Convention by bullying each other, by intimidating each other and by talking each other down and name-calling. We are going to make a constructive contribution to our constitutional evolution only if we agree to work together.

A century from now the Australian people will make a comparison; it is inevitable. They will make a comparison between what we have done in this Convention and what was done a century ago. A century ago, the Convention delegates had before them the whole agenda. They had nothing to guide them. They did not even have nationhood. We have all of that done for us. We are asked to make a very simple decision: do we or do we not move to have an Australian head of state? I emphatically support that. We are not asked to reinvent Australia. We are not asked to undertake a complete, national stocktake on every element of our Constitution. That is beyond the capacity of this Convention, try as we might, in the time available to us. We have limited time. If we wanted to explore the many issues that have been rightly raised by a number of delegates on all sides of this debate, we would need not simply this 10 days but another four or five conventions of this nature to undertake that sort of analysis.

Let me make a few quick points about the republic I support. First, I firmly support Australia becoming a republic as soon as possible and no later than the year 2001. When the Sydney Olympics occur in the year 2000, the Sydney Olympics will be opened by an Australian. I give that pledge. All of you know that there is a state election due next year. An Australian will open the Sydney Olympics regardless of the outcome of this Convention.

I support the retention of the title `Commonwealth of Australia' when we become a republic, as I support the retention of our Coat of Arms. We do not need to throw out - and this is the concern of many monarchists - our traditions, our heritage and our history. Those things can be retained and built upon. I support, at a state level, the retention of the position of Governor, and the role of Governor will be to the states what the role of Governor-General has been and the role of president will be to the Commonwealth. I believe that Governors should work from Government House. I do not believe that the current Governor of New South Wales is the last Governor of New South Wales.

Turning to the question of the presidency, I support the proposition that appointment should be by the government of the day and that it should be ratified by a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament. Here we are having this debate about democratic election. For the newspapers that conduct the opinion polls I say: ask questions in greater detail. What do the Australian people say when they talk about popular election of the president? I think what they are saying is that they do not want to see that job politicised. I agree with the many speakers who have said that the one guaranteed result of democratic election will be that, sure as anything, you will get a politician each and every time.

Our parliaments - this federal parliament, and the state parliaments - have worked hard and largely succeeded in keeping politics out of the role of Governor-General and Governor. (Extension of time granted) That is something of which we as a nation can be proud. I do not think that we should exclude anyone from consideration as head of state under the model that we are discussing. There has been a lot of discussion here about politics. Politics is the lifeblood that courses through this nation. It is a fact of life. We are all involved in politics in one way or another.

I want to indicate my support for the proposition that the government of the day should nominate the president but that both houses of parliament must vote by two-thirds to support that nomination. That is very hard to achieve in a parliament. It means that, if an individual political party is putting up someone who is regarded as too partisan and unacceptable, you are never going to get a two-thirds majority in any parliament. It is a very hard thing to achieve. Look at our constitutional history. It happens very rarely.

To come back to where all of us began and where all of us must end, the catchcry that we have heard so often is that, if it's not broken, don't fix it. What is broken? It is not the Australian Constitution, whatever its shortcomings, nor the strength and commonsense of the Australian people. What is broken is the spell of the monarchy. Having a head of state, benign and respected as she is, who is the monarch of another country on the other side of the world, is both a farce and an anachronism. That is the fundamental question that this Convention must address and resolve. We can only resolve it in a spirit of goodwill and consensus.

Ms RAYNER - I speak today as the second part of the real republican ticket and I endorse the language of my colleague, Tim Costello. Our new arrangements must acknowledge the diversity and relative powerlessness of the Australian people. We have made it very clear that we support a republican model in which the people would choose their head of state. We accept that the powers of that head of state must not be left to any personal discretion and we also accept that there would be circumstances when the extent of those powers would suddenly seem uncertain, but we are determined that this model be discussed at this Convention.

We are also determined to make it clear that the so-called compromise - the McGarvie model, which is, in effect, for no change - is, with all due respect to Mr McGarvie, not acceptable in a newly emergent republic. We have made it clear we could not support a model which simply required the parliament to appoint the president because it would not involve the people as they wish and ought to be involved. Any process of nomination by a parliament, which is these days dominated by the executive and by the major political parties who are not accountable, is deeply political.

Popular support for an elected Australian head of state is founded on a - valid or not - distrust of politicians. This is understandable. Those who have been watching this Convention have been watching an awful lot of politicking going on. They have been seeing powerful men representing major institutional interests doing deals, playing with the procedures and exploiting the relative inexperience of some of us who are undecided or who are non-professional wheelers and dealers. The attempt to cut off debate on the second day of this Convention was not only a public relations disaster but also a classic example of a lack of what Alistair Mant calls `intelligent leadership'.

This Convention is a parliament, though, in the real sense. It is a place where people come to talk out, until they are ready to decide on, the important issues of the day. It is a place for democratic discussion. To have treated it as a faction meeting of the ALP or as a boardroom lunch at the Melbourne Club was profoundly foolish. The people who are already alienated from politicians will not vote for a change that is foisted on them, or voluntarily add to their sense of isolation or exclusion from politics.

Delegates interjecting -

Ms RAYNER - I would be grateful if there was no further intervention in my speech, please. The important thing is that the people will not take a meaningless vote. They will not vote for a president or a head of state of any kind if they believe that person to be somehow politically partisan. That is one of the major arguments against an elected head of state; that a popular election will attract such people and will exclude the sorts of persons who do not want to be tainted with politics.

But one of the things we have not discussed is the Castan model. I am surprised that, given all the time we have spent on the McGarvie model, we have not thought of the simple proposal of the eminent constitutional lawyer, Ron Castan QC, to solve this dilemma. We should discuss it. Castan suggests that the Constitution should provide for a two-stage process for selection of the head of state. First he proposed that parliament should nominate its candidate chosen by a two-thirds majority of both houses. Then, he says, there should be an election. One candidate would be the candidate chosen by the Australian parliament - and there might be others; any other Australian who is nominated by, say, one per cent of the voters on the electoral roll at the most recent federal election. In practice, he believes, the parliamentary candidate would either be the only one or would certainly be the one who would win any election, because that candidate would have bipartisan support and would not be opposed.

Any overtly political candidate chosen by the parliament would be defeated. The Australian people would retain their reserve power - the power to reject the parliament's candidate. Sure, it is true that if you leave the one per cent option open - the nominees from the floor, so to speak; of the people - then ordinary people could nominate themselves under this model. Perhaps they would be members of the Shooters Party or members of other groups that might be unpopular from time to time, but that is what democracy is about.

It may be argued that the nomination process would be so costly that only the wealthy and well connected could put themselves forward. In that case I suggest the Bob Ellis suggestion: since the choice of a president is a matter of state, we should pay for it and make it a crime to spend any more. (Extension of time granted)

The Bob Ellis suggestion seems remarkably pragmatic and sensible. It may be hard to enforce, as the US experience shows, but it is a compromise that ought to be discussed. You do have a number of models about direct election and the closest to the Castan model is Working Group F, the one which says that two-thirds of the joint sitting of federal parliament should elect a head of state appointment body - a presidential council - that is gender balanced, composed of people who have the respect of the Australian people and which reflects Australians in all their diversity. That body would accept nominations and, from those, would select a number of appropriate candidates whose names would be put to the election and would also have a dismissal power.

It strikes me that this is a compromise that should be seriously discussed because it has elements of the ARM model, the McGarvie model and the Elect the President model. We must consider these issues seriously because the key to the secure operation of our democratic system lies in the people's feeling that they are selecting or endorsing, with a vote that matters, their president. The key matter is this: the head of state must not be a political person. The head of state must have bipartisan support. She must have the endorsement of the Australian people, either by being elected unopposed or by a massive majority. She must be the sort of person who can embody our hopes and fears and respect our diversity.

Can we move on and continue to discuss the codification of reserve powers in the situations that might give rise to a need to use them in a constructive and intelligent way? The thing I am most afraid of with this Convention is that we act unimaginatively and that we therefore do not develop and combine ideas in public debate to ensure the best outcome. We will not do this if we become engaged in adversarial and, if I may say so, boyish politics. A compromise that satisfies institutional networks will not be bought by the public. A compromise bullied out of a slim majority of delegates will not have the moral or political spirit to bring a republic into existence - and that is what we are here for.

Mr McGARVIE - This already highly successful Convention has propelled the republic debate from wallowing in the world of theory, where it was for the first five years, into the world of reality. For five years, the elected republican president models, particularly in the last few years, were hardly criticised. I might be regarded as an exception to that. But they were put to the people without the people having the opportunity to become aware of their defects. The important thing, as I mentioned in my speech on Monday, is to resolve this republic debate so that we do not move into the destabilising situation that unfortunately has overtaken Canada. We will not resolve the debate unless a model is put to Australians in a referendum in which they can choose between the present system and a system that is at least as good as a republic.

On Australia Day I wrote in the Sydney Daily Telegraph that now that the debate was starting to get out to the people, public opinion would force the sponsors of the elected republican president models to engage in a great deal of patching and reconstruction in order to overcome their obvious inherent defects. We saw patch one on the first day of the Convention when Mr Turnbull indicated that the most gross and obvious danger in the parliamentary model would be replaced by dismissal by a majority of the lower house.

I pointed out later that day that that only covered half the problem; it did not cover the ability of the head of state - the president in that model - to dissolve, prorogue or adjourn parliament. I pointed that out on 1 May; Professor Winterton had pointed that out in early November. On Wednesday came the second patch: that there would be a provision that between the notice and the vote the head of state could not dismiss the Prime Minister or dissolve parliament. How many have ever seen constitutions made on the run in that way before?

I do not need to remind those who have been members of the House in which we stand that any new provision which is inserted will be used for political advantage by whichever party can use it. I do not need to go into any detail to point out the way in which that could be used by a Prime Minister who wanted to take certain action on a particular position. This idea that we are smarter than earlier generations, that we can dispense with the sensible procedures that have been worked by trial and error over the years by putting in new rules like this, will do nothing but turn Australian politics into a grand game of snakes and ladders with many more snakes than ladders.

Under that system what is there to cover the situation so cogently pointed out by the South Australian Constitutional Advisory Council - incidentally, the only public inquiry in Australia which made recommendations and naturally made a recommendation almost identical to the model that I advance - of what happens if you have a head of state who suffers mental or intellectual deterioration? Whereas it can all be done quietly now, there would be a sitting of parliament, and the cruelty to the family of that is pointed out by that council. Another patch would be necessary there, but it is still a very leaky ship and we can expect many more patches before we are through.

Mandate: let us here differentiate between the theory and what will happen. The theory is that two-thirds of the members of a joint sitting will sit up, scratch their heads and say, `Is this person worthy to become president?' What will happen, of course, is that there will be a meeting and a deal between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and political deals are always far more complex than appears. (Extension of time granted) Because it will have to draw the support of a two-thirds majority it will have to go to the party rooms. Once it goes to the party rooms it is out in the media that night - I will come back to that in a moment.

The mandate is not going to be a mandate coming from people making up their minds in a sitting; it is going to be combed through in the party rooms. That South Australian report points out how South Australia, as was mentioned earlier, got far more diverse Governors through a Premier being able to decide alone than if the person was the one who emerged through the vetoes of the opposition and all members of the parliament.

The mandate that will come from it is not a two-thirds mandate; it is virtually a 100 per cent mandate. If the government is bound to comply with it, so is the opposition. That is an enormous mandate. It is very easy for us to think that there aren't these balances, but there are. One of the things I learnt most rapidly was that balances apply in that situation.

I would like to close on this point: it is very easy to assume that we will get people like Zelman Cowen and Ninian Stephen unless we think about it. Inquiries will be an inherent part of this system. In this media powerful community it is totally unreal to think that there will not be parliamentary inquiries into the suitability of the nominee as there are for judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. There is an irresistible impulse in many people to get themselves on television. The best way of getting on television is to make an allegation of outrageous conduct against a person of high reputation.

I wish to say something which, mainly because of my age, I am qualified to put forward. When you become a governor-general or governor, typically you are about 65. By the time you get to 65, you are vain enough to think you have a reputation. You are rather jealous of it. Knowing what would occur, knowing what would come from opponents of the Prime Minister or from publicity seekers, who would put themselves in for that? If it does not come through a parliamentary inquiry, it will come through media saturation.

Let me say very clearly that I would not dream of allowing my name to go forward. I realise that some would think that would be a manifold advantage over any other system. I would not dream of that. I have seven grandchildren. I would not allow my name to go forward. Read Federation Under Strain to find out the realities. Ask someone who served in this parliament. Read Primary Colours to see the way it is going, and pause.

When this is all brought out under the scrutiny of a referendum campaign, which is all-revealing, what hope is there of a model like that resolving the issue, allowing those who are republicans at heart to vote for a republic? Thank you for your toleration, Mr Deputy Chairman and delegates.

Ms PANOPOULOS - Republicans have been trying for over 100 years to have an Australian republic. After a century, they are still not sure what sort of republic they want and how it will work. They are still divided amongst themselves. There are almost as many republican models as there are republican delegates to this convention. The stumbling block for republicans is that they have not identified any flaw in our present system. If they do not know what the problem is, how can they hope to provide any answers of substance? Yet a diversity of opinion, free speech, independence of thought and a larrikin disregard of power and authority is as Australian as Waltzing Matilda. The elitist corporatist approach to decision making, such a hallmark of the former Labor government, is choking this Convention.

ARM's reluctance to consider other republican points of view is a slap in the face to those republican voters who do not support them. Now is not the time for ARM to mimic the Labor Party's bullyboy tactics. Now is the time for humility and an end to hypocrisy.

One of ARM's arguments against the direct election of a president is that only political parties and large corporations will field successful political candidates. They say that such a method of selecting a president will effectively deny candidacy to our writers and poets. They may be fond of writers and poets, but obviously creative Australians of this calibre were not deemed good enough to be ARM candidates at this convention.

The ARM are obviously speaking from experience. We all saw their well-funded campaign to elect delegates to this Convention. We all saw the Labor Party machine locked into the ARM campaign. ARM's campaigns against a direct election are hypocritical and arrogant. Arrogant because they believe they own the republican debate. Just like the Labor Party in government, they assume they are always right and all other non-conservatives are wrong. They advocate compromise for everyone else.

There is never any real compromise from ARM. Their policy is one of brinkmanship. Mr Turnbull and ARM believe that all other republicans will eventually come to the fold. They seem to be blinded by their own glitz. Other republicans passionate about what they believe in are not about to sell out. They will not be seduced by your media profile, nor by your connections with big business and the Labor Party. They are the true republican believers. They are the grassroots of the republican movement. They are the real republicans. Listen to them - their experience in community affairs might help your feet touch the ground.

Mr Turnbull's disgraceful lies earlier today about ACM's position at this Convention is typical. We do not support the Keating-Turnbull republican model, and that is no secret. He should not make the quantum leap of logic and accuse us of wanting to derail this Convention. We have always said that the question of whether we change our system of government from a constitutional monarchy to a republic is an issue for the Australian people. They will decide, and, if the polls are any indication, the ARM model is not the people's choice.

Much has been said to highlight the dangers, deficiencies and uncertainties of both direct election and parliamentary election of a president. The McGarvie model, however, has received insufficient scrutiny. It is interesting that not one elected delegate to this Convention was elected on the McGarvie model. The main proponents of this model are the self-styled community leaders in this chamber. I appreciate Mr McGarvie's concerns about other republican models and honestly respect his attempt to retain the safeguards, flexibility and sophistication of our present system. He, however, has not succeeded.

His model does exactly what all other republican models do: the McGarvie model removes the very essence of our Constitution. This step of destroying the theoretical structure of the Constitution automatically distorts the very constitution that Mr McGarvie is trying to preserve. His apparently conservative republican model does not diminish the effect of removing the crown in the first instance.

If the McGarvie model is to be adopted, we will get a rigid structure and lose one of the greatest strengths of our constitution - we will lose its flexibility. We will also lose the non-controversial manner in which our head of state, the Governor-General, is appointed. The McGarvie model has also failed to present a flaw in our present system that will be fixed by adopting his model.

We know how the present system works. We do not know how Mr McGarvie's model will work. His model removes a Queen who has no power except to appoint a Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. It replaces the Queen with a committee of three people, comprising former governors-general and former High Court judges. It is a fantasy to claim that these three committee members will have the same position as the Queen. They will have real power and greater moral authority.

Let me give you one example. Imagine this: we have an unpopular Prime Minister, or even a Prime Minister who at best commands no emotion either way. On the one hand, you have three distinguished Australians unlikely to be tainted with the political partisanship of the Prime Minister. (Extension of time granted)

One of these three committee members may be a high profile former judge who throughout his life was involved in legal, political and community debate. He may be held in high regard for his progressive judgments. In fact, all three committee members may be of this calibre.

One day they receive the Prime Minister's nomination for the head of state. This committee does not agree with the Prime Minister. They try to convince him that his choice is not an appropriate appointment for a young republic. Alternatively, they may believe the appointment is too political.

The Prime Minister ignores their advice. After all, he was told that, by removing the Queen and replacing her with a committee, none of the strengths in our Constitution will be weakened. The Prime Minister believed that the committee would perform the same function as the Crown. The McGarvie committee is not the Crown. They are not restrained by centuries of parliamentary and constitutional development. This committee will distort the separation of powers currently contained in our constitution. The Queen cannot resign in protest. The McGarvie committee can. It can be lobbied by outside interest groups.

The Prime Minister can alternatively appoint a new cooperative committee that will comply with his wishes. The damage, however, to the Prime Minister's authority will be significant, and the effect on the separation of powers doctrine will be far-reaching.

Those three committee members who resigned will probably have greater respect and moral clout in the community than the Prime Minister. The behaviour of these committee members is not guided by conventions because the conventions we presently have apply to a constitutional monarchy, not to government by committee.

The McGarvie model has tried to out-minimalise the minimalists. I ask: if you believe that a republic is so essential for Australia, why are you trying to play down its significance? Contrary to what has been said in this chamber, the McGarvie proposal will not retain our present system intact. It is perhaps unwittingly deceptive in disguising the magnitude of the change to our current constitutional arrangements.

Mr MOLLER - Mr Deputy Chairman, I raise a point of order. I do not wish to impede the passage of debate, but some of us stepped aside or did not put our names forward to speak this afternoon on the understanding that speakers would get five minutes. We now have about half an hour to get through 13 speakers. The past few speakers have spoken for 10 minutes each. In the interests of debate, can we please not grant extensions. Can speakers do as the Hon. Michael Hodgman did. If he can do it, the rest of you can. Just get through it all in five minutes so that we can get on to considering the resolutions this afternoon.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN - First of all, I should explain that the arrangement is that as from 3.30 p.m. or thereabouts we will be considering the report of the Resolutions Group. It may be that you will have to talk with unparalleled celerity to get through. As you appreciate, we are already fighting for time. Your point is well noted. If people do not vote for it, they have to indicate very clearly that they do not grant an extension.

Mrs KERRY JONES - I begin by acknowledging the standing ovation given last night to my ACM colleague and friend Mr Neville Bonner. The emotion and passion of his speech has evoked an enormous amount of support from the Australian public. We thank you for that support. We thank Mr Bonner for inspiring us all to continue our very great cause.

No republican model that we have seen put up over the past two days of debate on dismissal and appointment measures up to the safeguards in our current constitutional arrangements. We have seen model after model; obviously, we will be voting on them very shortly. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tim Fischer, eloquently described these models as mini, middy and maxi. Professor Blainey, in his speech yesterday, pointed out that the recent debate on the republic has concentrated more on trying to tear our current system apart than constructively building a real alternative republican model that can be tested at a real referendum, a referendum being the only poll that will count.

Mr Beazley, and Mr Peter Collins, whom we have just heard from, argue that a sporting event is reason enough to tear up our working Constitution. They think that hosting the Olympic Games is cause to move to a radically new system of government. I do not think the Australian people will agree.

Yesterday my ACM colleague Tom Bradley used the example of a sporting event to demonstrate the importance of an independent referee, the umpire who is above politics and who has the job of acting quickly and decisively in a crisis when the correct ruling is of utmost importance. The example Tom used, of course, was the issue of whether Mark Waugh was out or in. What would have been the chance of a decision without the impartial referee above any cricket politicking, or indeed international politics? The cricket umpire, as does our Governor-General, had the full power to make a quick decision from interpreting the rules. If the decision had depended on the popular vote of the crowd observing the match or a decision from a cricket board chaired by perhaps Mr McGarvie or even a council of eminent selectors, both South Africa and Australia could well be still standing on the Sydney cricket ground today.

There are many problems in the appointment and dismissal proposals, as evidenced by the plethora of different republican models on the table. We can learn from the experiences overseas - and we have not talked about the lessons to be learnt from overseas experiences nearly enough.

As I stated in my opening speech to this chamber, the Crown is integral to the Westminster system. Any attempt to graft a republic onto Westminster would produce a competition for power between the president and Prime Minister, as is seen in France; or it would produce a competition for power between the president, the Prime Minister and the Supreme Court, as in Pakistan; or it would strip the president of any powers, as in Ireland. Who dismisses whom? And where there is no dismissal mechanism, such as in Yugoslavia and Germany, world history has taught us that disintegration can end in disastrous civil or even world war.

In Brazil, from 1928 to 1993, only one president completed his term of office; the others either died in office, committed suicide or simply disappeared. Recently, the Italian government has been hindered by continual arguments between presidents and the Prime Minister over who has the most power over such basic administration issues as sacking their equivalent of our ABC. In India, in 1975, Prime Minister Indira Ghandi, assisted by a feeble president, threw hundreds of political prisoners into jail. I could go on and on but I will finish to allow the debate to move into the voting resolutions.

We have heard much debate regarding what is now termed the `McGarvie mini republican model' as being the most efficient in terms of dismissing an unruly president. In particular, Greg Craven keeps popping up expounding its virtues. Mr Tim Fischer in his speech, pointed out that a council of statesmen being lobbied by politicians and their staffers may have more difficulty with dismissing a president than with any of the other proposed models.

I point out to Mr McGarvie's supporters that delegates who stood to the people of their state for election to this Convention on the McGarvie model, such as Mr Mike Evans in Queensland, only attracted a few votes. I am here because I put myself for election to the people. The people gave me a mandate to measure each of the republican models against the safeguards of our current constitutional arrangements. None of the models measure up to that benchmark; none of them even come close.

Councillor LEESER - Over the last few days, wandering in and out of Kings Hall, delegates will have noticed that the founders of our nation are depicted around the walls of this historic building. In the words of Ecclesiasticus, `Let us now praise famous men. Their bodies are buried in peace but their names liveth for evermore.' Sadly, our founders' names are not household names; but, whilst their names may not be known, their legacy deserves to live on.

The great strength of our system is that it allows for a speedy appointment and dismissal of a Governor-General by the Queen on the advice of a Prime Minister - a system no other model is able to improve. I am going to deal today with the McGarvie model, the Craven compromise and popular election because I feel other models have been well dealt with already, although no model that I have seen meets the important litmus test of being an improvement on our current system.

The McGarvie model, with its council of eminent persons, presents its own problems. The McGarvie model creates some sort of `uberpresidency' whereby you have people who could no longer be on the High Court because of a constitutional amendment in 1977, which deems that they are too old to have the capacity to act as judges, but to whom this particular model would grant the capacity to act in a fundamentally important position.

The McGarvie model prompts the question that Juvenal asks us all: quis custodiet ipsos custodies - who will guard the guardians? Who will be prepared to serve on this particular council in the first place? Very few Australians would be prepared to be merely a cipher to a Prime Minister who wanted to get rid of a president. These people would not have the experience of a constitutional monarch who knows how he or she must act. As ex-lawyers they would want to make sure that they did not sack a president without some legal cause. They would want reason, argument, proof of misconduct. Furthermore, what sort of person would want to put them in the same sort of position as Sir John Kerr who, during his lifetime, received a beating for creating a dismissal, albeit of a different sort? The council would, as Kerr said to Whitlam, have to live with this.

Finally, there is no popular legitimacy for the McGarvie model. Kerry Jones just mentioned Mike Evans, who stood in Queensland as an independent republican on the McGarvie proposal. He got precisely 0.4 per cent - that is less than one per cent - of the total vote in Queensland. The main proponents of the McGarvie model are appointed delegates. Unlike some, I do not accept the McGarvie model, however much I respect the man whose name it bears.

I wish now to turn to the Craven compromise, as I have termed it. This is the worst solution because Professor Craven has compromised republican models out of existence. He has said that the head of state should be appointed by a two-thirds joint sitting of parliament and removed by the McGarvie council of elders. It is the worst solution, because if you dismiss a president by the council you then have a long period of time where you would have no head of state while a series of backroom deals needed to be done with the opposition parties and independents who probably would be unwilling to negotiate - particularly if the previous head of state were dismissed due to perceived partisan advantage.

I also reject the Craven contention that we must back a republic now because if it fails at a referendum it will not go away until we have one. Any analysis of failed referenda shows that Professor Craven's logic is fundamentally flawed. The only defeated referendum to have been put a second time and carried was the territorial voters referendum, which was originally part of a composite proposal in the first place.

I do not wish to rubbish the popular election model because so many republicans have done this anyhow. I instead wish to make a plea to all those who voted for and are here to represent popular election. I believe that those who wanted a head of state elected by the people did not vote for it because they wanted to kick out the Queen but because they wanted to have a direct say in choosing their head of state.

Many people voted for the ARM because the ARM said that, whilst they preferred a two-thirds model, they said in their full page advertisements which I wish to table:

However we recognise that many Australians would prefer to see the Head of State directly elected by the people. Australian Republican Movement delegates will go to the Constitutional Convention with an open mind -

I repeat, an open mind -

aiming to reach an agreement with other delegates on these issues.

But on Friday 30 January, two days before the Convention started, Malcolm Turnbull in the Sydney Morning Herald was reported to have believed that election by a two-thirds majority was the only way to go and that popular election was a non-starter. Vive l'esprit ouvert - long live the open mind!

I say to the advocates of popular election: stick with your principles. Remember the people who elected you. They elected you because they wanted to vote for the president. If that model does not succeed, stick with the status quo. Save the Australian taxpayer some money. No more business class air fares, no more travel allowance, no more devastated forests to keep this Convention in paper. Remember the maxim of Shakespeare: above all to thine own self be true. (Extension of time granted)

In conclusion, if it is true to say that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then surely a republic designed from this Convention is the ultimate Trojan camel. My fellow Australians, beware of republicans bearing gifts.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN - Before I call Mr Doug Sutherland, there are two proxies for tomorrow. There is one from Edward O'Farrell nominating Professor David Flint for tomorrow and another from Marilyn Rodgers nominating Malcolm McKerras for tomorrow.

Mr SUTHERLAND - I would like to thank the people of New South Wales, my co-candidates who were successfully elected, and those who chose to stand with me and other members of my team who were not elected for the support that they gave to me.

I would like to reiterate the comment that Dr David Flint kindly made this morning at my request. I refer to page 141 of the proof Hansard of yesterday, where I am quoted as saying:

What about Keating?

I did not interject therefore I did not make that remark. The person who did has sought to have the Hansard proof altered.

I would have preferred to have come to this Convention talking about the president versus a constitutional monarch. I find the use of the term `head of state' as a bit of a sleight of hand and I support the leader of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, Lloyd Waddy QC, who said in his brilliant opening address on the first day, `Let us have an act of parliament where we designate the Governor-General as being the head of state,' because there is no such term in our Constitution, which is nearly 100 years old. That would clear up the matter and, at the same time, satisfy those who campaigned for having an Australian as head of state. We could also designate in that act of parliament that only an Australian citizen would be capable of holding that title. Both of those measures could be introduced without any change to the Constitution.

I wish to confine my remarks today, not to justifying the constitutional monarchy over the republic because I am hoping to have the opportunity of a major 15-minute speech early next week, but to what is the subject matter we are dealing with. I refer you to Working Group E, the proposition being the present arrangements for appointments and dismissals and the defects of suggested alternatives. May I reiterate what are self-evident, which are the advantages of the current system of a constitutional monarchy: the confidentiality in both appointment and replacement; the certainty in both appointment and replacement - and I use the word `replacement' advisedly rather than dismissal; the lack of tenure, which ensures the Governor-General does not enjoy a political power base in competition with the Prime Minister; and, most importantly from the political parties' point of view, the Prime Minister would remain the pre-eminent political figure in the nation as head of government. That is certainly the Labor ethos. I can speak with some authority, having been a member of that party for over 40 years. I suspect it is also the ethos of the Liberal and National parties.

I would like to turn to just a few of the models that are being debated and to those that have been predominantly debated over the past 3½ days. These are: the two-thirds majority in the Commonwealth parliament, the popular vote and the Hon. Richard McGarvie's model.

The disadvantages of appointment and the fixed term of appointment in juxtaposition with the Prime Minister, who could axe tenure, would mean that there would be a tug-of-war or a competition between those two important positions. I have already referred to the pre-eminence of the position of Prime Minister. An elected president with a two-thirds majority of the Commonwealth parliament or by popular vote would see himself or herself as having a mandate and a political life of their own.

The McGarvie model has been adequately covered by Dame Leonie Kramer this morning, but I would repeat that the process of appointing the McGarvie model through a committee of elders or wise persons would not be as confidential or would run the risk of not being as confidential.

Turning to the other disadvantages on appointment, should the system of voting in the Senate change - and I was pleased to see that Professor Blainey picked this up - to what it was before 1949, you could have a broad sweep in both houses. This would probably suit Mr Keating because I suspect he referred to the Senate as being `unrepresentative swill', not out of disrespect for the Senate but because the system of proportional representation did not reflect the same voting change as did a broad sweep, with the mood of the electorate changing in the House of Representatives. If that happened you could have a winner take all situation where one political party would have the numbers, either on its own or in conjunction with a few Independents, to make the appointment.

You run the inherent risk with a popular vote - I know this may not sound terribly democratic, and certainly is not absolutely so - that many people would be constrained from offering themselves for election. Former governors-general have already made statements publicly to that effect. With an elected president, too, I think there is almost no way that you can preclude anyone at all from standing, nor prevent the political parties, which are legitimate organisations in our society, from endorsing and supporting candidates. But you run the inherent risk that votes could be bought, not necessarily by the political parties but by a system of patronage. I will not seek an amendment, out of courtesy to Brigadier Alf Garland, but I refer you to the dismissal items 1 to 6 that are listed in the paper.

Brigadier GARLAND - Those who do not take account of the mistakes of history are cursed to repeat them. The discussion of the arrangements for the appointment and dismissal of heads of state is a topic close to the Garland family. We have been involved in this sort of an issue as a family for a considerable length of time. In 967, together with a number of other magnates of France, William of Garland used his influence and military skills to put Hugh Capet, the first of the Carpetian kings of France, on the throne. The demise of the previous monarchies came with this move, much to the delight of the people of the kingdom of France. By 1108, Anseau of Garland had become the seneschal of France. He kept the king's peace for Philip I, Louis VI and Louis VII until he died in battle in 1118 defending the king's mandate as the king of France. He had a daughter, Agnes of Garland, about whom I will speak a bit later.

In the latter half of the 12th century, one of the family, Guy of Garland, moved to England and he and his brothers and children paid fines and took up fiefs in Kent, Sussex, Devon, Lincolnshire and Salop. During this time the English part of the family made their way in England and one of them served Richard the Lionheart as his fleet commander during his crusade to the Holy Land and subsequently became his seneschal in Anjou. Another branch of the family, who were descendants of Agnes Garland, also went to England from France, worked hard and prospered. Indeed, the grandson of Agnes married the king's sister, Eleanor of England. Henry III made him the steward of England and, with his close ties to the Crown, one might have thought that he was a monarchist.

Dr O'SHANE - I raise a point of order. The issue is: if there is to be a head of state, what should be the arrangements for appointment and dismissal? It is quite clear that we are being given a lesson in ancient history here. I want to know what relevance this has to the issue of, if there is to be a head of state for modern Australia, what should the arrangements be for appointment and dismissal. If the speaker is not prepared to address the issue, Mr Chairman, I invite you to invite him to resume his seat.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN - In response to the point of order, it is medieval history, not ancient history. But I would invite the speaker to relate his remarks to the actual topic.

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