Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course Labor supports changing the future order of royal succession so that it will be determined by birth not gender. Of course we support removing the bar on succession for an heir of the sovereign who marries a Catholic—and we support the other provisions in the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015 regarding marriage, including those covered by the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Those in the government may enjoy the myriad of detail here: the questions as to whether Australia's head of state can be the eldest princess, or whether they can be a Catholic, or indeed whether their marriage accords with an act passed in Westminster 243 years ago. But I believe the anachronistic quality of this debate tells us all something, doesn't it? How about a better idea? What about a head of state who is an Australian? What about a head of state who is one of us? After all, no Australian has ever been born with a royal lineage, so they would never have to face any of the problems that this legislation seeks to address. It has been more than 15 years since an unlikely alliance of direct-election republicans and staunch monarchists combined to successfully campaign against an Australian head of state.

In one of history's quirks, the leaders of both the 'yes' and the 'no' causes now both sit at the same cabinet table and, yet again, they are opponents in a very different contest. But back then, in 1999, many Australians who were republican by instinct were convinced to wait for another go at a different model and of course the second chance for change has never arrived. Back then, in 1999, a grievous mistake was made by having two questions to answer, not one. That is the equivalent of Collingwood agreeing to play Essendon and Carlton at the same time! Much of the enthusiasm and energy of the 'yes' cause has lain dormant since then.

As I said on the eve of Australia Day this year, I and Labor believe that it is time to breathe new life into the dream of an Australian republic. And I should take this moment to acknowledge the Prime Minister's valuable, if somewhat unexpected, contribution to the republican debate the very next day. I assure people that I had no idea of what he was about to do, which will put me in the same group as indeed his whole Liberal government.

The decision of the Prime Minister, and the National Party, to knight Prince Philip reminded us all of how far we have travelled since the days of the famous words of former Prime Minister Menzies, who said of the young Queen Elizabeth II, 'I did but see her passing by.'

I believe that Australians are ready for a discussion about an Australian head of state. Our aim has to be a respectful national conversation between equals, not an insider A-list celebrity debate between politicians, constitutional pedants and the same old faces. Reigniting the republic debate will be a test of our national spirit and our national imagination. It is a moment that we are equal to.

It should not be long before all Australians have the opportunity to make right a two-century-old wrong and extend constitutional recognition to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This will be an uplifting moment—a time when we celebrate modern Australia, making peace with its past, when we summon the courage to face a historic truth. In updating our national birth certificate to include the first members of our Australian family in correcting an ancient injustice dealt to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we rightly declared that the words in our Constitution matter.

We pay respect to the idea that our Federation's founding document should speak for and to modern Australia. Or, to put it another way, if we were drafting our Constitution today we would, without question, include recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners of our continent. In all likelihood, it would be the first sentence on page 1. We are no longer the nation of terra nullius and the great Australian silence. Australia's rich Indigenous culture is central to how we see ourselves as a nation and prominent in the way that we present ourselves to the world. Our Constitution should and would reflect this proudly. By the same measure, if we were drafting our Constitution today, does anyone seriously dispute that we would require a head of state to be an Australian? This is how we see ourselves; it is who we are.

None of this should be taken as criticism of Queen Elizabeth II or of the House of Windsor. The Queen has given decades of committed service to our nation. She has earned the affection of many and the admiration of us all. But the simple fact is that our nation, our place in the world, has changed and our Constitution should change with it. The sun has long since set on an empire that we once bound ourselves to, to the last shilling and the last man.

In the 21st century we no longer identify ourselves as an outpost of the empire, fearfully perched on the edge of Asia. We no longer take a narrow race-based notion of citizenship. We celebrate diversity. We are grateful to count people from every nation, culture, tradition and faith as our own. We no longer hide behind the walls of Fortress Australia. We look outwards. We embrace the opportunities of our region, the centre of the most profound economic transformation in recorded human history. And we should go to our region and the world proudly independent, declaring that we are no longer going to continue to borrow our monarch from another country on the other side of the world. The republic debate and becoming a republic would signal a constitutional renaissance. It would provide blood energy to the nation. It would announce in the 21st century that Australia is ready to set a mature and independent course with the rest of the world. It would tell the rest of the world that we are a free and independent country, confident in our Australian identity, with the zing to declare that we are running the place ourselves. And the parliament is the place where we should have these debates.

Madam Speaker, I am, like all of us in this place, a servant of the Australian people. Each day I am privileged to witness, as we all are, the courage, integrity, intellect, imagination, selflessness and good humour of our citizens. I trust one of them to be our head of state. I believe our people deserve this opportunity and that this parliament is capable of declaring to Australians: we trust you, from within your ranks of the Australian people, to provide a head of state to our country. I am confident that we can have this conversation about making this happen with optimism, maturity and respect. I support updating the British Constitution and the British sovereign lines of succession. But surely this country is more than just updating some anachronistic features of another nation, and it is time to declare that Australia should have an Australian head of state. So let us begin.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak to the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015. This bill gives effect to decisions taken under the Labor government to implement in Australian law changes to the rules of succession to the British Crown. The changes were proposed by the government of Great Britain and supported by those Commonwealth nations still under the British Crown at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011. The British parliament passed the Succession to the Crown Act in 2013.

The member for Pearce, in his speech on the bill, notes that legislation in the British parliament must be supported by 'all 16 realms' of the Commonwealth to make sure that the royal succession operates in the same way in each nation which has the Queen as its head of state. That term 'realm' is important. A realm is a Commonwealth nations still under the British monarchy. We used to call some of these 'dominions', although that is now perhaps too much even for the staunchest Australian monarchist. There are 16 realms now, as the member for Pearce says, but the clear majority of the Commonwealth's 53 independent nations have left the monarchy. Under Labor, COAG agreed to implement Australia's support for the changes by the parliaments of the states requesting Commonwealth legislation to have effect nationally. With the notable exception of one jurisdiction, states participated productively in those negotiations. Federal Labor thanks the states for their cooperation in that process.

But I really must take issue with the description of this legislation by the member for Pearce. In his second reading speech on this bill, he said:

This modernisation of the laws of succession ensures the continued relevance of the monarchy to Australia and her people and reflects the commitment that all Australians have to equality and to nondiscrimination.

Evidently, the member for Pearce thinks that this bill is a landmark reform of our constitutional arrangements. I expect the member to go back to his electorate and explain to his constituents just how the measures in this bill accord with their values, their aspirations and their expectations of how the Australian government should be run. The member for Pearce is pleased that the abolition of male preference primogeniture by this bill affords some gender equality to the royal succession. I hope he can explain to his constituents the ongoing relevance to Australian life of a system where high office is inherited. I hope he can explain why we are concerned with birth order at all. I hope he explains to his constituents just what a victory it is for equality and tolerance that, while the Australian head of state may not by law be a Roman Catholic, he or she may now marry one. I hope he is able to explain why, in this country, where we have not established any religion and where the Constitution prohibits the federal parliament from doing so, the law states that our head of state must be a member of the Church of England. I certainly hope that the member for Pearce tells his constituents about the important reform to marriage law he has supported here in this chamber. Truly, the reform to the law of marriage which Australians are crying out for is the abolition in the United Kingdom of the Royal Marriages Act passed in the year 1772.

I do not mean to be flippant about this bill. As I said, each measure on its own has merit. For the British, where the monarchy clearly does have an ongoing place in national life, these measures perhaps represent a meaningful accommodation between tradition and modernity. But this is not Britain, and the reason that this bill does not ensure 'the continued relevance of the monarchy' to Australia in 2015 is because it is monarchy itself which is out of step with contemporary Australian life. The problem is not the specific set of rules by which a member of the royal family is selected to take the throne. It is the fact that the only candidates are British aristocrats with a necessarily limited understanding of Australian life. While the law dictates that an Australian may not be head of state, our constitutional arrangements will always jar, always ring a little false. As I said, Labor will support this legislation. We worked to progress it during the Labor government. On its own terms, it is a worthy piece of legislation. We are happy to work with our counterparts in Britain and in the other 15 Commonwealth jurisdictions involved to give effect to these changes.

The exception that I referred to earlier regarding the participation of the states in this legislation, some members might remember, was the LNP government in Queensland, a government very sensibly dispatched by the people of Queensland after just one term. The LNP government and its Attorney-General, Jarrod Bleijie, flew in the face of the expert constitutional advice provided to all Australian governments that the appropriate path forward was for each state to request Commonwealth legislation under section 51(xxxviii) of the Constitution. The Queensland LNP, ever parochial, wanted to legislate themselves. We were expected to accept that Queensland should have its own law of royal succession. I said at the time that this suggestion had shades of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's hare-brained scheme to create a separate Queensland sovereignty—a Queen of Queensland—which was emphatically ruled out by the High Court in 1974. We should all be thankful that the revival of the politics of Bjelke-Petersen was cut short by the people of Queensland in January this year.

Notwithstanding the initial recalcitrance by Queensland, the parliament of each state has now legislated a request for Commonwealth legislation. Accordingly, this bill will now implement the changes to the succession into Australian law. To be clear about it the bill makes three key changes to current arrangements. The bill abolishes the rule of succession, under which a man precedes his sister in succession to the throne even if she is the elder sibling. The bill removes the rule disqualifying a person from the succession if that person marries a Roman Catholic. The rule established in the Act of Settlement that the monarch must be an Anglican is maintained. The bill abolishes the Royal Marriages Act 1772. That legislation required the consent of the monarch to the marriages of the descendants of King George II, a category that now includes hundreds of people in Britain. The bill repeals that act and provides that the monarch's consent is only required for the first six people in line to the throne. Though a lack of the required consent will remove a person from the royal succession it will not, as under the Royal Marriages Act, invalidate the marriage itself.

Labor welcomes these changes to the law of succession. The bill aligns some aspects of the British monarchy with modern expectations. We congratulate the British government on this reform to its arrangements. We were happy to assist our British friends with this reform while we were in government and we remain happy to support this legislation from opposition. Echoing the sentiments already expressed today by the Leader of the Opposition, I hope that the next time this parliament considers a bill which concerns itself with the British monarchy it is a bill for an amendment to the Australian Constitution. I said in my maiden speech in this place that I hoped to one day vote here for an Australian republic, and that remains my hope today.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015. This bill dates back to 1772. It is a piece of legislation that dates from 16 years prior to when the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay; needless to say, it needs an update. Viewing this legislation from a 2015 mindset, it would be easy to remark that this is a rather quirky and archaic piece of British legislation. However, the serious side of this legislation is that it does highlight how far we have come. Putting aside the obvious 'monarchy versus republic' debate, I think we also need to acknowledge that at its centre this bill finally provides gender equality to the British monarchy. It acknowledges that a boy child is equal to a girl child and that gender should not be a discriminating factor disqualifying a female.

As it stands, the selection of the English monarch centres around a Marriage Act that is based on gender. This act does finally break one of the oldest glass ceilings, which has been enshrined in legislation and tradition. It is time to reflect on how these laws came to be and the journey that have taken. From the Tudor dynasty we have the legacy of Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I and, ultimately, the reformation of the Church of England. It is apt to remember the sacrifice and martyring of Protestants and Catholics alike. And today, in 2015, this most quirky piece of legislation will pass through the House of Representatives and to the Senate and on to seek royal assent—and not a single drop of blood will be spilt.

In reality it is an act from another era—when King George II learnt two of his brothers had married commoners. In a time of empire, such marriages were seen as eroding the wealth of the Crown. To protect the dynasty, the act requires descendants to have their marriages approved. Those descendants are now many: some of them do not know their marriages might be technically null and void and others would prefer not to bother getting royal permission.

This new act will mean only the six closest to the throne will continue to need permission in this system. Anyone outside the six will automatically have past marriages validated. We get offended today that the selection of heirs discriminates against women and they are not even allowed to marry Catholics. In fact, it is quite laughable. But until a generation or so ago it was common that the eldest male received the family inheritance. The ALP knows all too well the arguments that have raged between Protestants and Catholics. Indeed Bartholomew Santamaria for many years very closely aligned religion and politics, seeing a split in the ALP and the formation of the DLP.

Even King John's 1215 Magna Carta, which delivered accessible, fast and fair justice, has been updated over and over again. In fact, the idea that it provided fair laws and justice for all is incorrect. Initially, serfs—the peasants—were excluded from the charter. However, I would like to highlight some other examples of some of the more obscure pieces of legislation brought before a Westminster system of government. For instance, it is against the law to die in the English parliament—only a couple of years ago it was voted the stupidest law in Britain. Under the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, you cannot fire a cannon if it is placed within 300 yards of a dwelling. Nor can you walk along the pavement with a plank of wood. And then there is the 1279 law banning the wearing of a suit of armour in the parliament! And apparently it is perfectly legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow—provided you do not do it on a Sunday.

It would be irresponsible of me to not acknowledge the last time we saw a republic in Britain. In 1644 His Highness by Grace and God and Republic, the First Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland—the one and only Oliver Cromwell—decreed that eating mince pies on Christmas Day was to be banned. That was a fine piece of legislation that I am was sure to secure the longevity of the British republic!

In 1848, only 167 years ago, it was an act of treason to place a postage stamp with the monarch's head upside down. There was the Scottish Licensing Act of 1872 that forbade anyone from operating a cow while intoxicated. Perhaps a contemporary take on that piece of legislation would be forbidding anyone from operating an iPhone whilst intoxicated. Going topless in Liverpool was outlawed unless you were a clerk in a tropical fish store, but I do not quite understand why and I am not sure how that would have worked with Lady Godiva only a few suburbs away in Coventry.

The point I make is that the world changes and we move on. For some, the Westminster system of democracy can be tedious and clunky, and, some may argue, even outmoded. But in the words of the British wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time …

In other words, the system is by no means perfect, but, despite our attempts to create other systems, the Westminster system of democracy still does prevail. One of its enduring features to all of us here in Australia is the stability it provides our country. If there is a single gift from Britain, it is just that: the stable democracy that we do have here in Australia. In essence, many of the kinks have been ironed out over the passage of time, through wars and bloodshed and through the breaking down of a feudal system. Am I saying that we do not have further to go? Of course we do. Am I saying that our system of government does not need to continually evolve over a period of time? Of course it does.

If we look back: this has all started really from the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Doomsday Book, the Anglo-Saxons and the Viking king. England stood as the land of riches and wealth with a political system that has learnt and developed and, as such, has withstood just about everything. Even in those early years, the seeds were there. William devised a system of taking advice from landlords before making a ruling. This period was commonly known as the feudal system, and this early system really does mark back to our Senate. From 1215, the House of Lords was then put in place and an elected House of Commons was invoked 50 years later.

It is a system developed through hundreds of years of war with the French and the Scottish. There was the War of the Roses which led to the founding of the House of Tudor, after King Richard III was killed in combat. It survived the wars of the kingdoms where Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England were at each other's throats, coming together in 1801. It is a system that is based on the enlightenment of documents—I mentioned earlier the 1086 Doomsday Book. It is based on the power of separation of rights, as agreed in the 1215 Magna Carta. It is a system influenced by Martin Luther's 1512 Diet of Worms, which saw Oliver Cromwell go to civil war over the Protestant Reformation. It would lead to the important Bill of Rights in 1689 which gave Protestant's liberty and decreed cruel and unusual punishment to be illegal. It is a system that flourishes around the world.

The point is: we did inherit a true and trusted, stable political system, and we have been able to adapt it to now meet our Australian needs. Of course there is more work to be done. There is more work for us to further evolve. We do not have a bill of rights, and the reality is we possibly do not need one. We know who we are, and no matter which side of the political fence we sit on, we all agree with the basics of democracy: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, access to health and the right to a good education. We are lucky to have that. As I sit in the middle seat and watch the Middle East descend into more senseless bloodshed, I can only wonder when the agreement is to finally be reached, that when we move forward, a Westminster-style system, that tried and true method, might just work and might just save more needless bloodshed. I commend the bill to the house.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015, a piece of legislation with its roots going back to the 1500s with Henry VIII and then to 1772. It is dealing with some ancient concepts like the concept of male preference, primogeniture, as touched on by the member for Isaacs in his speech, and also by the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, in his speech.

It is particularly apt to be talking about this legislation on St Patrick's Day. We still sadly cannot have a Catholic monarch, but we now have a situation where the monarch can actually marry a Catholic. Still, here in Australia, on the other side of the world from the United Kingdom, we have a situation where our head of state must be a member of the Church of England. So this piece of legislation, whether you are a monarchist or a republican, seems to be very disconnected with modern day Australia.

Here is a parliament that has its roots in the Westminster system. They call this the 'Washminster system' because it has a little bit of Washington and a little bit of Westminster. We have the other place as well, rather than the House of Lords. This bill is disconnected with what most people in Australia are concerned about, and while they might think it is unimportant—and it has not been an issue that people have raised with me in my electorate of Moreton—it essentially ensures that the line of succession to the monarch is not determined by gender, but determined only by parentage and the timing of birth. It also overturns the statutory ban on successors to the Crown marrying Catholics. As I am a Catholic, married to an Anglican, I guess there is some hope for one of us to be a head of state one day!—but not a big chance.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, not me, as a Catholic—or my sons. It is, however, an important piece of legislation in two respects. It removes existing common-law discrimination on the basis of sex—and signs and symbols are important, as I will touch on in a minute—and it removes a little bit of the existing religious discrimination. The signs and symbols are important today because contemporary Australia at the moment is looking at domestic violence. We have seen this year that Rosie Batty, an incredibly brave Australian who has endured every mother's worst nightmare, has been made an Australian of the year, to put extra attention on domestic violence. Sadly, we still have that horrific data that nearly two women a week are losing their lives this year because of domestic violence. Just looking at the papers today, those numbers are still incredibly high.

So, signs and symbols: this piece of legislation before the chamber is only one part of changing what modern-day Australia says should be appropriate. But it is important in that context of some domestic violence challenges. The Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland, headed by Dame Quentin Bryce, recently released a report, Not now, not ever: putting an end to domestic and family violence in Queensland. The importance of gender equality is repeated throughout that report by Quentin Bryce. It is a wonderful report. It says:

Effective change cannot be achieved unless each and every one of us takes a personal interest and engages in promoting healthy and non-violent relationships in our homes, schools, and the broader community. In doing this, we also need to address the underlying attitudes and cultural beliefs that perpetuate gender inequality and socialisation that leads to violence against women and children.

So, this legislation before the chamber—as I said, not particularly connected with goings on in my electorate or around modern-day Australia—does send an important message about gender equality. It has been a long time coming, obviously, but it does send a message. A common-law doctrine that has been in place for centuries that younger sons are promoted over older daughters in the line of succession has been discarded in favour of gender equality, placing every child born in the line of succession, whether boy or girl, on an equal footing in their place of succession.

It is an attitudinal change, and I commend the British parliament for making it. However, it is still telling a story that is anachronistic—an incremental change in an anachronistic institution—which is why I was so glad to hear the Leader of the Opposition, the Honourable Bill Shorten, restate Labor's commitment to having a republic. But, returning to the report by Dame Quentin Bryce, it demonstrates an attitudinal change about advocating to prevent domestic violence, especially coming from someone like Quentin Bryce who (a) is a Queenslander—and, sadly, Queensland at the moment has a horrible record of domestic violence in terms of murders of partners—and (b) for a time was the Queen's representative in Australia as our Governor-General. And she is now also able to advocate so strongly to prevent domestic violence.

The second important message that this legislation sends is that religious discrimination is no longer acceptable. As I said, it has not totally eliminated discrimination, but it does start people talking. In Queensland the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of religious belief or religious activity. Queenslanders are used to religious discrimination being unacceptable. And while the Commonwealth has laws to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race, such as the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act, currently there are no Commonwealth laws preventing discrimination on the grounds of religion. Australia is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed in 1966. Article 18 of that convention in part states:

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

Although the protocol was dated 13 August 1980, no Commonwealth legislation has yet been enacted to reflect those obligations.

Societal attitudes do change. Monarchs were once allowed not only to marry Catholics but also in fact to be Catholics themselves. Henry VIII was a champion of the Catholic Church—until he said farewell to it. James I, Charles I and Charles II were all married to Catholics. Charles II converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. It was an English act of 1689 that provided that the monarch could not be a Catholic or be married to a Catholic. So, even in 2015 the Australian head of state—the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II—cannot actually be a Catholic. As the monarch is the head of the Anglican Church it is as important for him or her to be an Anglican as it is for the Pope to be a Catholic. However, it is certainly progress to overturn a law that for 326 years has discriminated against a future monarch on the basis of the religion of their spouse. It is an important statement to the world and the dominions that it is not okay to discriminate on the basis of anyone's religion. As I said, it is an incremental step.

Labor supports these reforms. Labor is committed to gender equality and religious freedom. Queen Elizabeth II is Australia's formal head of state, and I think in September this year she will be the longest-serving monarch. Since 1953 she has had the title of Queen of Australia. The Governor-General is the Queen's representative in Australia, although the Governor-General holds some powers in his or her own right that cannot be used by the Queen. The dismissal of the Whitlam government was a classic example of that power and of where the Queen could not intervene in the actions of the Governor-General, although that is an argument that still creates a bit of interest amongst constitutional lawyers. The importance of the Queen's role in contemporary Australia is a matter that politicians will never all agree on, and various governments have put more or less emphasis on that role. Obviously the Labor Party is committed to a republic.

Our current Prime Minister clearly places great emphasis on the importance of the monarchy, as we might recall, famously bestowing the great honour of Knight of the Order of Australia upon the Queen's husband, Prince Philip. The previous Liberal National Party government in Queensland—now replaced by progressive Premier Palaszczuk—although only serving one term, went to great lengths to show their allegiance to the Queen. In a cringing display of extreme lickspittleness—if that is a word—the Liberal National Party government changed the Queensland government logo back to the coat of arms granted by Queen Victoria to the state of Queensland in 1893. They named the new Supreme Court building the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law. They returned the Queen's Birthday holiday to the traditional but completely insignificant June date. They changed the historically significant 1 May Labour Day public holiday to October. Ignoring the great tradition that labour has had in Queensland society, in a show of spite, they changed that May Day Labour Day holiday. They changed the barrister's title of Senior Counsel back to Queen's Counsel. Also, relevant to this legislation, the previous Queensland government insisted on passing their own legislation to ratify the changes to royal succession, despite the advice that was provided to them by the Commonwealth—a very strange course of behaviour by the former Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie.

Labor, on the other hand, would welcome debating legislation that would see an Australian head of state. I am sure Premier Palaszczuk is committed to that as well. While we appreciate the small reforms contained in this quite anachronistic bill, I hope that the positive messages that come from it will aid an attitudinal change about gender equality and religious discrimination.

I affirm again my commitment to Australia becoming a republic. The United Kingdom has been a republic. There was a time there, between 1649 and 1660, after King Charles I was executed, that Britain was a republic—for 11 years. Not that I am advocating anything quite so drastic with Queen Elizabeth II, but republics do work. The United States and many of our great trading nations are republics, and I think it is time for Australians to again grapple with the process for becoming a republic.

This is the longest time since Federation that Australia has gone without a referendum. The last time we had a referendum was 6 November 1999. I know that there are many on both sides of the chamber that are passionate about Australia becoming a republic, but obviously it is a bit hard to speak up in the coalition at the moment, with the leader being so committed to the Crown that he was able to defeat the now Minister for Communications in the republic referendum in 1999. We will see how that plays out in the next little while as the Minister for Communications learns how to do the numbers a bit more carefully when it comes to getting support for a republic.

This piece of legislation goes some small way to improving some anachronistic laws that do not reflect modern Australia; nevertheless I commend the legislation to the chamber.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015, because it provides an opportunity to focus on a long overdue change that directly impacts the perception of women, the status of women and the rights of women. It is a bill for an act to change the law relating to gender and marriage on royal succession and related matters. What motivates me to participate in this debate? As we have already heard many before me say, the sovereign of Australia of course is the same as the sovereign of the United Kingdom, and changes are being made to the law in the United Kingdom, and I wish to signal to all Australians that we are a modern government here in Australia and that my government will dispense with discriminatory practices and support equality.

The changes that we are debating and proposing in this bill will ensure that the person who is the sovereign of the United Kingdom is the sovereign of Australia, with two main provisions. Firstly, it will remove the statutory provision by which marriage to a Roman Catholic person disqualifies a person in the line of succession. This religious discrimination is contemptible in the 21st century, and therefore this bill is most welcome. Secondly, it will put an end to the archaic system of male preference primogeniture, such that in the future the order of succession will be determined simply by birth and not by sex. Frankly, I wonder if we will ever get to the point where it is actually more about intellect and ability to do the job, but I guess that is a debate for another day. Primogeniture today is not a commonly used word—clearly, because I am having a bit of trouble saying it myself!

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well done, though!

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn male child to inherit the family estate in preference to siblings. In the absence of children, inheritance passes to collateral relatives, usually males, in order of seniority. The eligible descendants of deceased elder siblings take precedence over living younger siblings. The principle has applied in history to inheritance of property and land as well as titles and offices—mostly monarchies. It was just three years ago, in 2011, when representatives of the nations of which the current sovereign is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II agreed that these rules ought to be changed. In turn, the parliaments of all Australian states and territories have also requested that the Commonwealth enact such a bill. As I said earlier, we are a modern government acknowledging that women are equals, and we will continue to dispense with laws and practices that get in the way of equality. That is ultimately why we are here today debating this bill.

This leads me on to my favourite subject, which is the electorate of Durack. As we know, it is the largest electorate in Australia. We are 1.6 million square kilometres from the northern tip of the Kimberley down through to the Pilbara, Gascoyne and Mid West to Moora, some 100 kilometres north of Perth, and out to the Wheatbelt. In the spirit of this debate, and of Dame Mary Durack's classic Kings in Grass Castles, there are plenty of women running the show in Durack, but we do not call them queens or kings—or sovereigns, for that matter.

Over the past weekend, the coastal and beautiful tropical town of Carnarvon—on the banks of the mighty Gascoyne River—suffered the severe effects of Tropical Cyclone Olwyn. Just last year—another drought year for the Carnarvon farmers—I joined in the official opening of the $100 million government funded levee bank project, which was to protect the vegetable, tomato, fruit, banana and mango plantations from flooding and to hold the precious topsoil. This year looked promising with water in the river, for a change, from some late summer rains. Then the cyclone hit, last weekend. I travelled to Carnarvon on Sunday. When I arrived I did not see a single banana tree standing. Estimates are that 100 per cent of the crop has been decimated. It was a heart-wrenching sight.

Ms Kim Nguyen—not a sovereign, but many consider her to be the Vietnamese matriarch of Carnarvon and a community leader in Carnarvon—has a family owned plantation north of the Gascoyne River. On Sunday I had the pleasure of her taking precious time to show me many of the Vietnamese plantations in Carnarvon. I saw not only the destroyed crops but also the extent of infrastructure damage. It really was heartbreaking. Ms Nguyen is a grower who has been in the region for 15 years and only last year took up the role with the Carnarvon Growers Association. She is the first member of the Carnarvon Vietnamese horticultural community to join the organisation. Ms Nguyen is a strong voice for around 100 local Vietnamese growers, many of whom share-farm.

Ms Nguyen joined the organisation because her community needs to be better informed. She speaks for them, to them and with them. Her wish is to get more Vietnamese people to participate in committees and community leadership. After last week's cyclone, I am very pleased that a translator will soon arrive in Carnarvon. They will help to explain the support that will be available, for the Vietnamese community, from the federal and state governments.

Another Durack woman—not a sovereign but a significant leader—is Lynne Craigie. Lynne is President of the Shire of East Pilbara, which includes towns like Marble Bar, reputedly Australia's hottest town, and Newman, home to BHP's Mount Whaleback iron ore operations. It is the largest open-cut iron ore mine in the world. Lynne was elected Deputy President of WALGA, the Western Australian Local Government Association, in 2012. She has been President of the Shire of East Pilbara for eight years and a shire councillor for 12 years. Lynne is involved with local, regional and state organisations. She is also chairperson of the Newman Women's Shelter, chairperson of the Pilbara Regional Council, chairperson of the WALGA Mining Forum, past chairperson of RoadWise Newman and a member of six further committees or groups. She is also a board member of the Australian Local Government Association and the Pilbara Development Commission, and is a past board member of Australia's North West tourism group. Clearly, she is a very busy lady. She is selfless and she is quite remarkable.

I am supporting the Succession to the Crown Bill today because I want to promote women like Lynne Craigie and Kim Nguyen. The seventies view of women is dead but not quite buried. Women should not hide under a bushel. I stand strongly for equal opportunity. Judge these women by what they do, not by their sex or their religion. In Durack, women work, women lead and women are respected.

I will take any opportunity to change harmful perceptions of women and to ensure equal status and equal rights for women. From my own perspective, I have always worked in male dominated areas, predominantly agriculture and mining. I have never felt any gender issues that have prevented me from getting the job I want and I have never felt that I am not respected. I acknowledge that this is not the experience of all women. We all, me included, need to call it out when we witness gender discrimination. Women like us who work in politics or who are farmers or who work in business often cannot do it on their own. Like men, they often need support. I want to put on record that without Brad Bell, my partner, I would not be doing what I am here today.

I will mention another woman in the Pilbara. As we know, it is the economic engine room of the nation. It would not surprise my modern-day colleagues and constituents to learn that the Pilbara town of Port Hedland is also led by a woman. Kelly Howlett, the popular mayor of Port Hedland and Western Australia's youngest mayor is not a sovereign either, but she is a natural and generous modern-day leader who knows all about rights and how to fight for equality.

The environmental scientist who founded the Care for Hedland environmental association was recently recognised for leading the charge for conservation in the Pilbara. Kelly was recently awarded the national Pride of Australia medal in the environment category for her conservation work. In 2007 Kelly was elected to council, at the age of 30, and became mayor of this significant local government area in 2009, at age 32. And some would say it is a pretty tough town!

Not yet 40 and with six years as a mayor, WA's youngest mayor is active, environmentally, in the community and in various leadership roles. This is with organisations such as the Pilbara Regional Council, Regional Development Australia, Pilbara Development Commission and Rose Nowers Early Learning Centre. Kelly has had many roles. She has worked as a barmaid, gardener, sustainability officer and visitor centre manager. She is what I consider a modern-day leader. She walks the talk and she is judged in Durack by her peers and what she does—not by her sex or her religion.

I have enjoyed today being able to profile some of the women I consider are running the show in Durack, through the opportunity afforded by this debate on the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015. They are not Durack's kings in grass castles, nor are they queens or sovereigns. Ms Craigie, Ms Howlett and Ms Nguyen are modern-day leaders who just happen to be women. They are judged by what they do, not by their gender, and are duly recognised and respected. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss them today.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Succession to the Crown Bill 2015. Before I go into any detail in my speech, I just want to acknowledge the contribution made by Queen Elizabeth to our nation over many, many years and also the contribution made by her family. As a proud republican, I am in no way disrespectful to the monarchy and I just want to make that clear.

I also respect the institution of the Governor-General. It was a great pleasure to be at the opening of the new Soldier On headquarters as well as the Robert Poate Centre for reintegration today. Soldier On has grown from an entity launched in a tent about five years ago, down where the Canberra Services Club was located—unfortunately it burnt down years before that. It grew from that tent and that launch, with just a handful of us, including the member for Lingiari, who was there that night. From that very early start, with those very small steps, it has now grown into this extraordinary institution with fantastic facilities out at Gungahlin—both the national headquarters and the Robert Poate Centre. So it was wonderful to be there with the Governor-General this morning. I congratulate Soldier On for growing from very small things into very big things and for all the great work they do in helping returning soldiers and those who have left the service in dealing with their PTSD and other issues.

First and foremost, this bill sees to it that men will no longer take priority over women in the line of succession. Instead, priority will simply be determined by order of birth. We support this bill because it will amend some of the worst elements of the rules of succession to the British royal Crown. The bill also removes the bar on succession for an heir of the king or queen who marries a Catholic. That is why Labor supports these reforms— because they are consistent with our commitment to gender equality and religious freedom.

At the same time that we are debating this bill in this House, similar legislation is being progressed by the states and territories and by other countries which remain part of the British Commonwealth. It is awfully quaint. This takes time; this takes money. It takes time and money to pass such legislation, and while we are standing here debating it today there is an opportunity cost to the Australian people. We could be debating issues of education, health care or child care, but we are not. We are debating changes to the rules of succession to the British royal Crown, which has little to no impact on our nation. Instead, Labor is looking forward to the day when the parliament once again debates legislation that would facilitate Australia becoming a republic, with an Australian head of state.

Why should Australia become a republic? According to the Australian Republican Movement:

A republic is for all of us, all Australians. It's about Australia belonging to all of us, in our name and not in the name of another country's figurehead. It's just common sense—and it's also our great patriotic mission.

Indeed, why should we conclude that our people are not capable of producing a new set of institutions that better represent our values in practice as well as theory? We have built a mighty democracy and can make one further improvement to make it all-Australian, owned and operated.

There are several reasons why I believe Australia should become a republic, and many of them have to do with our identity. Speaking about identity, just recently we had the opportunity to laud the achievements of Gough Whitlam in the condolence motion on his passing. In the speech I made lauding his achievements, and they are many—and, as I said in that speech, without Gough Whitlam, without the reforms that he made to our nation, particularly in terms of free education, I do not believe I would be standing in this place—I also touched on the fact that Gough Whitlam gave us a great gift. He gave us not only free education, not only the many changes particularly for women in this nation, but the great gift of being proud of ourselves. He gave us the gift of allowing us to tell our stories through film, through literature, through the arts, through a range of measures—stories that prior to that had not been told.

We had not had the opportunity to have a voice, to speak out about our identity, about what it is to be Australian. There had been novels written in the past, like My Brother Jack, Power Without Glory and a range of other novels that did talk about Australian history, but we did not really have a critical mass of discussion about ourselves or a representation of ourselves, particularly through film, the arts and literature.

What happened was that many Australian artists went overseas. There was a real cultural cringe. In fact, the sooner they could get out of Australia, the better. They went to Europe to be with the masters, to learn about the European stories and to express themselves through a European prism. But by providing funding for the arts, by providing funding for film, by providing funding for literature, Gough provided us with the opportunity to tell our story and to show our story—and it is a great story in so many ways. For the first time, we were seeing films where the forensic Australian light was being shown on our screens. You do not get that when you watch European films or North American films. They have that muted golden light, and here we have that forensic light where every flaw is shown. We saw that as the result of the investments that Gough made in film. We got to hear about our stories in our own language, describing our own environments, through the investment he made in literature.

We got to see our own performers. We got to see our own dancers. The Australian Ballet has been going for many years, but there was contemporary dance as well that was funded by Gough. As a result of that, we had a chance to express ourselves in dance, and Australians do have a unique way of dancing. As someone who loves ballet, I know just from watching a Russian dancer compared to an Australian dancer they are vastly different. The Russians are very contained, very measured; the Australians are very exuberant, very energetic, and they are world renowned for that.

So becoming a republic is just another way of advancing Gough's cause, advancing Gough's investment in Australia, advancing Gough's pride in Australia and allowing us to have our own identity in every way. It will also allow us, as Australian people, to work out the direction we want our nation to head into in the future.

While the Governor-General acts as a de facto head of state, Australia's transformation as a nation is still incomplete. Under our Constitution, the British monarch is the font of all legal power in Australia and is our formal head of state. Isn't it time, 110 years after Federation, that we move on to the next level? The fact that Australia is still so strongly connected to the British monarchy seems out of date with Australian culture. We saw how Australians reacted to the Prime Minister knighting Prince Philip on Australia Day. That decision showed us how much the Prime Minister's vision for Australia is in the past. His vision for Australia is based on a 1950's world view. He wants a 1950's honour system, he wants a 1950's health system where only the wealthy can access health services and he wants a 1950's education system—again, where only the wealthy can access universities.

The real tragedy about the Prime Minister's decision to knight Prince Philip is the fact that it drowned out Australia Day and the achievements of all the Australians who were honoured and awarded. What is so infuriating is that it drowned out the message of Rosie Batty. If faced with the unimaginable tragedy Rosie Batty has faced, I think most of us would retreat completely into our lives and our world and would not want to engage, but it empowered this woman to campaign against domestic violence. The fact that the Prime Minister's announcement drowned out that woman's message on domestic violence is an absolute outrage.

His decision highlighted his old-fashioned values rather than being open to a modern Australia. The way that Australians reacted to his decision showed a complete disconnect, with many feeling the honours system is outdated. We saw a similar reaction from the public last year when the Prime Minister reintroduced knighthoods, and much of the criticism came from within his own team! Again, Australians found themselves debating the idea of whether we should become a republic. I might just add that, while we were debating the Prime Minister's medieval knighthood system on Australia Day and his decision on Prince Philip, at the same time a country that I lived in and that I love, India, was celebrating its Republic Day—India was celebrating its independence day. It seems shocking to me that India abolished the British monarch as the head of state, much to the chagrin of some parties in Mumbai, and established the Republic of India in 1950—more than 60 years ago—and yet we are still looking backwards to last century's ideas.

I will move to the second key reason I believe Australia should become a republic. It is because there are many aspects of the British monarchy which I find unAustralian. We tell our kids that if they work hard they can grow up to be anything they want to be—except if you want to become the head of state, which in the British monarchy is selected through the principles of hereditary male succession and with Catholics being specifically ineligible. That Australia is still connected to such an inequitable and unfair system is, quite frankly, shameful.

As we all know, Australians were asked to vote the monarchy out of existence in November 1999, and by a large margin we unfortunately said no, rejecting the proposal to replace the monarch with a president appointed by parliament. However that was not the case in my electorate. I am proud to say that 63.77 per cent of Canberrans—the most highly educated people in the country—voted in favour of becoming a republic. A Newspoll in September that year showed that 95 per cent of Australians agreed that the head of state should be an Australian—yet only 45 per cent voted for the republic package in the referendum the following November. The referendum failed, and that was largely because the question tied the issue to a prescribed model for the election of a president. I will not discuss in any detail my views on that at this point. It was a highly political move at the time, and we saw the result. Despite the result that we had in Canberra, unfortunately that was not the case for the rest of Australia. I believe that, if Australians had been provided with another model, the referendum would have been successful, and I welcome the Leader of the Opposition's call today for the debate to begin again on becoming a republic.

As the opposition leader said in his speech this afternoon, one of the key reasons to change our Constitution relates to the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the first Australians. Our Constitution functions as a powerful symbolic statement of Australian identity; yet Indigenous Australians are explicitly excluded from the constitutional processes and from its text. The 1967 referendum did permit the federal government to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders but did not resolve the issues of recognition of Indigenous Australians and their legal and constitutional protection. It is time to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in our Constitution—and this is something the majority of Australians support.

Australia needs a political system that allows any of our citizens to rise to the top on merit not birthright. Only then will we be able to move forward into the next chapter of our history as a free country. We need an Australian republic, a model that truly speaks for who we are, our modern identity and our place in our region and our world. By such a declaration, Australia will make it clear to ourselves and the world that we are independent, mature and representative of us and worthy of us. An Australian republic is about the Australian people being unambiguously sovereign in a fully and truly independent Australian nation.

With all due respect, the monarch has no role at all in Australian government, and I believe Australians are ready for a discussion about an Australian head of state. I certainly know that Canberrans are, and they have been for a very long time. It is time for our country to live by our own set of values and have independence from the United Kingdom.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is nothing like debating a bill to change the way that the succession to the British throne works to remind you of how much it is well beyond time to be talking about making Australia a republic. If there is anything more irrelevant to Australian society today than the birth order of the British monarchs I do not know what it could be. Imagine how embarrassing it would been last year, when the Prime Minister of India addressed our parliament, when the President of China addressed our parliament, when the Prime Minister of Japan addressed us, to say, 'Look, all of that discussion about regional relationships and trade is really, really important, but what we really want to talk about is the succession to the British throne, because that is the issue of significant importance to the Australian public today.' Imagine how embarrassing that would have been.

Nonetheless, of course the Australian Labor Party supports the Succession to the Crown Bill. It is great that it is going to fix some of the worst aspects of those succession rules. It will mean that men will no longer take priority over women in the line of succession. It will go on order of birth, not on gender or sex. It will also mean that a king or queen's heir who marries a Catholic will not be barred from succession. Both are laudable changes. But, as a republican, I look forward to a day when Australia no longer has a formal interest in who the King or Queen is. In the meantime, while Australia remains a constitutional monarchy, I agree that it is important to make these changes. Of course I acknowledge the contributions of the Queen, the Royal Family and the governor-generals that we have had in this nation. All of them have been outstanding individuals who have made great contributions. These changes are consistent with Labor values of promoting gender equality and religious freedom. But talking about the British monarchy just seems so old fashioned and out of touch.

Mr Howarth interjecting—

That is why, as the member for Petrie might remember, there was so much laughter when the Prime Minister announced knights and dames last year. There was out-and-out mockery of the Prime Minister when he reinstated knights and dames last year. The member for Petrie might be a monarchist, but most of us on this side are republicans, because we are modern Australians.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

Labor has a clear platform in favour of a republic, as I am reminded by the member for Jagajaga. We are republicans because we think the monarchy, just like the Prime Minister's ill-judged decision to reintroduce knights and dames last year, is archaic when it comes to Australian society. Could you have had a greater misread of the temper of the times? Actually, yes, you could have had a greater misread: it happened on Australia Day 2015. I have to say that when I looked at my Twitter feed that morning and saw those comments about the knighting of a prince I thought, 'This has to be a prank. Come on—it's not April Fools Day, is it? Have I woken up after a very long sleep?' But it was not a prank: it was absolutely true. The Prime Minister, on Australia Day, had knighted a foreign dignitary. I was pretty surprised—obviously not as surprised as the members of the Liberal-National government, but I have to say that I was pretty surprised. I remember the collective shock of that day. Surely no Prime Minister of Australia, in 2015, on Australia's national day, would do this? You would have to be completely out of touch. What have we got? A Prime Minister who is so out of touch that he thought this would be great. He thought that this would be received with applause, that people would be so incredibly grateful to him. Well, I tell you who was not incredibly grateful: one Campbell Newman was not incredibly grateful to the Prime Minister for the activities on Australia Day. One Campbell Newman was pretty shocked, in the middle of a state election campaign, to have a Prime Minister knighting a prince. He was not the only one.

Of course, as much as you might engage in mockery and opprobrium of the Prime Minister for doing something so fundamentally out of touch and disconnected with the values of Australian society, it did serve one beneficial purpose—apart from the beneficial purpose in the state election campaign, obviously. That was to remind us of the importance of the debate about choosing an Australian head of state. We can improve gender equality when it comes to the succession to the throne, but we cannot elect an Australian, whether they are male or female, gay or straight or bi, cisgendered or transgendered. We can let royals marry Catholics but we cannot elect an Australian head of state regardless of whether that person is Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or atheist. We have no right, no opportunity to choose one of the many inspirational leaders in our community that represent our identity and our values as modern Australians. Holding the highest position in Australia is a matter of birth, privilege and blood line. It is a position that cannot be held by any Australian. In our egalitarian society, in modern Australia, in outward-looking, multicultural, egalitarian Australia, that is fundamentally archaic and wrong.

That is why our continued reliance on the throne seems to leave us clinging to a monocultural past of exclusion, when national identity seemed assured, unquestionable and permanent. But it was not. Those British-to-the-bootstrap days have long gone. Our British origins are fundamentally important to us, but no more important than our multicultural present and the long history of our first nations people. This is the story of Australian multiculturalism. The monocultural past is fundamentally out of step with our modern Australia. We are not British; in fact, we are much closer to Asia geographically. We are diverse; we are cosmopolitan; we are multicultural. You will remember Prime Minister Keating's One Nation speech, which was one of this country's most significant contributions to repositioning Australia's place in the world. It added to our national story, identity and symbolism. You will remember his Redfern speech about the importance of Indigenous Australians to modern Australia.

It is important for our future prosperity that we are clear-eyed about our national values, our connections to our region and our Indigenous history. If you look at foreign perceptions of Australia, they can sometimes be unfortunately stereotypical and superficial. I met David Morris, the head of the Australian Republican Movement, a couple of years ago. He has been doing a lot of work on Australian identity. When he conducted research into how our Australian brand is perceived in the UK and Ireland, it was fun, sun and surf—not what we might like to think people see us as, which is as a source of innovation or high-quality goods and services. Of course, we know that the Irish have not been all that happy about the way our Prime Minister has seen them this week, particularly today, of all days, on St Patrick's Day. These sorts of images of us overseas, as David Morris has argued, do nothing for our economic security. Moving to a republic would give us an opportunity, if not the right, to be seen as a grown-up, adult nation, a nation that is confident in itself. It would give us an opportunity to embrace those qualities that are truly our own.

Of course that includes our Indigenous culture. Like others in this place I want to see the recognition of our first nations people in the Australian Constitution as soon as possible, because I think that we need to recognise and acknowledge that our first peoples' struggles to overcome the effects of dispossession and British colonialism more than 200 years ago are actually fundamental to our growth as a modern Australian state. We need to recognise those first nations people in our Constitution, and we should do so as part of our shared movement, as Australians, with shared Australian values, with a shared story—not just the story of integration into a European colony, but a story of people from many nations, including our first nations, working together, striving together to build a nation, build institutions and build a national identity with shared values. The idea of a fair go is as much about European convicts as it is about migrants who have come here for a better life, as it is about people fleeing persecution to come here for asylum, as it is about people overcoming dispossession that came with British arrival here about 200 years ago. It is the idea of the fair go that led to the Freedom Ride of 1965—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the honourable member will have leave to continue her remarks.