Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The bill before the House, the Governor-General Amendment (Salary) Bill, goes to what seems to be a narrow administrative question, but it belies a much bigger question—a question about what it means to be Australian. The Governor-General Act was introduced by the Whitlam government to set the Governor-General's salary, and the Whitlam government believed that the Governor-General's salary should recognise the importance and place of this high office and be dealt with in a non-partisan way. It acknowledged that the appointment of the office of Governor-General should not depend on a candidate's personal wealth or their availability of other income to support them in the role.

It is ironic, then, that these egalitarian values do not extend to the nature of the office itself—a delegate of the Queen of the British monarchy, an institution where selection for the position is determined by birth. We have had a succession of esteemed Australians appointed as Governor-General, all of whom have carried out their duties with grace and honour. But in 2019 it is wholly outdated that Australia's head of state is the Queen and that her duties are delegated to the Governor-General in Australia. That's because today, 232 years after the First Fleet, 118 years after Federation, Australia's head of state does not represent us. It does not reflect us as a country.

It's not simply an anachronism. The institution of the British monarchy offends the very things that we are most proud of as Australians. It is utterly out of step with the values and expectations of modern Australia—values like the fair go, egalitarianism and mateship. The monarchy is an elitist and exclusive institution—there's just no way around this. Just say it: 'the Australian monarchy', 'the Queen of Australia'. If our constitutional arrangements remain unchanged, in the not-too-distant future we'll have a 'King of Australia'. Just feel those words in your mouth—it offends what it means to be Australian.

The monarchy is an institution that looks backwards to who someone's parents happen to be when determining whether someone is qualified to be our head of state—the governors-general representing them in Australia. It's an institution which excludes our First Australians. It's an institution that excludes the millions of Australians whose families, like my own, have come to this country from nations outside the British Empire. It is an institution that continues to discriminate in the line of succession on the basis of gender and religion.

Australia was built on the very idea that we can do better than the United Kingdom. And we have built something better here—a nation of radical egalitarianism; a country where, as historian George Nadel wrote:

… arrogance is the worst sin and deference the next. The Australian likes to call no man his master and likes to think of no man as his servant.

We certainly do not like to call any man or woman our king or queen.

When some misguided types sought to set up an antipodean aristocracy and a House of Lords in Australia in 1853, Daniel Deniehy, a son of convicts and a radical republican, scathingly labelled these Australians desiring of a British-style class system of a hierarchical system of honours as promoting a 'bunyip aristocracy'. We bestow mockery on those who think that they are better than anyone else, not titles—other than the member for Warringah, that is.

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