this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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I was only somewhat joking when, a week or so ago, I suggested that that switching to the Danish monarchy could be a compromise between republicans and monarchists.
Looks like we have a movement then. Only small, so far, but ......
Nah only compromise I’ll accept is them peacefully stepping down.
There's something to be said for an overall "boss" to the Government. Someone with no real power day-to-day, but with the power to sack the government and force us to an election. Critically: someone outside our politics.
The one time the power was invoked, it was done terribly by a Governor General worried over his own job and for local political reasons.
If we disconnect from the monarchy, I would want that position to be retained by someone. But who? The ~~queen~~ king fills this role fairly well at the moment.
There’s nothing to be said about democracy being subverted.
Even The Dismissal was not a subversion of democracy. It was a dissolution of parliment and an invocation of democracy: taking us to an election. I was a little kid, so obviously wasn't involved in the politics at the time. My dad was a die-hard Labor voter and he was furious. So, my personal memories of it are very anti-Fraser/Kerr as a result of that influence in my formative years.
But for all of that, I concede that the Government needs to be accountable to someone. I believe we need an "emergency stop" button in our constitutional makeup. I just don't think the one time it was used was a valid emergency. I think history has the same conclusion - that was not the way the power should be invoked. I doubt it'll happen again like that.
An unelected person or persons, being given control over government is not democratic.
The government, if it has to exist, needs only to be accountable to the citizens it exists to serves.
Well, if it's baked into our constitution, the implementation of such a role is created by a democratic process. So, while the individual may not be directly elected, we (or our ancestors in our case) did vote the position into existence. I wouldn't be against this person being elected directly under some future constitution, though I have concerns how they could maintain their distance from our politics if that were the case. That is a question I'd want adressed.
Conversely, a government without such a role leads to what our friends in the USA have. A system that gets bogged down in stupid politics so badly that they literally shut down their whole government every few years over their political in-fighting. They don't have anyone to force them to behave. I wouldn't want that.
Given the crown has a policy of interfering with neither the decisions nor appointment of the Governor General, we could become a Republic without changing the practical power at all.