It is important to recognise that in its very first national phase, compulsory voting was designed to repair the deliberative deficit. The idea was simple: if citizens knew that voting at national constitutional referendums was a legal duty, then perhaps they would pay greater attention to the debate over the merits of the proposals. The stated idea behind the proposal for enforced civic responsibility was put in terms by Senator Russell when introducing the bill:.
The majority are able to discuss football records, and make an accurate calculation of the time in which 6 furlongs can be done at Flemington, but, in many cases, those men have not had their attention sufficiently directed to the affairs of their country to be persuaded to exercise their franchise. Critics have suggested that this is a device designed not so much to bolster public deliberation as to lift the approval rating which would suit reformist parties like Labor.
There is a supposition that Labor voters have traditionally been among a majority of those who have failed to turn out when elections have not been compulsory. While this might be true, it is still the case that compulsory voting might simply reinforce the conventional bias against constitutional reform by ensuring that the legions of reactive Australian voters turn out to register their disapproval.
For years, referendum critics have believed that there is a link between compulsory voting and No voting. One bit of evidence that should confirm this would be a high incidence of informal voting, but this is not in fact the case. The best that can be said for this approach is as follows. It does not follow that everybody will cast a philosophic and intelligent vote.
I have presented this review of the foundations and scaffolding of our rules for referendums not to depress you but to help shake you loose from the defective traditional framework.
Just think how unusual is this referendum against the background of our traditional approach. Let me line up my reasons for hope with this review of the deliberative deficit revealed in the historical foundations and displayed each decade since I think that the referendum will make great strides in overcoming the reputation for negativism attached to Australian constitutional referendums.
Just compare the strength of the process this time round with the state of things at the last referendum, which was a decade ago in , during that great year of celebrating years of the arrival of the First Fleet. Last time round, a federal government put four referendum questions to the people and all four went down, generating historically low popular support. I suspect that most of you are like me and can't really remember what the four proposals were or indeed how you voted.
Remember that the Hawke Labor government had been re-elected in for an unprecedented third term, and that was a very special year of national celebration of white settlement. Well, more than two-thirds of us did say No, a record rebuff for any government at any referendum. Let me itemise ten grounds of hope that the referendum will break away from the traditional restraints on deliberative democracy. Consider this contrast with the experience.
Last time round, the trigger for the referendum was the Final Report of the Constitutional Commission, an expert advisory body convened by Bob Hawke in and chaired by Sir Maurice Byers. What they did not pick out were some of the recommendations about referendums: including the recommendation that state parliaments should be allowed to initiate constitutional referendums paragraph The timing of this referendum is also encouraging.
It does not coincide with a general election where the fates of governments rest in the balance: nine of eighteen referendum outings have been at elections. Referendums have a greater tendency to generate Yes votes when held separately from general elections; but at such referendums there is also a tendency for voters to stray from their traditional party loyalties.
Also reassuring is the free vote guaranteed by the Prime Minister to his coalition members: free from party direction, that is, but not free from intra-party bickering, as we have repeatedly seen. This deviation away from traditional forms of partisanship has reduced the usual form of referendum partisanship from a government versus Opposition struggle to a form that might make the process of change more palatable to the people.
Also unusual and encouraging has been the March release of draft versions of the proposed changes to the Constitution. Also unusual and reassuring was the establishment of the parliamentary inquiry into the referendum proposals.
This committee, chaired with distinction by Liberal backbencher, Mr Charles, took evidence around Australia and its records and Report are a welcome sign that Parliament wants to deal itself back in as a proactive contributor to the whole process. Like many who gave evidence, I was impressed with the good will of the select committee and its chair to do their part to help reduce the deliberative deficit.
Another good thing about the referendum is that Parliament has amended the referendum law to overcome the severe limitations on public expenditure. The Commonwealth law has restrained the federal government but has never limited non-government expenditure by private individuals or groups or even by state governments.
At this referendum, in a once-only experiment, the law has been amended to permit the government to spend substantially more than any earlier referendum, and so generate a higher level of reliable information for the public. The High Court has affirmed that these type of anti-deception measures in Australian electoral and referendum law are quite narrow in their scope: the provisions prohibit only deception bearing on the placement of a formal vote in the ballot box, and are not designed to regulate political speech or attempts, however misleading, to form the judgment of electors.
This shows just how important it is that there be some public authority which can inject some balance into the public debate, to protect the community, and truth, against misleading and deceptive contributions from referendum partisans. There is yet another significant difference this time round.
One of the greatest resources available at this referendum is not the ample amounts of money being fed into the national and government-appointed Yes and No committees, or the valuable work of the Australian Election Commission in making available to the public so much useful material on the proposed changes. And it is not the remarkably busy websites of the two main camps: the Australian Republican Movement and Australians for a Constitutional Monarch.
No, I am referring to the Constitutional Centenary Foundation CCF established in as a publicly-funded think tank to educate and inform Australians about the many issues surrounding the centenary of Federation, including but by no means confined to the issue of a change to an Australian republic.
Many of you will remember that special supplement of the Weekend Australian of 9—10 October dealing with the referendum. This was a good example of the excellent public information made available, in part because it made such prominent use of the CCF as an impartial source when evaluating the credibility of the Yes and No case.
Australian Federation grew out of widespread civic engagement. Few if any of the forty-two referendum proposals thus far have engaged the people in the same way. In part this sense of disengagement reflects the pessimism of Australian politicians who have not held voters in high regard. The referendum has given voters the opportunity to return the compliment. Referendums are about popular control, so it is no surprise that large sections of the mobilised public are gathering around the option of a directly-elected or popularly controlled President.
Speaking personally, I think that the direct election option has yet to face the test of sustained public investigation. This defect in detail is not as surprising as the very existence of the sustained support for direct election. Maybe the two are related and support for direct election will begin to fade as people see the potential power of big money and big centres of population, and the potential vulnerability of minority groups and the smaller states.
The big lesson of this referendum is that is has done more than any other single event to turn around our deliberative deficit. More still needs to be done. This experiment in deliberative democracy will help to throw light on what is missing in our referendum routines, where political debate gets weighed down with the posturing of personalities, equally adept at name-calling and the imputation of hidden motives. But Australia Deliberates can act as a circuit breaker. So I conclude with the recommendation that we pay attention to the detailed workings of Australia Deliberates because its promoters believe the results will represent what the average Australian would think about an Australian Republic if they had the opportunity to deliberate thoroughly.
Would that all citizens had the same opportunity. Question — We have this rosy view that we're going through a more deliberative process, but the fact is that we're being forced to vote on a proposal that came out of a half-appointed lobby not fully elected, like the s ; a lobby that was managed and was factionalised and seemed to take on all those unfortunate characteristics that used to go on in that gloomy Old Parliament House.
Isn't that a failure of deliberation right at the start of this whole process? John Uhr — Yes. What I was suggesting was that the turning of the tide comes from us recognising—obviously, finally—the inadequacy of the system we now have, including the inadequacies to which you have drawn attention. But one has to nudge the system in one way or another. Some people say that to vote No is the most positive inducement you can have to warn the system that you will no longer tolerate the sort of shallow-minded reformism that it's engaged in.
I take another view, which is to vote Yes. Give the system a chance to recognise that there's support for the symbolic changes attached to finally defining the head of state as an Australian citizen, to coincide with the centenary of Federation. Admit that substantially that's not going to change unemployment, it's not going to change the bus timetable in the ACT, it's not even necessarily going to improve the state of our governmental system more broadly, but it certainly pushes the ConCon-type agenda, which itself has some momentum going.
Vote No, and the risk is that you're just throwing sand in the gears of that momentum and there could be a loss of momentum, maybe even a dead stop. Question — You didn't mention the question of polling and its influence on people. I know that's a convoluted and difficult matter, but I believe a lot of people are affected by published polls. In that connection, do you know if this deliberative affair in Old Parliament House will have its deliberations published, and whether that might or might not be a good thing?
I'm not questioning the deliberation as such, but if a result comes out, you can imagine the feeding frenzy of the media on that matter. John Uhr — I think that's a very important question.
There is a risk of over-reach in taking a sample; inviting people to Old Parliament House, polling their views before they enter—before they step on those steps—then polling their views and demonstrating the change.
It is a danger of over-reach that could go either way, dramatically indicating that, after two days of intensive exposure to the referendum activities plus lots of neutral material, there's a kind of chill of confusion setting in. And the Australian community is then invited to ponder the lessons—that of us have entered that building and come out feeling even more confused. On the other hand it could go the other way—that the come out and there's a demonstration that, once confronted with an opportunity, not so much to hear, but to talk through with other ordinary citizens, they actually dramatically increase their interest.
The symbolism might take on the kind of vital quality that we didn't realise—that the Constitution as it now stands has no definition of who is the head of state.
That we didn't realise there is actually uncertainty as to whether it was the Queen or the Governor-General, and that that's been made clear, and that now they're gung-ho. Yes, if that's all it's about—that it really is minimalism—let's go for it. So, at issue is a kind of danger of an exaggeration either way. And then of course there's the other issue to which you rightly allude—should the rest of us then be herded by that result? Oh, this cumbersome compulsory voting that went in at the beginning to try to force voters to recognise they had obligations of citizenship, we should just bypass that.
We should work out some way of sampling the community, invite them to come together, rub them up against the experts and give them a chance to actually work it through for themselves and the rest of us can say that they represent us. In a way we do that with a lot of normal law and legislation. We allow Parliament to determine for us. But the crucial difference of course with this sort of sampling group is that somehow you trust the social science, that it somehow chose people in whom we can place our confidence.
I have a few doubts and reservations about the selection side of it all. Question — Is the selection process made public? John Uhr — I'd have to get the people from Australia Deliberates to address the integrity of their own processes. I'm not sure how big the list was, but the list of respondents is now over three hundred, and it's a fascinating experiment. But one wouldn't want to invest too heavily in it as a replacement for everything that's good in our democracy.
It just highlights the deficiencies. Question — Would you like to explain the situation of the territories? John Uhr — One of the few changes to the referendum provision in the Constitution was one that the rest of Australia made for the people of the territories. We didn't have a chance to make the change in , to give us also the right to participate in referendums. Not as the constituent body of any particular state—because, by definition, those of us in the ACT and the Northern Territory don't belong to a state—so our vote counts as part of the national majority.
But from , at the time of the first referendum, to , we watched—well, we weren't there in —but we watched and took a keen observer's interest in the outcome. Then Australia kindly said that we could participate from , and since then we have had our own obligations to take care of.
Question — We realise that the monarch doesn't have to be an Australian head of state, and neither does the Governor-General. If the No vote got up, and in order to have a Governor-General that was required to be an Australian citizen—would that have to go to referendum, or could that be legislated? John Uhr — It could go either way. If you wanted it formally forever entrenched in the Constitution, it would have to go to a referendum, but it wouldn't be beyond the possibility of Parliament passing a law or resolution affirming the importance of always choosing an Australian.
At the moment, you can't find any reference to a head of state in the text of the Constitution, because it's not there. You certainly find recognition of the Queen and the Governor-General. The Queen's certainly not required to be an Australian citizen, and neither is the Governor-General. That's part of the moral energy that seems to be behind the Yes side of the case.
One of the saddest features of the referendum provision as it now stands is a recognition that women don't have to count—or, in fact, that they can count half as much as the rest of us. There's a compromise in the provision in the Constitution that says that at the time of Federation, South Australia and Western Australia were the only two states that had universal adult franchise guaranteeing women the right to vote.
And there was a fear amongst these stout-hearted friends of democracy, called our framers, that, if we had a referendum and these two states suddenly voted at a referendum, and if the women voted as well as the men, those two states would have a disproportionate influence. And they actually wrote into the provision—in another classic illustration of our deliberative deficit—that, in the event that that happens, before we've adopted any universal franchise we should ensure that the votes of those people participating in South Australia and Western Australia are cut in half, to equal their stakehood with the other States.
So they lost their nerve on that one. I think that so many people who have struggled, without knowing a lot about what has gone on, would have been content if that had remained familiar. John Uhr — I think you're absolutely right that part of the chill and nervousness that people have about the change is attached directly to that one name. There are a range of other possibilities we could have come up with, one of which was the retention of the current title.
Question — I thought it might have been illegal to retain it, that it would perhaps have to relate to an independent Commonwealth country. As we're all saying, if something is good, why change it? John Uhr — Absolutely. Question — I was watching The Panel a few weeks ago, and one of the issues that was raised was: what is a republic?
I actually went to the dictionary, and got no help from it whatsoever. Is there actually an accepted definition of what a republic is, and are we using that for this referendum? A republic is a place where there is no established hereditary monarch ruling. Somebody else or some other group rule, either a representative body elected by the people, or maybe just a group of people unelected, but not calling themselves a monarchy.
The negative definition is easy, but then there are a huge range of possibilities. My colleague, Mark McKenna, author of the book Republicanism in Australia , spent pages or so detailing the various models of a republic that have been entertained in Australian history.
Voting Find my electoral division Ways to vote Completing my ballot paper. Engagement Translated information Indigenous Australians People with disability Electoral communication. Published material Register of political parties and decisions Current party applications and notices Transparency Register Compliance and enforcement. Guidance Electoral communication Electoral backgrounders Scrutineer information.
Delivering an election Managing the electoral roll Altering electoral divisions Determining ballot paper order Planning voting services Counting the votes.
Voting and the Government The three levels of government When elections are held Forming federal Government Preferential voting Referendums. Electoral divisions Current electoral divisions Enrolment statistics Maps and spatial data Electoral division redistributions. Transparency and integrity Election safeguards Counting the votes Electoral integrity journey Electoral communication Transparency Register Electoral Backgrounders. How a referendum works.
There are a number of essential steps involved in holding a federal referendum. A Bill is passed by Parliament Before a referendum can be held, a bill outlining the proposed changes to the constitution must be passed by both houses of the Federal Parliament or alternatively passed twice in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.
The referendum must be held no sooner than two months and no sooner than six months after the bill is passed 2. A Writ is issued The Governor-General issues a writ for a referendum which, like an election must be held on a Saturday. Australians vote There can be several proposed changes on a referendum ballot paper for voters to consider.
Voting at a referendum. Double majority. At the referendum the proposed alteration must be approved by a 'double majority'. That is: a national majority of voters in the states and territories a majority of voters in a majority of the states i.
Double majority fact sheet. Saturday 27th of May marks the 50th anniversary of the Referendum in which Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the Constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and include them in the census.
Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population'? The proposed law Constitution Alteration Aboriginals sought to give the Commonwealth Parliament power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people wherever they lived in Australia.
It also sought to make it possible to include Aboriginal people in national censuses. The amendment deleted part of section 51 xxvi of the Constitution and repealed section The results of the referendum vote are set out below:. The referendum also put a separate question on a proposed law seeking to remove the connection in the Constitution between the number of members of the House of Representatives and the number of senators; this question was not carried.
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