Australian Constitution

What are we doing with a King?

~ Meals Matter ~ 1 Comment

Our forthcoming Republic demands more than banishing a foreign monarch

OUR RECENT PUBLIC holiday to celebrate the King’s birthday reminded yet again that Australia needs to move to a democratic Commonwealth with a grown-up Constitution. The existing arrangements merely sign up Australian colonies under the Crown, rather than make a careful social contract between citizens.

AS a suggestion, a preamble might begin: Finding ourselves in an industrial civilisation, imposed violently on Indigenous nations, we each agree to cooperate in this Commonwealth. Obedient to ourselves, we remain wary of rule from above, whether by kings, ideologies, autocrats or big money. We, the People, organise ourselves. The Constitution inspires, while it sets out formal principles.

As citizens of the Commonwealth, we submit to the rule of law, democratically established by an informed citizenship, and managed by the state (government and bureaucracy), overlooked by a mindful judiciary. And there’s more.

But, before getting too far, a quick note that our King’s Birthday weekend is being followed immediately by the U.S. “No Kings” day. And this leads to an admission that conservatives make a reasonable point about a king or queen possibly providing stability, unlike what’s happening in a famous republic.

Neither a poet, nor a honed legal mind, but a meal-centred scholar, let me propose some essentials for our forthcoming Constitution.

As individuals and social beings, we respect the laws of nature, notably the ecological requirements of generation and preservation. We also obey laws, democratically achieved. That more or less paraphrases seventeenth-century English political philosopher John Locke’s arguments against paternalism, particularly monarchical, and for democracy.

Thinkers in his day understood a Commonwealth as a political economy, with, traditionally, a monarch organising food-centred infrastructure and services, such as irrigation, roads, art, science and welfare.

Replacing kings and queens, Locke envisaged a Commonwealth enhancing citizens’ “natural rights”, which were to life, liberty and property. We achieve well-being through access to food and water, gardens and seashores, to housing and livable towns, to health through good medical care, knowledge gained through schools and research, and all embellished and reinforced through the arts.

The world has changed since Locke, and not only because powerful forces have abstracted “Bills of Rights” from natural realities.

The big problem now – worse than being subject to a king and queen – is Corporations. They rule more intricately, and more ideologically, than ever any monarch.

As explained in Meals Matter (2020), for-profit corporations essentially emerged after the modern republican pattern had been set. Lacking Constitutional legitimacy, corporations nonetheless gained legal support through such devices as “limited liability” and “corporate personhood”. They then appropriated rights, especially “liberty”, which supported “laissez-faire”, “free enterprise”, “neoliberalism” and lately “disruption”.

Corporate capitalist theory reassigned sovereignty to money. The system has now remodeled all in the corporate image, turning universities into businesses, and people into buying-and-selling machines.

Corporations supply our cars, and build the roads. Their advertising funds news dissemination. Their factories supply food, and armaments. This means having to engage closely with government through lobbying, consultation, outsourcing, and two-way personnel exchange. Who “understands” war better than military suppliers?

Invidiously, I mention just one of numerous experts now running the place: former SA Senator and Cabinet Minister, Christopher Pyne. To quote Wikipedia:

Since late 2020, Pyne has taken on roles in the Australian defence industry. He is chairman of the advisory board of Australia’s largest Australian owned small arms and munitions company Nioa, and chairman of the advisory board of the Australian Missile Corporation. He also sits on the board of ASX Listed, Xtek Ltd, a Canberra-based body armour and unmanned Vehicle manufacturer and supplier globally.

Lacking Constitutional status, corporations have captured government. They push politicians to the fringes, where they take photo opportunities. The frustrated electorate are expected to blame … “the government”!

In our serious Constitution, corporations lose “rights” and gain licences or something of the kind.

The loss of the Voice Referendum in Australia a year ago pointed to an uninspiring, irrelevant-seeming Constitution. Additionally, the perceived need for a consultative body highlighted the lack of power of actual citizens, in this case Indigenous people.

In the new Republic, I reckon the democratically-elected parliament might elect a President, who forms a Cabinet and outer Ministry from both elected members and from representatives of registered consultative bodies.

As recognised economic tools with government oversight, corporations might provide recommendations this way. All lobbying would be public through recorded debates and publications of registered representative assemblies.

Likewise, a wide collection of interests make their case. Trade unions make useful representations. And so on, through various advocacy groups, all overseen by a commission.

This commission is appointed by the parliament with reference to the bodies themselves. As well as collating submissions, the commission would support consultative bodies. The commission provides financial and logistical support, where appropriate.

Think of it as like a royal court of old, whose lively gossip, intelligence, opinion, and learning advised the ruler. In ridding ourselves of kings and queens in favour of parliaments, we need to replace not only monarchs, but also their clever courtiers.

The sin of over-commitment

~ Meals Matter ~ 1 Comment

So much rancour of recent times has been hardened by over-simplification – and examples are to be found on all sides

IN RECENT YEARS, numerous governments and institutions accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. While its opening statement is widely regarded as reasonable, the definition then gives examples that suggest that criticism of the state of Israel is antisemitic.

Antisemitism is exhibited by, for example, denying “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”.

Leaving aside the trickiness of whether Jews comprise a people, race, religion, cultural tradition or nation, the stricture nevertheless comes close to shutting down debate about Zionism.

This is despite many Jews themselves being anti-Zionist, sometimes on firmly religious grounds. “Jewish is defined by what Torah commands. Making our own state, or oppressing other people, is forbidden by Judaism and cannot be considered ‘Jewish,’” said Rabbi Yisroel Meir Hirsch (quoted in The Times of Israel, 23 May 2020).

Another example of antisemitism was: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Reference to National Socialism might be painfully pointed, but that of itself would not invalidate such a denunciation.

The so-called “settlements” in the West Bank, throwing Palestinians off their land at gunpoint, certainly head in that direction. Likewise, many Jews worldwide decry the Netanyahu government’s campaign “to flatten” Gaza (President Macron’s description) or “genocide” (South Africa’s case in the World Court).

A definition of “antisemitism” overly protective of Israel and its policies risks rebounding, and many people now oppose Israel’s assaults without feeling particularly anti-Jewish, and resist campaigns to insist otherwise.

I have asked around about the name of a spurious argument of the type “anti-Israel = anti-Semitic”. My friend David suggested “false syllogism”, in that necessary are not always sufficient conditions. Any thoughts?

Let’s settle for the moment on saying it’s a classic case of over-commitment, in which powerful assertions foreclose qualifications and ambiguities. And over-commitment is a widespread sin.

While the authoritarian right specialises in zealotry, including provocative sneering, abuse, and inventive conspiracy theories, the liberal-left itself provides many examples.

Loss of “Voice” Referendum

An Australian instance of the sin of over-commitment has been a widespread claim that the loss of the Referendum on a Constitutional “Voice” for Indigenous people revealed the nation’s “embarrassing” racism, and set back the Indigenous cause.

Indigenous lawyer and “Yes” campaigner Noel Pearson had warned the voters: “There’s one choice that’s morally correct, and the other one will bring shame upon us, and we will have to wear that shame and dishonour for a long time to come” (The Guardian, 10 October, 2023).

Afterwards, campaign director for Yes23 Dean Parkin suggested that “the Australian people voted against recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first peoples of our nation” (Guardian, 26 January 2024).

The history of Australian government Indigenous policy is not happy, to say the least. But overly committed proponents simplified the Referendum to “Yes”/”No” on Indigenous recognition and support, over-riding complications concerning the approach and the Constitution itself.

One Indigenous Senator (Jacinta Nampijinpa Price) had described the proposed advisory assembly as patently unnecessary, while another (Lidia Thorpe) saw it as grossly insufficient. That’s a span of views.

The Referendum debate revealed widespread ignorance of the Australian Constitution, it was said. That’s not surprising for an uninspiring foundation narrative of colonial governments wrangling a federation.

Rather than resemble an intergovernmental memorandum, a Constitution would desirably set out a persuasive social contract, to which each member assents.

Even Constitutional experts stuck with narrow legalism rather than promote the need for a Constitution that actually sets out why and how we, the People, run this place for our own well-being.

As much as Anthony Albanese might have expected to emerge as a great, visionary Prime Minister, he mishandled a weak cop-out, a non-Treaty and non-Truth-telling way of slipping Indigenous recognition into an inadequate Constitution. Embarrassingly, the former “Rudd government’s street fighter” (Tony Wright, SMH, 23/02/10) failed to transcend narrow party sniping.

Out of the muddle, claims about a single “morally correct” vote arguably became over-commitment to the point of being self-defeating (in that, for instance, Albanese went quiet on the Indigenous cause).

Blame for housing unaffordability

In another Australian example, more than 40 housing, homelessness and community service organisations wrote to the Prime Minister and Opposition leader expressing concern that immigrants were being blamed for the prohibitive price and scarcity of housing.

“Migrant communities are being scapegoated for Australia’s housing crisis,” said Everybody’s Home spokesperson, Maiy Azize (19 December, 2023). “Governments have given handouts to investors, allowed unlimited rent increases, and stopped building homes for the people who need them. It’s a distraction to suggest that migrants are to blame.”

The letter acknowledged elsewhere that “migrant communities are being scapegoated as the primary reason for the housing crisis” (added italics). But why should migrants accept any responsibility whatsoever for the housing crisis?

Population pressures affect housing availability, but that’s not the migrants’ fault. Rather, the pressure results from immigration programs.

Selling immigration as “boosting the economy”, business lobbyists have pushed for cheaper workers, bigger markets, more construction projects, and other sources of “growth”.

Business lobbyists are happy to see migrants take the blame, just as they are not overly concerned that young people get locked out of the slow-motion housing bubble.

Just as alarm at Israeli policy about Palestine is not necessarily anti-Jewish, and disconnect with Albanese’s uninspiring Referendum can be far from racist, querying immigration policy is not querying migrants themselves.

The sins of over-committed simplification, hyperbole, sloganising, indignation, and disparagement have multiple causes.

Newspapers have long resorted to often ingenious, attention-grabbing headlines, with qualifications buried beneath. More and more, advertisers and influencers use half-truths to compete for “likes” and “going viral”. On top of that, competing political factions get shoutier.

Beyond increasing political rancour lies a major shift in capitalism, which is the topic of my next Meals Matter post, Doomed to disruption. We’ve farewelled the neoliberal era. Welcome to the age of disruption!