TRANSCRIPT:
(This is derived from an automated process. The video recording is authoritative.)
Thanks very much. And, um, let's get this right.
So this is what I'm gonna talk about tonight, and this is loosely based on, um, uh, a chapter in this book, which the publishers asked me to promote tonight. So I'm doing my promotion and my chapter's about why it's okay.
Uh, and I got the word liberals, I mean, small outta liberals to vote no.
And my theme tonight is really about, uh, I'm not gonna talk about the arguments for and against because other speakers gonna do that, and probably better than I can. I'm gonna talk about why you, we should have a right to vote no, and why you should not be ashamed if you wanna vote no, and why we should have that in our system of government. And, um, so I'm gonna talk about these, these sort of four things.
Our system of government, Westminster, which is different from the original Westminster, thank goodness, uh, the process of involved in changing our Constitution. Um, why voting for a referendum is, is different from this voting in a normal election. There's, there's a big difference in what you, what's at stake, and one of the rules and principles that we should be concerned about and which seem to me, and I think my other speakers will, will agree, um, uh, are missing, uh, and what's going on.
So that's wanna I talk about a bit tonight. There's some differences, uh, about Australia and, um, Australia has a written constitution. Uh, the United Kingdom doesn't have a written constitution. New Zealand doesn't have a single written constitution. Now that, that makes a big difference, we've got this document called the Constitution.
And that means that in Australia parliament is not supreme. That is, it's, it's, it's circumscribed by, circumscribed by the, by the, by the Constitution, if you like. In England, Britain, the Parliament is always supreme, basically. Okay? That's one very big important difference. Also, our constitution was voted on by the people.
We had a vote around Australia about the constitution and what was in it in America. It was written by those founding fathers, all those very bright people, um, rebelling against England. It didn't, it didn't, never went to a vote to the people. So our, our constitution is quite unique in that sense. Thirdly, our system is different from Britain, and we've got a federal system of government.
And this is very important about the rules of the Constitution, which we'll talk about because early on we recognized that there are regional differences in Australia, a country as big an area as basically almost the United States and like Canada.
So we've got a federal system like Canada, and that's very important that we take in different viewpoints, in different interests.
The interest of Queensland are different from the interest of Victoria to some extent. Um, also very early on, Australia had universal suffrage for men and women who were one of the world leaders. Not only that, did women get the vote. They were also allowed to stand for election, though, okay? Other countries took a long time,
Switzerland didn't get it to nine 70 by the way. Um, uh, Germany, 1918 France 9 44, um, just after the fall of Paris. So, um, Australia was to the forefront, a very democratic sort of process. And we've had a very robust democracy because of these factors.
The idea that we're, if you wanna change the Constitution, you're gonna have to have a vote for the people, which I don't want to talk about. So all these have this idea of democracy, very strong foundations, flows over to if you wanna change the Constitution.
So if you wanna change the constitution in Australia, voters have gotta be involved. In the United States, it's decided by the state parliament, state legislatures, uh, they don't have a popular vote across America to change the Constitution, right?
That's very, uh, important. And I think by Canada it's the same. Is that right, Jim? What's that? That in Canada, you, there's not a popular vote to change the Constitution almost. No, not not in the us, no. Okay. So Australia is quite unique in this. The people are involved in changing the Constitution.
And in Australia we have a thing called a double majority. There's not just a majority of votes across the whole country. It's gotta be a majority of votes in the majority of states.
Labor Party tried to change that in 1974 to make only, only three states had to be involved, okay? So it's called a double majority.
It's a double. It reflects our federal system, this idea that we really want everyone to have a say and to take in account also to put of points of view. Now, uh, a lot of academics, Jim excluded of course, uh, have always coming up. Oh, the Constitution is out of date.
It hasn't changed much and so on. It's true that they, of all the 44 referendum that've been put to Australians, only eight have passed. Now, I always say that's a good thing.
In some other countries constitution will change after it, a coup de tar or Congress decides to do something in Australia, we've been very reluctant. I don't think that's a bad thing.
I think that's a good thing, right? And by the way, the majority of those changes the constitution have been done by conservative governments, not Labor governments, right? So put that, make that appreciation. Um, also, it it's an exercise of choice.
This thing about choice by voters is really important. We, we've got this concept that if Australian voters voted for the Constitution and Australian voters decide there's gonna be a change to the constitution, and Australian states are involved in that. So very important.
Now, one important thing I said at the beginning, voting for a constitution is different than voting election time. Why? Because in Australia, when you change the Constitution, it's like a Catholic marriage. There's no divorce, okay?
There never used to be no divorce. Um, that is, you can't reverse it. It's very impossible.
There's no change to the Australian constitution that's ever been reversed. Now, in America, you might remember a thing called prohibition, right? That was a result of a change to the American constitution, I think the 18th Amendment, right? And after, you know, 10 years of chaos and murder in mayhem and Chicago, and also they had another sort of change, and they reversed that change to the Constitution. Right? Now in Australia, once you change the Constitution, you are stuck with it, right? Very important. That's why I think most Australians, um, uh, are very reluctant to change the constitution.
Some years ago when I was building a house, the builder, there was a constitutional referendum going on, and I said to my, my builder, Rex, what are you gonna do on Saturday? He said, Scott, I always say, no, I never give those buggers in Canberra, a single thing. Okay? And I think he's right, right? So he is very wary about giving Canberra or anyone extra power.
Okay? Um, some, some features about the way we changed the Constitution in Australia.
It's really interesting. When we ran the first change to the Constitution 906, all that was required was the Australian electoral office. We had an Australian electoral office back then. Had to put up a notice at their buildings. There's gonna be a referendum on Saturday. Um, that's it.
All their job was, was to, um, inform the voters. There's gonna be referendum. There was no discussion, there was no obligation about telling people what the referendum was about. The first two referendum were, were basically 30 minor machinery matters.
But then when a Labor government came into power in different times and they put up six different referendum, all of them I think failed. Um, and it was then, gee, if we're having these referendum, and some of 'em are about complex, complex legal wording, voters need to be informed about what's the argument for and what's the argument against.
So legislation was passed to say there's a, there is a requirement that there be information sent out to voters for the case for and the case against at least 14 days before a referendum as hell. So early on, we had this notion in Australia that if you're gonna have a referendum, it's not just yes, uh, you can vote no.
Very early on we had this notion that there was a role of parliament to inform voters arguments fall and arguments against.
Now it's very rare, any political issue that it's totally ever bipartisan.
So we've developed, um, this idea that if there's a referendum happening, parliament's gotta pass a law. We've gotta go through House of Representatives and the Senate, okay?
Uh, and the other thing about our Senate, it's elected, okay, unlike the, uh, Canadian Senate or the English House of Lords, okay? Um, um, and so on, so early on it was decided parliament's gotta pass the legislation.
And then if there is opposition to that legislation, then there's gotta be a no case put to the people, right?
That's, that's sort of the idea. That's work from the word go. So very different. You can see how voting, this is quite different from voting election time, where we all vote for all sorts of reasons we vote cuz we don't like the candidate, we don't like the party, we don't like the color of the hair, uh, or the, or whatever. We vote for all sorts of reasons. And it's our business why we vote. That's our business.
We don't all read the election pamphlets and the manifestos and tick up and all sort of things. What they're gonna do for me.
We have all sorts of prejudice in how we vote. And so be it. So what, uh, the referendum is quite different because it often involves legal consequences about what happens. So, rather interesting.
So now, one of the issues that's coming outta this referendum proposal, somehow if you are in the no camp, you are doing something wrong. Okay? Now, to me, the whole concept of having a referendum is so people can say yes or no, otherwise why bother? Okay? So now, now some dictatorships have used referendum or plebiscite to endorse their government. Napoleon, you know, the guy who got cleaned up at Waterloo, he used to have plebiscite to endorse, um, his decisions. And he did some good things, but he also did some, he caused about 6 million deaths. Um, so, uh, he would get a 95% yes vote at his plebiscite, right?
Napoleon iii, his nephew who became a president and then became an emperor. He used plebiscite too. He wasn't a, a bad guy. Um, and so on, uh, our friends in the Germany in, in, uh, run by a certain gentleman, uh, they had plebiscite, you know, after he knocked over Czech Leia, they had a plebiscite. And strangely everyone said yes, what a great takeover it was. We really enjoyed, we really enjoyed the tanks rolling in.
So we be very careful when you, when people say you can only vote one way, we want, the idea of having a referendum is so you can say no.
So that's very important. And, and so this gets to my point about, um, it's okay to say no, you shouldn't feel guilty. It's also okay to argue no.
Now, what worries me and what people are gonna talk about is, uh, I'm very concerned that a number of institutions are coming out.
Now, I don't know why business suddenly decides they want to take a political issue. They wanna take a political stance, right?
Are they gonna do that next election too? They're gonna get political stance, right? Um, I don't really care what the head of BHP thinks, but he shouldn't be expressing your view.
Universities should not be expressing a point of view, right?
Trade unions can, cause they're part of the alp, they can express a, a point of view that they're a part of the, that organization.
And I'm very disappointed to see, and what worries me about this referendum is how many of the institutions have, have coming out, expressing my view, they should be neutral, okay?
They should be neutral. That's my view about these matters. Um, and we don't wanna be like dictatorships where all the pressure, uh, you know, the Soviet Union had elections, but guess who won the Communist Party, right? Okay. Um, so we don't wanna be like those states where somehow not only is you, you're not allowed to express a viewpoint. And some workplaces, um, which I won't name are, are very within the workplace.
Uh, and a survey's been done recently by the organization I'm involved in that 85% of people feel very comfortable expressing their point of view at home or with their friends.
But, but, uh, a, a large proportion are saying that don't feel very safe expressing their viewpoint at work. Okay? Now, years ago when I was in the Queensland Public Service, I ran a branch in the premiers department and it was the, uh, walk the bridge time, you know, for aboriginal whatever, okay?
And the word came around from on high. We expect, we expect everyone on Saturday to be walking the bridge, okay? In my branch, uh, I, I showed them this information. It's your decision what you do. And none of no members of my branch walked the bridge, okay?
It was their decision. And the work came around Monday checking Scott, uh, how many people in your branch walk the bridge? I said, well, it's really none of your business, basically, okay, it's Saturday, it's not a work work situation. Uh, and I'm not gonna ask them, okay, dg, if you wanna ask them, you can come down and ask them, but Scott Price is not doing it right now.
I know that was a mark against me and all that sort of stuff, but it's my belief that it's not their business about these things.
Okay? So my view, my strong view is that people should be allowed to express a viewpoint. If they're asked, people should be allowed to argue.
Now the media stifles debate, okay?
The media stifles debate institutions are stifling debate, okay? I'm disappointed.
The University of Queensland still doesn't have the Australian flag on their website. Alright? Okay. I find this very strange.
So this referendum is important. This, this referendum is not just about for voice, whatever that is. And, uh, other peoples explain it. It's, it's really a test of our democracy. It's a test of our tolerance of debate, right? That's what democracy's all about.
Sometimes people express things you may not like, but it's their right to express them, okay? As long as it's not personal, fine or racial in a sense. But this is what this referendum's all about.
And I'm very con, I'm very concerned. I'm in the pessimist camp that the overloading institutional pile on that we're having is going to make it far too easy for this to be accepted and get passed without people being fully aware of the consequences. We are gonna have a yes and no argument put to it. I believe that that's been negotiated thanks to the federal opposition.
Uh, I'm disappointed the l m p opposition in Queensland, it does not seem to have made a stand on this issue. Um, I was told by a local member, it's not important. Um, so you can make your own choice.
This is an important issue and it's important that we have the right to express our viewpoints and to ex vote way we want to, without feeling guilty about it this side of an election.
Thanks very much.
