LETTERS.

THE HEAD OF STATE

SIR: Your editorial, "Celebrating Federation" (March 2001), insults both the people supporting the forthcoming Corowa Conference and your readers' intelligence. Without offering any reasoned basis for your polemic, you proclaim, "There is to be a conference at Corowa devoted to the non-problem of the head of state, with the same dogs returning to their vomit."

Clearly, the head of state issue is and will continue to be a problem until it is resolved. The November 1999 referendum demonstrated that only 45 per cent of voters supported the Yes vote for a republic, and no state recorded majority support. However, polling both before and after the referendum reveals that the overwhelming majority of Australians want an Australian head of state. A September 1999 poll of city and country voters showed that 95 per cent agreed the head of state should be an Australian, with 88 per cent strongly agreeing. Furthermore, after the referendum, an Australian Constitutional Referendum Study found that when asked if the head of state should be an Australian, 70 per cent strongly agreed and another 19 per cent agreed.

Consequently, the 1999 November referendum result when coupled with those poll results has for the first time exposed a latent instability in Australia's constitutional framework. The Australian constitution makes the monarchy fundamental to our system of government. However, it appears that most Australians wish to separate the Australian federation from the English monarchy. Australia does indeed have a problem if, on the face of it, most of its people reject a key aspect of their constitution, yet in the same breath vote for its retention. The head of state issue is therefore an ongoing problem that requires early resolution.

To assist in that resolution, the Corowa Conference, to be held on 1st and 2nd December this year, draws upon the unique role that Corowa played over a century ago in Australia's path to nationhood. In 1893, Corowa hosted a conference which reignited the then-stalled movement towards federation. Today, it is the head of state issue which has stalled, and the 2001 Corowa Conference is designed to break that impasse.

The Conference will not consider whether Australia should separate from the monarchy, nor the preferred head of state model if it does. It will be confined to recommending an informed, fair and effective process for Australians to decide those questions later. Moreover, the Conference is designed to be non-partisan and reflect the community's views. About half its delegates will have experience or knowledge relevant to recommending practical constitutional process. They will be (and already include) commonwealth, state and territory parliamentarians ranging across the political spectrum and people who hold different positions on the head of state issue, including those who have not taken sides. The remaining half will be the public, from regional Australia and capital cities, who respond to advertisements.

It is proposed that the Conference set up a high-level, non-partisan drafting committee to prepare legislation to establish all-party committees within each of the parliaments. Those committees will co-operate in investigating and reporting on two questions: