The 2001 Corowa Conference
Author of the McGarvie Model, McGarvie was an appointed delegate to the Constitutional Convention on the Australian Republic in February 1998 and initiated the 2001 Corowa conference to find common ground among republicans after the referendum defeat in 1999. He took the unusual position of making contributions to republicanism without directly supporting the broader republican movement. He promoted his own model and, at the 1998 convention, argued the provision for two-thirds parliamentary dismissal of a president was unworkable. The Republic: Report from CorowaProfessor David Flint, AM …The invitation… The 2001 Corowa People’s Conference was conceived and developed by the Hon. Richard McGarvie, who insists he is neither a constitutional monarchist nor a republican, to approve a process to “resolve the Head of State issue”. Mr McGarvie was formerly a Victorian Supreme Court judge and then the Victoria Governor. He is a distinguished jurist and author of Democracy—Choosing Australia’s Republic. Mr […]
Federal Lynchpin
As the dominions rose to equality with the United Kingdom and moved from self-government to independence, the impact on the Crown was fundamental and probably not fully appreciated. The Imperial Crown, once indivisible throughout the old Empire, devolved into separate Crowns for each of the Dominions, which became, in modern parlance, the Realms. It is unlikely that any other constitutional system would allow such an evolutionary development. As Professor David E Smith concludes, republics are created; monarchies, particularly the British ones, emerge and evolve through the sharing of power. The move to independence was achieved more under the Crown than by imperial legislation. Under the Constitution Act 1900 (Imp.), the colonies became the states of the new Commonwealth operating under their pre-existing constitutions. Unlike Canada, the governors of the Australian states are not appointed by the governor-general acting on the advice of the federal government. This is a role the […]