Jovial Monk wrote on Jan 20
th, 2022 at 10:10am:
Our HoS shouls be popularly elected and have the power the GG has now. Simple.
Arguments against election
Sir Samuel Griffith, who was later to become the first Chief Justice of the High Court (1903-19), sympathised with the view expressed by Sir George that the office of Governor-General should be open to all Australians, but he noted, with some prescience, that this would end up happening anyway, even if the Governor-General were to be appointed by the monarch.(8)
Alfred Deakin, who was later to become Prime Minister of Australia (1903-04, 1905-08 and 1909-10), responded to Sir George's argument by noting that the position of Governor-General would not be an office to which anyone with leadership ambitions would aspire, because the position does not hold any independent political power. He drew a distinction between the role of the Governor-General and that of the President of the United States:
To make it an object of ambition, you must change its character altogether, and make it an office like that of the President of the United States-a high executive office in which a man can carry out his ideas and give effect to his principles. If you do that, you must consider his election. We should insist upon it. If he becomes a personage in the political life of the country, his office must be elective. We cannot afford to have in our constitution any man exercising authority, unless he derives it from the people of Australia. At the present time we say that the governor-general exercises no such authority.(9)
While Deakin was arguing that it would only be necessary to elect the Governor-General if his or her office were one in which true authority were to be exercised, Sir John Downer argued the other side of the coin. He considered that the mere fact of election might be sufficient to transform the office of Governor-General into a powerful one which would compete with the role of Prime Minister. He suggested that there might have been some merit in a proposal to dispense with the Governor-General and Governors altogether, as some consider them mere 'baubles', but he would not countenance the election of the Governor-General. Sir John considered that the very fact of election would mean that the Governor-General would 'speak with authority, and assume a dominion over the commonwealth, which we are certainly not prepared to concede'. He concluded:
...we are not prepared to interfere with the cardinal principle of our constitution, and that is, that the nominal head of the government should be only the nominal head of the executive, and not become a real, substantial, legislative force in the community.(10)
Sir George Grey's motion, which would have allowed the election of the Governor-General, was lost by a majority of 35 to 3.
When the issue arose again at the Adelaide Constitutional Convention of 1897, Edmund Barton, who was also subsequently Prime Minister of Australia (1901-03) and a Justice of the High Court (1903-20), raised the point that election of the Governor-General would make the position partisan, and that this might lead to a conflict with the principles of responsible government. He warned:
If we are to elect our Governor-General, and to appoint the man who looms large in party politics in our own country, we shall be placing in the position a man, who by necessities of the case, and by the facts of his career, must be a partisan. I think if we continue under the system of responsible government... and yet elect our Governor-General-it will follow that by electing a man from one side, we shall be electing a man who may have a strong temptation to the thwarting of one Ministry and unfairly assisting another.(11)
Similar problems were raised by Charles Kingston. He was concerned that election would afford the Governor or Governor-General greater democratic legitimacy than Ministers. He argued:
The working of a system of popular election of our Governor in connection with our responsible government would raise many difficulties. It would be difficult to keep the Governor so elected in his proper place, and induce him to take the advice of his constitutional advisers with that humility which is proper in the discharge of his vice-regal duties. He would say that his position was somewhat superior to that of his ministers-elected by constituencies and removable by a vote of the House of Representatives-in view of his election by the people throughout the colony; and, under the circumstances, I am not in favour of an elective Governor.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/Background_Papers/bp9798/98bp12
Forum
Pages: 
