Sir Anand Satyanand was farewelled with a bang yesterday but the most publicity he got during his tenure as Governor General was that generated by Paul Henry’s faux pas.
Apart from that Sir Anand quietly got on doing what Governors General do – fulfilling the ceremonial role required of the Queen’s representative and attending to a few other constitutional matters the law entrusts the office holder with.
I am a republican in my head but a monarchist in my heart. One of the reasons I like our current constitutional arrangements is the lack of politics and publicity which surround the Governor General.
I also like the security that comes with a role which gives little real power to the office holder but by its existence denies power to usurpers.
Withour Binding Referenda as has Switzerland he is the only check we have on a ‘rogue’ parliament.( Ask Gough Whitlam) As you infer, better than nothing, mores the pity.
It’s true that the Governor-General is meant to be a constitutional check… but the reality is somewhat different. Apart from the example of Gough Whitlam, the GG more often than not rolls over and does what the PM wants.
If you want a proper check on the Prime Minister and Cabinet, you have to make sure that the de facto head of state (or head of state) is appointed independently of the Prime Minister. Currently, the PM basically tells the Queen who’s going to be GG for the next five years, and that’s it (that’s pretty much all the Queen does constitutionally). They can also have the GG removed, as has happened in a number of Commonwealth countries – another reason why the GG isn’t a good safeguard. Actually, that was one of the reasons why Whitlam was sacked – he reminded Sir John Kerr that he could have him sacked by sending a telegram to Buckingham Palace…
Our heads and our hearts are like yin and yang. Literally inseparable, I think they are also figuratively so. If we only ever led by one and not the other, it can cause us a whole heap of trouble – think about how often we say to ourselves, I should have thought it through more, or, I should have trusted myself more.
If your head and your heart disagree, I reckon the only morally defensible response is to reflect on why that is. Is my head encouraging me to support something new and it’s just that my heart doesn’t like the change? Or is it that my heart is telling me this change is the wrong move and we should be doing something different with our political system?
It seems to me that life is a continual battle involving compromises between heads and hearts. Just because one or other isn’t comfortable with change, though, isn’t a reason to reject that change, out of hand.
Cheers,
Mike