FED: Coalition to consider republic questions tomorrow

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-1999
FED: Coalition to consider republic questions tomorrow

By James Grubel, Chief Political Correspondent

CANBERRA, Feb 15 AAP - The coalition party room is set to debate whether God and Aborigines
should become a key part of the November referendum on the republic after cabinet today
endorsed broad proposals for the vote.

Cabinet has supported the proposals already publicly endorsed by Prime Minister John Howard
and is understood to have rebuffed the stand taken by Workplace Relations Minister Peter
Reith, who is backing a republic with a popularly elected president.

Cabinet's preferred option for the referendum will include a second question on the
preamble to the constitution to recognise prior indigenous occupation of Australia.

But the proposal makes no mention of Aboriginal custodianship of Australia before white
settlement.

The cabinet proposal stops short of the recommendations of last year's constitutional
convention on the republic, which called for a new preamble to acknowledge both indigenous
occupation and custodianship of Australia.

But Mr Howard believes the issue of indigenous custodianship goes further than the
historical truth and could risk losing voter support.

Cabinet endorsed the constitutional convention recommendation to include a reference to God
in the new preamble - a move which both Mr Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley have
endorsed.

The cabinet option is believed to endorse only the bipartisan parliamentary appointment of
a president in a republic, in line with the constitutional convention recommendations.

However, the cabinet proposal includes no detail of how the questions should be written for
the referendum.

The coalition party room will also discuss whether MPs and senators will be allowed a free
vote on the preamble issue, similar to Mr Howard's guarantee that coalition members will have
a free vote on the republic.

The party room will be allowed to suggest changes to cabinet's proposals.

But party rules prevent a formal vote and Mr Howard will have to judge the consensus mood
of the meeting to work out how the referendum proposals should proceed.

Labor and the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) are concerned about the preamble
question being included in the referendum.

ARM boss Malcolm Turnbull has said the preamble question could be used as a tactic by
monarchists to derail the republic issue, while a loss on the preamble would be a disaster for
Aboriginal reconciliation.

AAP jg/ms/de

KEYWORD: REPUBLIC NIGHTLEAD

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