’s centenary of Federation: a mystery and a muddle?

BY DAVID HEADON

Students of Australian Federation necessary, though belated forum on the In the decades after these provocative were hopeful that, with the onset of the state of Australian federalism. but accurate comments were made, centenary, the country would engage in little really changed. Indeed, their Such optimism was naively conceived. a long overdue debate on its system of essential validity remains. Those of federalism. This has not happened. With Throughout the whole of the last century, us who have observed, with increasing some exceptions, the malaise of previous the Australian Federation narrative had so frustration, the indifference of most generations persists— despite the few storytellers that there is, now, a fellow Australians when faced with the opportunity provided by 1 January dearth of received wisdom. Little wonder, significance of this unique cultural and 2001 and the ensuing twelve months. then, that those commentators who political milestone, can scarcely be emerged between November 2000 and consoled by recalling that our forebears * * * January 2001—from politicians like New exhibited the same behaviour. As if to reinforce some of the stark facts South Wales Premier Bob Carr, to of Australian political, social and cultural historians and even noted authors—could However, with the fanfare of the history since Federation in 1901, only dance around the edges of a debate centenary now well and truly upon this Australians in the year 2000 tried their Australia has yet to have. generation, how does one explain the best to forget the Commonwealth’s continuing struggle to secure the Australian public’s meaningful imminent centenary birthday. Federalists “shrouded participation? What has prevented in obscurity” Yes, there was an excuse. The nation, after a long overdue debate on federalism all, was gearing up for its biggest inter- The Great Federation Silence has its and Federation? national showcasing opportunity since own melancholy story. It was not until There appear to be at least four reasons. globalisation and the world of IT had well after the conclusion of the Second become a reality: the Sydney Olympics. World War that one or two Australian First, for many Australians, like maverick But the Federation centenary and the historians began to comment on the historian Jonathan King, the process of hosting of the Games did not have to curious Federation history void. federating in the 1890s was no struggle- against-the-odds yarn deserving an be mutually exclusive propositions. The first of these, the late L. F. Crisp, honourable place in our collective Australians just accepted that they still arguably our most astute Federation memory. Rather, according to King, it would be. voice, put the problem with characteristic was “the most long drawn-out, no-action clarity when he wrote, in 1952: Cathy Freeman, Michael Klim and the talkfest in history. It was riddled with rest of the marketable black and bronzed “. . . unlike the Americans . . . Australians inter-colonial conferences, boring Aussie athletes completely overwhelmed hold their founding fathers, for all their speeches, non-committal committees any possibility of thoughtful empathy with success, in no special reverence or regard. of inquiry, expensive banquets and the bearded white men who, one Many of them are already forgotten. Few long, soporific train journeys back hundred years ago, created a nation. are quoted, and then infrequently. . . . home sleeping off the tax-paid port”. Yet there are times when Australians Students of Australia’s Federation story Hardly a scholarly view, this, not one could do with a little more consciousness were not surprised, though they were founded on facts, yet one which has of their political roots, only to find, when hopeful in the weeks and months certainly found currency in a country they reach back, that they have cut between the end of the Olympics and where, at the moment, politicians are themselves off by neglect from the 1 January 2001—the exact centenary held in even lower regard than bankers, facts and spirit of those times”. birthday—that some informed journalists and used-car salesmen. The commentary would finally emerge. Sixteen years later, historian Geoffrey recent republic referendum was a The more idealistic amongst the small McDonald reiterated Crisp’s argument, casualty of this irrational mindset. noting simply that “in contrast to the band of Australian Federation aficionados Second, despite the very recent, and United States, Australians do not even imagined a genuine if truncated mightily welcome, publication of a few remember their federalists: they debate on the evolution of their country’s excellent books on the Federation saga are shrouded in the obscurity of original Federation experiment—a (works by Helen Irving, John Hirst and a forgotten past”.

Federations volume 1, number 1, march 2001 Geoffrey Bolton among them), the telling drawing on her To Constitute a Nation: A No commentator that I have come of the essential narrative has for far too Cultural History of Australia’s Constitution across has yet accepted the challenge long been extracted from a small number (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and of responding to Blainey’s speculative of flawed accounts by long-dead John Hirst, excerpting from his The suggestion, but a few at least advanced Federation “fathers” such as Alfred Sentimental National: The Making of opinions on the federalism debate in Deakin and Bernhard Wise. the Australian Commonwealth (Oxford this country. University Press, 2000)—the most Third, as former Australian ambassador engaging contribution in this category for Richard Broinowski wrote in a recent The “beginning of an argument” me came from Paul Kelly, the Australian letter to the Times newspaper, newspaper’s International Editor. Australian leader writer Mike Steketee when we recall key Federation put the case that while Australia’s personalities like the then Attorney- Consistently the most incisive journalist democracy is “one of the most enduring General (and later Prime Minister) Billy in the country during the republican in the world”, this “does not make it an Hughes, Governor-General Lord Denman referendum campaign, Kelly in his article efficient system of government, with the and Minister for Territories, King O’Malley, entitled “Practical, visionary, enduring”— Constitution bequeathing a bugger’s we realise that their well-documented, which ran in the Australian on 30–31 muddle of overlapping and divided jaundiced social views helped to shape December 2000—wrote in some detail federal and state responsibilities. national aspirations in 1901. They about the importance of the 1901–14 Anachronisms and contradictions . . . vigorously espoused racism and an period to the consolidation of Australian remain to be resolved”. What a pity aggressive imperialism. The tide is federalism. Steketee did not expand on the well and truly out on the more It was, Kelly wrote, “a vigorous phase “bugger’s muddle” that everyone virulent Victorian cultural imperatives of national-building”. More importantly, knows to exist in Australia. that motivated a number of our he took Australia’s best known historian Federation founders. Even more’s the pity that the Federation to task for his dismissive experts called on to comment at the Fourth and finally, as stated recently by attitude towards Federation. Clark centenary abrogated their responsibilities, the present Clerk of the Australian Senate, regarded Federation as a disappointment and generally chose to ‘dumb down’ their Harry Evans, the commonly held view that because “the bourgeoisie had triumphed”. message. Australia has a Westminster system of Kelly in turn takes issue with Clark, government is as damaging as it is maintaining that “the centenary . . . Federalism is the debate that Australia absurd. Evans regards this “Westminster has bequeathed a wiser assessment”. has yet to have. mantra” cliché as one which many Certainly the scope of Kelly’s contribution Perhaps the wisest words on the Australian politicians have promulgated sharply contrasts those contemporaneous Federation instinct came from one because it subtly supports “prime- articles which pursued issues more of Australia’s wisest citizens: our finest ministerial absolutism”. pertinent to the immediate present rather living novelist David Malouf. In a typically For Evans, Australia will only have a than try and relate the complexities of the thoughtful piece, published in the worthy debate on the state of its political past to a vision of the future. Australian on New Year’s Day, Malouf system when it rejects, once and for all, began by stating that “Federation was The limited intellectual and imaginative what Lord Hailsham called the “elective the beginning of an argument about range of the majority of centenary dictatorship” and the “imperial prime- what sort of nation we were to be. . . .“ retrospects only served to highlight ministership”, and it restores the primacy It was a theme worked up by a few those accounts which went an extra of the system of checks and balances commentators. Unlike all the rest, yard or two. demanded by, and initially achieved by, however, Malouf could deftly embrace the Federation founders. One of these was controversial historian the Olympic experience within his grasp . While it must be said of Federation and its history: that Blainey largely took the safe option, A great silence saying that Australia remains “a place of . . . the Sydney Olympics really was A bare handful of writers has advanced enormous hope and opportunity” and the apotheosis of Australia’s an opinion on the state of federalism that it has much to celebrate, he did national achievement and the revelation, to ourselves as much as in Australia ca. 2000. We might now advance his opinion on the federalism to others, of an achieved national legitimately talk of the Great Federalism question: for a democratic country style. That was, in many ways, our Silence down under. We seem to have occupying a huge area, “the federal real celebration of Federation. lost contact with its roots and realities. system is the best-known solution”. Blainey’s most contentious point he While the best of the “ABCs of Federation” As Australia debates its distinctive system saved for last: “There is a case for each summaries were produced, predictably, of federalism, in the twenty-first century, major region possessing its own state by two of Federation’s most it is to be hoped that the participating government. The sad fact is that the knowledgeable contemporary historians, politicians can bring a similarly newest state in Australia is Queensland, based on their books—Helen Irving, imaginative grasp to the table. created more than 140 years ago”.

Federations volume 1, number 1, march 2001