Restarting the republic debate was almost certainly not what Tony Abbott had in mind when he wrote to Julia Gillard about the appointment of Australia's next governor-general. Indeed, since the Opposition Leader then moved quickly to hose down speculation that former prime minister John Howard is his own preferred candidate to succeed Quentin Bryce when her term ends in March next year, it is not clear just what he had in mind.
Abbott has unwittingly done Australians a service, however, by writing to the Prime Minister. He has reminded us just how muddled are the terms in which the head of state/viceregal role is usually described, and why the people, not politicians, should choose the person who holds the office.
The letter to Gillard cites recent public service appointments, such as renewing the tenure of the present Australian Electoral Commissioner, which Abbott alleges subvert 'the established convention that no government should make decisions that are legitimately the province of a potential successor'.
The 'established convention' invoked here is spurious. The Prime Minister has set a date for the election of the next Parliament but writs for that election have not been issued, so it cannot be credibly claimed that the government is in caretaker mode.
Abbott is worried, however, that the Gillard Government is intent on depriving him of the right to appoint Bryce's successor if the election hands him the prime ministership, as opinion polls strongly suggest it will.
'The announcement of appointments expressed to take effect almost nine months into the term of the next parliament and some 15 months before they become operative is a blatant abuse of power,' he admonishes Gillard. 'Quite properly, arrangements regarding the appointment of a new governor-general would be, and should be, a matter for a new or a returned prime minister after the 14 September election.
'Thus, I seek your specific assurance that this precedent will be respected.'
Abuse of power? Abbott really must have a prospective GG in mind to use such language. After all, the government has announced nothing, so why is he worried?
But Gillard staffers seized the opportunity to have some fun at Abbott's expense, hinting that he intends to replace Bryce with his mentor Howard. The Fairfax press ran gleefully with this idea, which Abbott was obliged to kill off within a day of the original story appearing. The rumour mill is now turning again, with suggestions that retired Defence Force chief Peter Cosgrove would be the preferred candidate of a coalition government.
Whether the Howard-for-GG campaign was real or illusory, the Fairfax papers squeezed all the mileage they could out of it, with the Sydney Morning Herald publishing a leader every bit as silly as Abbott's appeal to an 'established convention' that does not in fact apply.
Citing Howard's comment in 2001 that 'as a general principle' it is better to have a viceroy who is not identified with one side of politics, the Herald firmed this up to 'former politicians should not become governor-general'.
Apparently lack of partisan history is essential to doing the job properly, a point that the Herald, without awareness of self-contradiction, tried to shore up by quoting the late Paul Hasluck, who had served as governor-general — and before that, as a Liberal cabinet minister.
Of course a governor-general must act in a non-partisan manner, but the notion that former politicians should thereby be excluded from the job is belied by Australia's history.
Some of the most successful viceroys have been former politicians: Hasluck, for example, who was much admired for his independent judgment by ministers in the Whitlam Government, or William McKell, a Chifley Labor appointee who in 1951 had no hesitation in granting the Menzies Government a double-dissolution of Parliament that the ALP did not want.
There is a difference between acting out of partisan bias and acting in a way that merely happens to advantage one side of politics. Sometimes viceroys, like monarchs, cannot avoid making decisions with political consequences, yet in Australia debate about the head of state's role is still beset by mystical monarchical claptrap about the job being 'above politics'.
It can be no such thing, and the fact that it can't is the most important reason why Australia should become a republic with a head of state elected by the people. It isn't merely because our notional head of state is an absentee hereditary monarch, but because the person who actually carries out the head of state's duties is a creature of the government of the day.
The best viceroys, like Hasluck and McKell, may act independently anyway but there have been enough duds and timeservers in Yarralumla to demonstrate that we cannot presume a governor-general will always do so.
We need a better democracy than the one we have, but our political leaders have neither the inclination nor the courage to take up the task of building one.
Ray Cassin is a contributing editor.