Talk:Australian Government/Archive 5

message: Pete's lack of understanding of elementary constitutional theory is almost as astonishing as his ungoing inability of understand Winterton's views and determination to misrepresent them at every opportunity. One Wikipedian elsewhere referred to his pushing of your wacky version of constitutional law here as "what would have to the greatest display of idiocy (or just plain thick-headedness) I’ve ever come across at Wikipedia." He have consistently failed to offer one iota of evidence to back up your claims. Whatever so-called evidence he produces is either (i) out of context, (ii) means the exact opposite of what he claims. At this stage his determination to push an agenda without hard evidence, and to deliberately misrepresent the writings of people like George Winterton, amounts to borderline vandalism and should be treated as such. Those who disagree with him include 
* three former prime ministers (Hawke, Keating and Howard), 
* successive Governors-General, 
* all Attorneys-General, 
* all government departments, 
* all primary documentation, 
* academics like Professors Vernon Bogdanor and George Winterton, 
* the Queen herself, and 
* every state in the word in their Letters of Credence and letters of recall.
In addition every contributor here has told him he is wrong. All attempts by Pete to misrepresent the evidence should be treated as vandalism in future unless he actually can show some credible evidence. At this stage all he does is ignore everyone else and the long list of evidence, and keep repeat ad nausaum demonstrable factual inaccuracies, gross misrepresentations and laughably inaccurate claims about what a head of state actually is. Yet still he inserts his POV stuff into the article.  FearÉIREANN(talk) 21:38, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In those early days I accepted the conventional wisdom that the powers and functions of head of state resided with the Queen but were exercised by the governor-general...
** In this, like other articles, we should put the "conventional wisdom" first and foremost. Let's move on. -Willmcw 00:45, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
*Winterton says that there are two heads of state, and he explicitly names and describes them. Attempting to misrepresent this as support for the "Queen as sole head of state" view strikes me as a poor sort of argument. Skyring 18:37, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Just answer the question, brother. Professor Winterton says there are two heads of state. How many do you count in the quote you provided? 
**Winterton's actual views, not Pete's misrepresentation of them, are here 
**In his own words The Constitution makes it clear that the formal Head of State of the Commonwealth is the Queen, not the governor-general - Professor George Winterton.
I like the way you provide statements from previous discussion without presenting my rebuttal of them. That's very fair, that is.
Nevertheless, the facts are as I state. Professor George Winterton supports the "two heads of state" view. In the article you mention above, he lists two heads of state and qualifies each usage with a term such as "formal" or "effective". He concludes by saying "An objective assessment can lead to only one conclusion: Australia's legal or formal head of state is the Queen. The Governor-General is the effective or de facto head of state of the Commonwealth, but not of Australia." This use of qualification is in fact the hallmark of the "two heads of state" view. You are trying to twist Winterton's view that there are two heads of state, each one differentiated from the other, into a view that he does not hold, namely that the Queen is the one and only head of state. And yet you use this example to accuse me of gross misrepresentation, an act of breathtaking hypocrisy! If you want to use Winterton as a supporter of the "Queen as sole head of state" view, then kindly find us a statement where he says that the Queen is the head of state and does so without qualifying it in some manner. 
By way of illustration, let us use a more conventional use of the term "defacto". Let us say that a man has a wife to whom he is legally married, but long seperated. She lives overseas and visits on rare occasions. But sharing his house and his bed and his heart is his defacto wife, his full time companion and his partner in life. Does the man have one wife or two? One could take a narrow view and say that he has only one wife, the legal wife, and the other is merely a defacto wife. Alternatively one could say that the wife on the far side of the world is not his true wife in any realistic sense of the word and his real wife is the one in the conventional role of life partner. But the most commonly held view would be that he has two wives, a dejure wife and a defacto wife, and their roles are clearly distinct. I say that likewise you are taking an extremely narrow view of Winterton's position and of all the others who say that we have two heads of state, by trying to say that there is only one and the other is unimportant. Pete 06:10, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

text: As a matter of indisputable constitutional convention, the Governor-General has become Australia’s effective head of state.
Contrary to what you keep insisting, that does not mean that the Governor-General is the Australian head of state.
And just where do I insist this, let alone repeatedly? I don't. Let's stick with John Howard's verifiable opinion - namely that he considers the Governor-General as Australia's effective head of state. Pete 07:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism of Pete

message: *Adam's third claim, that most authorities see the Queen as head of state has been modified to read that it is a traditional view. I'll accept this, but it needs to be made clear that this is either an outmoded view or the view of the general people rather than informed opinion. 
**So the Governor-General, former Governor-General, the Prime Minister, former Prime Ministers, the Attorney-General, former Attorney-General, the Queen, the Republic Advisory Committee, various parliamentary reports, the Department of Foreign Affairs and all states on the planet who accredit ambassadors to the Queen, not the Governor-General, don't count as informed opinion, whereas your source, a retired civil servant, does. Get real.
The traditional view is that the Queen is the head of state. That's the view of the people, based on uninformed tradition or folklore. Typically you will see people referring to the fact that the Queen's head is on the currency, or the unthinking claim that a monarch is automatically head of state. Perhaps you should do some more research and find the modified statement from the article to which I was referring.
Nevertheless, I can see the point you are attempting to make. Perhaps you should have found a less ambiguous statement to base your case on.
Some of the sources you hint at above don't subscribe to the "Queen as sole head of state" view. Notably the Prime Minister. I've mentioned him before and provided a quote. You don't think it's a little audacious to rely on sources that don't support you? 
John Howard in 1995 referred to the Governor-General as a politically-neutral head of state. He wasn't talking about the Queen. In 1999 he said: "The Queen is Queen of Australia. However, under our present constitution, the Governor-General is effectively Australia?s head of state."
It is clear, looking at his many public statements, that John Howard holds the "two heads of state" view, inclining towards the Governor-General rather more than the Queen. Other constitutional scholars likewise hold this view. However, I think you will agree with me that my position is that views are divided. You may refer to or hint at as many supporters of one view as you think you can get away with, but this does not rule out the existence of other points of view. Pete 06:02, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: demonstrable factual inaccuracy

message: *Are you going to provide verifiable sources, Adam?
*Are you going to provide verifiable sources, Adam? 
*I'm asking for a checkable source for the statement. Pete 07:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: repetition

message: *I have quoted the views of several constitutional authorities, and the opinion that either the Queen or the Governor-General is the one and only head of state is a minority position, with most informed commentators inclining to the "two heads of state" view, using various words such as "defacto", "ceremonial", "effective" and so on to prefix the phrase "head of state". - You didn't and it isn't.  Amazing how, though in a tiny unrepresentative minority on the fringes, your sources are announced by you as 'most informed commentators'. 
I do beg your pardon. I did in fact provide verifiable quotes from several constitutional authorities and the facts are as I state. Go check them and count them up. I have added to the list in subsequent discussion.
*The most prominent constitutional scholar to support the two heads of state view is Professor George Winterton. Skyring 03:16, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In those early days I accepted the conventional wisdom that the powers and functions of head of state resided with the Queen but were exercised by the governor-general...
** In this, like other articles, we should put the "conventional wisdom" first and foremost. Let's move on. -Willmcw 00:45, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
*Winterton says that there are two heads of state, and he explicitly names and describes them. Attempting to misrepresent this as support for the "Queen as sole head of state" view strikes me as a poor sort of argument. Skyring 18:37, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Just answer the question, brother. Professor Winterton says there are two heads of state. How many do you count in the quote you provided? 
**Winterton's actual views, not Pete's misrepresentation of them, are here 
**In his own words The Constitution makes it clear that the formal Head of State of the Commonwealth is the Queen, not the governor-general - Professor George Winterton.
I like the way you provide statements from previous discussion without presenting my rebuttal of them. That's very fair, that is.
Nevertheless, the facts are as I state. Professor George Winterton supports the "two heads of state" view. In the article you mention above, he lists two heads of state and qualifies each usage with a term such as "formal" or "effective". He concludes by saying "An objective assessment can lead to only one conclusion: Australia's legal or formal head of state is the Queen. The Governor-General is the effective or de facto head of state of the Commonwealth, but not of Australia." This use of qualification is in fact the hallmark of the "two heads of state" view. You are trying to twist Winterton's view that there are two heads of state, each one differentiated from the other, into a view that he does not hold, namely that the Queen is the one and only head of state. And yet you use this example to accuse me of gross misrepresentation, an act of breathtaking hypocrisy! If you want to use Winterton as a supporter of the "Queen as sole head of state" view, then kindly find us a statement where he says that the Queen is the head of state and does so without qualifying it in some manner. 
By way of illustration, let us use a more conventional use of the term "defacto". Let us say that a man has a wife to whom he is legally married, but long seperated. She lives overseas and visits on rare occasions. But sharing his house and his bed and his heart is his defacto wife, his full time companion and his partner in life. Does the man have one wife or two? One could take a narrow view and say that he has only one wife, the legal wife, and the other is merely a defacto wife. Alternatively one could say that the wife on the far side of the world is not his true wife in any realistic sense of the word and his real wife is the one in the conventional role of life partner. But the most commonly held view would be that he has two wives, a dejure wife and a defacto wife, and their roles are clearly distinct. I say that likewise you are taking an extremely narrow view of Winterton's position and of all the others who say that we have two heads of state, by trying to say that there is only one and the other is unimportant. Pete 06:10, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: gross misrepresentation

message: *The bottom line is that the Governor-General derives his considerable powers directly from the Australian people, he does not act under instruction from the monarch, and it is entirely fitting that he be recognised as the Australian head of state rather than the all but powerless monarch.
** Actually, as anyone who knows anything about constitutions and political science knows, the only way anyone can derive powers 'directly' from the people is by being elected by them.
In that case, nobody derives powers directly from the people. Using your logic.
Let us look at the President of the USA. He is elected by an electoral college, which in turn is elected by the people in their various electoral divisions. He is not elected directly by the people. His powers derive from the office, and he does not assume them on election, but instead on being sworn into the office. The people do not vote on his powers, merely on the identity of the occupant of the office.
At best one can refer to them exercising them 'indirectly', not 'directly', but in reality he is appointed by the Queen, can be dismissed by the Queen and exercises powers functions and duties in a constitution which explicitly, among other things, names the Queen as a component part of the legislature. http://www.constitution.org/cons/australi.txt]
Nevertheless, the powers of the office derive from the people. We elected delegates to draft the Constitution, we voted to accept it, and we have voted to accept all subsequent changes. Nobody can change the Constitution but we the people.
'Just because the constitution is now the people's does not mean that every office in it is directly from the people. And BTW no one is suggesting that he acts 'under instruction from the monarch'. That is your standard approach on this page; make a claim you say people made when they didn't, and then 'demolish' a claim that you were the author of.''
Where did I say that anybody claimed this? And may I suggest that you should look closer to home for an exemplar of this particular tactic? Pete 07:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As a matter of indisputable constitutional convention, the Governor-General has become Australia’s effective head of state.
Contrary to what you keep insisting, that does not mean that the Governor-General is the Australian head of state.
And just where do I insist this, let alone repeatedly? I don't. Let's stick with John Howard's verifiable opinion - namely that he considers the Governor-General as Australia's effective head of state. Pete 07:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: laughably inaccurate claim

message: So how many people have agreed or disagreed with Pete in debates on this page and its archives?
====Agree====
* none
====Disagree====
# This has got to be one of the more distasteful campaigns of personal abuse, insult, bullying and pure malice currently running on Wikipedia. Whatever happened to co-operation and a fair go? Pete 17:12, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a vote. It is simply a collection of comments made by people who have contributed to this debate, to highlight the fact that no-one has supported Pete, and in fact many have been bitterly critical of him. FearÉIREANN(talk) 22:10, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Past views of contributors on Pete's claims

message: # This has got to be one of the more distasteful campaigns of personal abuse, insult, bullying and pure malice currently running on Wikipedia. Whatever happened to co-operation and a fair go? Pete 17:12, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a vote. It is simply a collection of comments made by people who have contributed to this debate, to highlight the fact that no-one has supported Pete, and in fact many have been bitterly critical of him. FearÉIREANN(talk) 22:10, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disagree

message: User:Adam Carr's proposal:
I agree that the above list of statements on this issue does not constitute a vote, and I don't think Jtdrl claimed that it was a vote. Therefore we need to have a proper vote, decide on a position, and then enforce it. I therefore propose a vote (to be announced at the Australian Wikipedians Notice Board and conducted here). The vote should be between two policy positions, one written by Skyring and anyone who agrees with him, and the other written by those who disagree with him.
My proposed policy position is this:
*That in Government of Australia, and in all other articles dealing with Australia's system of government, it should be stated that:
:1. Australia is a constitutional monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy
:2. Australia's head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia
:3. Under the Constitution, almost all of the Queen's functions are delegated to and exercised by the Governor-General, as the Queen's representative.
*That any edit which states that (a) Australia is a republic, (b) the Governor-General is Australia's head of state, or (c) Australia has more than one head of state, will be reverted, and that such reversions should not be subject to the three-reversions rule.
*Edits which say that named and relevant persons (eg politicians, constitutional lawyers, judges) disagree with the above position, and which quote those persons at reasonable length, are acceptable, provided proper citation is provided and the three factual statements are not removed.
Skyring should now provide a summary of his position of comparable length:
And then we can conduct a vote.
Adam 01:24, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, a good idea. If we've clearly established consensus on this, then one can, quite reasonably, simply revert Skyring without discussion. To me, at least, this would be seem to be much more profitable than pages of endless, fruitless, ill-tempered debating. — Matt Crypto 01:27, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Voting

message: I don't want to see more mutual recrimination and circular argument, since clearly no consensus is going to be reached. I have made a concrete proposal to resolve this matter and I want concrete, non-polemical responses to it. I want particularly to hear from Skyring whether he is willing to submit a policy resolution to go with the one I have written so that people can vote on the two positions.
User:Adam Carr's proposal:
I agree that the above list of statements on this issue does not constitute a vote, and I don't think Jtdrl claimed that it was a vote. Therefore we need to have a proper vote, decide on a position, and then enforce it. I therefore propose a vote (to be announced at the Australian Wikipedians Notice Board and conducted here). The vote should be between two policy positions, one written by Skyring and anyone who agrees with him, and the other written by those who disagree with him.
My proposed policy position is this:
*That in Government of Australia, and in all other articles dealing with Australia's system of government, it should be stated that:
:1. Australia is a constitutional monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy
:2. Australia's head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia
:3. Under the Constitution, almost all of the Queen's functions are delegated to and exercised by the Governor-General, as the Queen's representative.
*That any edit which states that (a) Australia is a republic, (b) the Governor-General is Australia's head of state, or (c) Australia has more than one head of state, will be reverted, and that such reversions should not be subject to the three-reversions rule.
*Edits which say that named and relevant persons (eg politicians, constitutional lawyers, judges) disagree with the above position, and which quote those persons at reasonable length, are acceptable, provided proper citation is provided and the three factual statements are not removed.
Skyring should now provide a summary of his position of comparable length:
And then we can conduct a vote.
Adam 01:31, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If however Pete (aka Skyring) decides not to submit his proposal, I suggest we go ahead with a vote anyhow. The evidence to make a decision is already on this and archived pages. FearÉIREANN(talk) 18:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, how's about you finally answer my question about my position by writing a proposal for me? You seem to know my views far better than I do! Pete 20:08, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

text: It is co-operative. Everyone is co-operating except you. In fact, you're making rather a point of not co-operating. Proteus (Talk) 12:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I suggest you make a point rather than more quips. You're running out of time to make your proposal before we all get sick of waiting for you and vote without it. Proteus (Talk) 12:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Voting

message: I note that Skyring has said (above) that he doesn't intend submitting a proposal for the position this article should adopt on the matters in dispute between him and other uses. I think we can all draw the appropriate conclusions from this. At the expiry of the 24-hour period I gave Skyring yesterday to submit a proposal (10.10am AEST), I will announce a vote at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board and at Wikipedia:Village pump. Since Skyring has wimped the chance to have his views voted on, the vote will be a straight yes/no on my policy position, which appears at the head of this page. Amendments or alternative suggestions are of course welcome. I have an open mind on how long the voting period should be and how many votes should be seen as an acceptable participation. I will be posting this notice to the Talk pages of various Users who have participated in this debate. Adam 23:03, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Adam, with respect to your proposed policy, I have no problem with points 1) and 3).  I am perhaps a little concerned about point 2).  If an article calls for the discussion of the matter at length, I think it only proper to point out those small minority of monarchists who disagree.  Where it is only briefly mentioned, the position that the Queen is head of state is acceptable shorthand.  Or would that treatment be consistent with your proposed policy?--Robert Merkel 00:23, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote on policy positions

message: As Skyring points out, section 2 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (UK) says: "The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall extend to Her Majesty’s heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom." However, this merely highlights that the Commonwealth Constitution was enacted by the British Parliament, and was intended to make the Federation of Australia binding on the British monarchs. In the Commonwealth Constitution, there is only reference made to "the Queen".
In the Royal Style and Titles Act 1953 (Cth), the Commonwealth Parliament declared that the monarch in relation to Australia is to be referred to as "Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories": cf. s 2. As far as I have been taught, "the Queen" in Australia is a distinct legal entity from "the Queen" in the United Kingdom. The succession rules to the Crown are the same as they are in the United Kingdom, being set out by the Act of Settlement 1701 (UK) s 1, and received at the time of European settlement. However, due to the Australia Acts 1986 (UK & Cth) s1, any changes by the UK Parliament to the law of succession to the throne will not take effect in Australia. Thus, it is legally possible to have different monarchs in Australia and the United Kingdom. In this respect, the current Australian monarch might currently be the same as the United Kingdom monarch, but they should (and are) treated as distinct entities.
I refer you to: P Hanks, P Keyzer & J Clarke Australian Constitutional Law: materials and commentary 7th edn (Sydney: Butterworths, 2004) pp. 464-465.
Thus, please stop changing "Queen of Australia" to "British Monarch". - Mark 02:51, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Queen of Australia v British Monarch