Women’s Groups Respond to the Draft Preamble
A DEEPLY EMBARRASSING DOCUMENT
Women are shocked and appalled at the set of disjointed concepts and phrases that was released today as the draft Preamble to the Constitution.
In leaving out any mention of equality of men and women, the Prime Minister has clearly not been listening to half the population.
Despite raising women’s expectations that there would be a specific statement of equality of men and women before the law, and having received submissions from the Women’s Constitutional Convention Steering Committee calling for a clear and encompassing statement of the equality of men and women, he has let us all down.
The expressions of dearly valuing "mateship" is also revealing. Mateship has always been about male Anglo male bonding. It excludes women, Aboriginal people and men who look different. When the Coalition uses it about the Opposition, it’s meant as an insult.
Considering the Preamble was supposed to express the values underpinning our government, you’d expect that that the first thing it would talk about is democracy. Its appearance in an unintelligible next-to-last paragraph, linked to invocations against achievement is astounding.
WEL deplores the omission of recognition of original indigenous ownership and ongoing custodianship. The attempted references about valuing diversity are incomprehensible gobbledegook, ie "people from many arrivals".
We wanted an inclusive Preamble that expressed the principles agreed by the Constitutional Convention and included the principle of equality of men and women as their starting point. We wanted words with emotional impact that would lift the spirit of those who claimed them.
As a grade three attempt, WEL would give the document a score of one out of five for trying.
As a serious draft to be put to a referendum, it needs to be torn up."
AWL Media Release - 25 March 1999
"The Prime Minister's preamble is an opportunity missed for Australian women", said AWL spokesperson on the Republic, Clare Thompson.
"It is highly regrettable that in a year in which Western Australian women celebrate the Centenary of Women?s Suffrage, the Prime Minister has chosen to ignore the recommendations of the Constitutional Convention by failing to include women in the draft preamble."
"The fact that it is even necessary to raise this issue saddens me."
"As a Republican who attended the Convention, I held hopes that the Prime Minister would abide by his promise to legislate in terms faithful to the Convention. This preamble does not do that", said Ms Thompson.
"The reference to 'mateship' in the preamble is an insult to those women who have striven to show that mateship has often been the core of their exclusion in business and public domains. 'Mateship' has come to represent the symbol of lesser treatment for women. The inclusion of this colloquialism is positively offensive and insensitive."
By ignoring women, the Prime Minister and Opposition leader, Beazley, who doesn't see a problem with 'mateship', have shown they do not understand the changes in our society over the past 30 years. It is not political correctness - it is a question of accepting that both women and men have equal rights in our nation.
AWL encourages the Prime Minister to reconsider his draft preamble and include a reference to women and men, not 'mateship'.
Contact: Clare Thompson , AWL Director
ph: (08) 9211 7788 (w)
0412 126 093 (mobile)
28 April 1999
Dear Prime Minister
We are writing to express our concern about the wording of the proposed preamble to the Constitution contained in the Constitution Alteration (Preamble) 1999 bill and to offer alternative suggestions which reflect women’s perspective.
Our concerns include:
We think that the preamble should introduce the new Constitution and explain its intention. Assuming a YES vote for a republic in the November referendum, the wording at the end of the preamble should state: "We, the people of Australia, have come together (or decided) to form ourselves as a republic" or something to that effect.
The draft wording does not broach women’s desire for reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples. It should do this, as one of the first major public attempts to address reconciliation, using words that are acceptable to Indigenous peoples. We think that both the Reconciliation Council and Indigenous peoples should be consulted on this aspect of the preamble.
We consider this to be a term which excludes women. Women can never be "mates", not to mention Indigenous peoples or immigrants. It is, in fact, a value all women recognise - and dislike - as in "never dobbing in a mate", reflecting the predominantly male values which exist in our institutions and public life.
We are surprised by your reported comments that mature and intelligent women do not find mateship a "blokey" term. Our networks of women suggest just the opposite.
We cannot be satisfied with a preamble which has been described as one for the "average bloke" or that this adequately reflects Australian society at the end of the twentieth century. We suggest that "mateship" be deleted from the preamble.
Women for an Australian Republic does not support a YES vote for a preamble containing the word "mateship" and we will actively campaign against one which includes this concept.
We reserve our deepest concern for the lack of reference to the equality of men and women in the preamble as foreshadowed in your earlier statements. This is profoundly disappointing. We are at a loss to know why the equality clause was dropped, even in the modified form "equality of men and women before the law. This notion is vitally important to women and the desire for it to be included in the preamble was a clearly expressed outcome of the Women’s Constitutional Convention. The equality of men and women is an essential inclusion in our view.
We note that surveys undertaken by the Centenary Constitution Foundation determined that the majority of respondents were in favour of "equality" as an Australian value (as well as desiring the inclusion of reference to our love for "our unique and ancient land").
We also note that Australia, as a signatory to CEDAW (Article 2, Vienna declaration), is obliged:
"To embody the principle of the equality of men and women in their national constitutions or other appropriate legislation if not yet incorporated therein and to ensure through law and other appropriate means, the practical realisation of this principle."
We do recommend other versions of the preamble that we have seen, written by women, which are simple, to the point, moving and encompass all the points we have outlined above in an acceptable form.
In particular, we commend to you two draft preambles written by women - one by Associate Professor Marian Sawer of Canberra drawing on earlier work by Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue of South Australia; the other by Dr Jocelynne Scutt of Melbourne (see text in this Section under Women’s Preambles). The latter is a most moving statement, easily adapted or amended, and worthy of a prominent place in our Constitution. You may also like to refer to the section on the preamble on our website.
We note that we are to have two preambles as the original one will remain in the British Act of Parliament with the new one to be inserted after the title of the Constitution. In view of this, we question the need for two references to "God" as there is already an all encompassing reference in the original preamble. We consider that the new preamble should "naturally follow on" from the original one in language, style and sentiment without the need for duplication. The second reference to "God" could be deleted to make way for the statement of the equality of men and women.
Finally, we believe that the damaging and divisive controversy about the preamble could be ameliorated by your announcing the formation of a new drafting group or reference to a Parliamentary Select Committee, which contains an equal number of men and women including Indigenous people, to advise you on a more inclusive introduction to the Constitution and one which addresses the aspirations and beliefs of all Australian citizens.
In a practical sense, trying to establish the wording for the preamble ahead of the vote on the Republic, seems to be somewhat ambitious. We would support any move to delay consideration of the new preamble until after the referendum to allow it to be considered more fully and in the context of the result. This would enable more in depth consultation with women and determination of exactly which values they, in particular, want to see expressed in the preamble.
Yours sincerely
Women for an Australian Republic
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Last modified: May 11, 2002