Stick with your real friends, Joe

TREASURER Joe Hockey lit another exploding cigar when he agreed to join the sorry circus which is the struggling Republican movement. Without consulting Prime Minister Tony Abbott, he accepted an invitation from his friend Peter FitzSimons, a bandanna-wearing media performer who heads this largely irrelevant political force, to become co-convener with former ACT Labor chief minister Senator Katy Gallagher of a new parliamentary friendship group agitating for an Australian head of state.

Being chief minister of the ACT is akin to being mayor of Toytown but Gallgaher nevertheless distinguished herself when she became the first outgoing member of the Legislative Assembly to take a resettlement payout worth $30,600. In accepting his role as co-convener with this virtual unknown, Hockey has raised not only eyebrows, he has raised her profile to be his equal. Going off on this folly without any discussion with his Cabinet colleagues shows a staggering lack of foresight. The question of a republic, whenever it arises, can only be resolved by a plebiscite or referendum which cannot be progressed without the involvement of the government. In joining the circus, Hockey has ignored all the normal rules and in doing so has jeopardised his own position should there be a Cabinet reshuffle later this year. This is not his first communication failure. His embarrassing inability to sell his Budgets set a sad standard. No one could argue with his loyalty to his friend FitzSimons, even though the latter is chronically opposed to every conservative policy Hockey is bound to support as a member of the Abbott Cabinet. The former rugby player’s leftist commentary is undoubtedly popular in the latte belt, where Abbott-bashing is as popular as the ABC’s slanted commentary. He’s quite a humorist — as his recent address to the National Press Club revealed. In urging his listeners to support republicanism, he conflated the cause with Ireland’s “inspirational push towards same-sex marriage”. “House by house, street by street, suburb by suburb, powered by the passion of our cause, sustained by the incontrovertible logic of our argument — that Australia is mature enough to run our own affairs, and must be seen to be so,” he exhorted the faithful. A factor in the Irish crusade, he said, was its Phone Your Granny campaign, where young Irish were encouraged to call grandma and talk to her about same-sex marriage and demonstrate there was nothing to fear. Yet, despite FitzSimons’ blarney, and the Irish grannies united in their support for homosexual marriage, it won just 37.5 per cent of eligible voters, one of the lowest supportive votes in the history of Irish referendums. Should Australian grannies give the same level of support to a FitzSimons-Hockey-Gallagher call to the republican side, the initiative would be overwhelmingly defeated again. FitzSimons’ wife, the Today show’s Lisa Wilkinson, yesterday pressed Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the republican non-issue without informing viewers she was pushing the family cause. Naturally, she tried to trade on Hockey’s senior Cabinet position and asked a number of increasingly loopy questions which only underlined the conflict involved and the utter foolishness of Hockey’s agreement to engage with her husband and this cause. While FitzSimons and Wilkinson may share a pathological concern that we have a Queen of Australia (who is legally completely separate from the Queen of the United Kingdom), the High Court in 1907 made it perfectly clear that the Governor-General is the constitutional head of the Commonwealth. To help them and their friends, they should also note that there is no provision in the constitution for a head of state but the Governor-General is recognised as such by customary international law and received as such whenever he or she travels abroad. Like many propagandists, Wilkinson let her cause obscure her view of the real issues and Hockey is in danger of giving the perception he is indulging friends while ignoring the main game. Between now and the election, the Abbott government needs to realise that voters are interested in the economy and jobs, housing prices, petrol prices, real hip-pocket issues. The republic debate has nothing to do with Hockey’s portfolio; he should walk away from this unnecessary distraction. Like recognising Aborigines in the constitution, or the homosexual marriage debacle, it is not a mainstream issue and it is not a vote changer. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd catastrophe left Australia reeling. The Abbott government-led recovery should be the focus of every speech. A serious member of a dedicated Cabinet should not have the time to engage in infantile musings with clowns in fancy dress. A real friend committed to the delivery of a stable nation would understand.