Right: Sir Garfield Barwick, here being knighted by the Queen in 1954, was said even then to have been uncertain about accepting an imperial honour. Years later, as Chief Justice of the High Court, he gave a legal opinion to Governor-General Sir John Kerr during the constitutional crisis surrounding the dismissal of the Whitlam government.
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Arguments in favour of restoring the titles of Knight and Dame
1. The reintroduction of Knights and Dames will create awards with greater international recognition
Not only Great Britain, but many other nations have an honours system which incorporates knights and dames. These include France, Malaysia, Japan and Spain.
It has been claimed that having knights and dames as our top honour would gain greater recognition for these awards internationally and would be of particular benefit diplomatically.
Professor David Flint, writing in Quadrant magazine, contends that
Australia's honours system is faulted without the ability to recommend knighthoods
and damehoods. Flint writes, ' ... the overloaded Order of Australia was not originally intended to be the exclusive method of recognising Australians ...'
The professor contends that the Hawke government's dispensing with top-ranking honours meant that Australia was diplomatically disadvantaged. This meant that during visits of foreign heads of state it was difficult to engage in the usual courtesy of exchanging orders, as the highest order in Australia, while technically still in existence, could no longer be bestowed.' More significantly, it was less likely to be meaningful to overseas recipients.
The recognition factor has similarly been demonstrated with the abolition and then reinstatement of Queen's Counsel in Queensland and Victoria.
Professor Flint has noted, 'The title of Queen's Counsel (QC) is well known throughout Australia and the Commonwealth. Its widespread recognition is no doubt embedded in our consciousness because it is a rank some four centuries old. On the other hand the title of Senior Counsel (SC) has not taken root in the public mind and is not well recognised outside of the legal profession.'
As an indication of the significance of the longevity and thus recognisability of these titles, supporters of the reintroduction of knights and dames note that New Zealand also reinstated knights and dames in 2009 after their abolition in 2000.
2. The reintroduction of Knights and Dames is an acknowledgement of Australia's British heritage
Supporters of the reintroduction of knights and dames claim that it is no more than an appropriate recognition of the importance to Australia of its British traditions and heritage.
According to this line of argument Australia has inherited from Great Britain a language, a system of law, a system of government and a culture.
There are markers of this indebtedness in every aspect of Australian life. The terminology used in government and law, for example, largely echo that used in Great Britain.
In an article published in Quadrant magazine in May, 2014, historian and writer, Keith Windschuttle, noted, 'The reintroduction of an imperial honours system obviously does not rank in the same league as the rule of law, but the principle is the same. It is part of the traditional package that comes with the British constitutional monarchy that Australians voted for overwhelmingly in the 1999 republican referendum.'
Windschuttle went on to claim, 'The most dismal revelation of this affair is the ignorance of their cultural heritage shared by so many members of our political class and cultural elite.... No other civilisation has produced such a combination of economic, social and individual freedom. Yet the readiness with which our own generation is squandering this heritage is disquieting...'
The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, reminded the members of the Opposition of the governmental traditions they had inherited from Great Britain when being challenged in Question Time over the reintroduction of knights and dames.
Mr Abbott stated, '[W]hat happened yesterday...was the restoration of knighthoods and damehoods in the Order of Australia. That's what happened. I say to the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition, a title derived from Britain, I say to the Honourable the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, start telling the truth.'
Tony Abbott stated his position on Australia's British heritage more fully in his 1995 book 'The Minimal Monarchy and Why It Still Works for Australia'. Mr Abbott explained, 'In an age when little is built to last, a Crown that can trace its lineage back 1,000 years and - next to the papacy - is the oldest continuing institution of Western civilization, is indeed an anachronism. But perhaps it's the kind of anachronism Australia needs to prevent the complete triumph of Kentucky Fried Culture.'
3. The reinstitution of these awards does not require consultation as it falls legitimately within prime ministerial discretion
It has been claimed that those who have condemned the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, for behaving unilaterally when reinstating knights and dames have misunderstood his power in this area.
The awarding of imperial honours was traditionally a matter between Prime Minister and Monarch. The Prime Minister makes recommendations and the Monarch confers the honour. On each of the occasions in the past when Australia has altered the nature of its system of honours, the recommendation has been made to the Monarch by the country's then Prime Minister - by Gough Whitlam in 1972, by Malcolm Fraser in 1975 and by Bob Hawke in 1986.
When questioned about this by Michelle Grattan for The Conversation, Mr Abbott stated, 'In the end the relationship between the prime minister and the monarch is very much a personal one and when it comes to the constitution of the Order of Australia, which is headed by the monarch, this is governed by letters patent, which are a matter between the prime minister and the monarch.'
Mt Abbott went on to explain, 'I think the prime minister is entitled to make these sorts of decisions with the monarch. I took a few soundings. In fact I took some quite widespread soundings on this and, as you'd expect, some people were more in favour than others. The soundings that I took obviously didn't deter me from a particular course of action.
Obviously I know there has been a predictable reaction from the usual suspects, but I think it will quickly settle down.'
Commenting on Fairfax Radio, Mr Abbott similarly stated, 'I consulted with a number of senior colleagues. I took some soundings in the community but in the end it was my recommendation to the Queen which she graciously accepted.'
4. There are safeguards against political cronyism in the conferring of these awards
Prime Minister Abbott has taken particular care to ensure that the new titles do not become an opportunity for cronyism, the rewarding of political colleagues and supporters.
There is the scope for this type of favouritism because the title of knight or dame is conferred solely on a recommendation to the Monarch made by the Prime Minister. The Monarch automatically accepts such a recommendation.
To guarantee the integrity of the award, only four such titles will be given per year. Further, politicians will not generally be able to have such an award conferred upon them.
When announcing the reinstitution of these titles, Prime Minister Abbott stated, 'My intention is that this new award will go to those who have accepted public office rather than sought it and who can never, by virtue of that office, ever entirely return to private life.'
Thus the award is meant for those who have been appointed to public life rather than those who have sought it through election. This would seem to exclude most politicians.
Mr Abbott further indicated that he expected those people who would receive this award to include governors-general, state governors, chiefs of defence forces and chief justices rather than politicians.
Supporters of the reinstated honours argue that though any title can be abused and awarded for improper motives, the safeguards surrounding knights and dames make them particularly unlikely to be awarded in this manner.
5. These awards do not invalidate existing Australian honours and are not incompatible with republican sentiment
It has been noted that there is a general misapprehension about the awards Mr Abbott has reinstituted.
These awards do not take the Australian honours system back to the one which operated prior to 1975 when Prime Minister Whitlam abolished the imperial honours system and instituted an exclusively Australian series of honours.
Prime Minister Abbott has instead reintroduced the system that was put in place by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in 1975. Fraser retained the Australian honours system instituted by Whitlam and merely created two additional honours, Knights and Dames of the Oder of Australia. These became the highest honours in the Australian honours system and though they borrowed from the imperial system in their use of the words 'knight' and 'dame' they did not represent a return to the imperial system. Thus all previous Australian honours will remain and will continue to be awarded.
It is therefore not incompatible to retain knights and dames within a republic. This point has been made by prominent Liberal republican Malcolm Turnbull who has stated that reinstituting the honours should not be seen as a 'monarchical move'.
Mr Turnbull explained, 'After all there are many distinguished republics that have knights in their honours system - Guatemala for example, Peru, Argentina, Brazil. France and Italy, I mean they are two of the most distinguished republics.
So anyone who thinks this is some kind of slap to the republicans is really misjudging the Prime Minister's commitment to looking after all Australians and bringing us all together.''