The politics of federation.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 January 2000
• Author: Roberts, Winsome

Although federation was essentially a political act, putting in place a new sphere of governance, little attention has been paid to the achievement of federation as a political process. This paper addresses the politics of federation. Its starting point is the ongoing debate as to whether federation was a hollow agreement or built on broader political foundations. It argues that federation was based on popular nationalist sentiment as well as a tradition of widespread involvement in politics. In an important sense, the Australian nation was not only imagined in local communities, it was constructed in them. An active citizenry gave life and meaning to the more formal democratic institutions and practices. If the current body politic is curiously devoid of politicisation, it is worth remembering that the fire of politics formed the spirit of Australia at federation.

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As the Centenary of Federation approaches it is fitting to revisit the debate commenced at Federation's Jubilee as to the extent of popular political support. Robert Parker (I) looked at regional voting patterns for the federation referendums and argued that those who turned up to vote cast their lot according to how they expected it to affect their livelihood. Geoffrey Blainey (II) countered that voters were motivated by broader considerations. Subsequent studies, (III) employing a similar methodology, produced equivocal results and Scott Bennett, (IV) in a systematic overview, characterised it as an enduring problem of political science.

Scholars of constitutional jurisprudence are divided on the issue of the extent to which the constitution was founded on and legitimated by popular participation. Those who celebrate federation have argued that Australia, for its day, provided the most democratic model of constitution making ever to be attempted. (V) The critics, like George Williams, (VI) have a contrary view:

The making of the Australian constitution was neither representative nor inclusive of the Australian people generally. It was drafted by a small privileged, section of society. Whole sections of the community were excluded from the Conventions or from voting for the draft constitution.... (VIII) Historians have also presented differing accounts. Stuart Macintyre's (VIII) recent historiographical review shows how the earlier celebratory accounts of Federation gave way to more sceptical and critical ones. Revisionist historians characterised it as something of a political hoax, involving an elite and curtailing rather than enhancing democratisation. (IX)

The immanence of the Centenary of federation has stimulated the entry of new proponents putting extra spin on old positions. Bob Birrell (X) adopts a celebratory approach by drawing attention to the mobilisation of popular opinion through the Australian Natives' Association.

Others continue to denigrate its achievement. Professor McMinn (XI) claims that although there was popular sentiment, this was not translated into political involvement. Peter Botsman (XII) goes so far as to argue that any notion of `the people's constitution' is a `swindle', but then uses spurious

figures, based on the total population rather than the total eligible voting population, to argue that only the smallest minority actually supported federation. Phillip Knightley (XIII) alleges that Australians showed little interest in Federation because they were captured by the more immediate concerns of plagues and drought and because of utter weariness that `politicians had been talking about it but doing nothing for too long.'

My current work revisits federation and takes an entirely different approach, theoretically and methodologically. It focuses on the political. Theoretically it takes a holistic approach and argues that to understand federation you need to view its construction as a process undertaken within the framework of existing liberal democratic regimes, imperial and colonial. It also argues that given the existence of those very regimes, federation can be characterised as a social movement reflecting popular consciousness, participation by the middling classes and its constitutional development by political elites. Methodologically it argues that federation needs to be studied over a longer time frame and in a way that takes account of discursive democratic practices in specific regional communities. Its thesis is that the democratic success of the second federation movement (XIV) is attributable to its grounding in popular national sentiment and practices of citizenship in local communities that were taken for granted in the formalised processes of constructing an Australian federal republic.

The paper will briefly expand on theory and methodology prior to examining federation as a process with reference to a specific community within Greater Melbourne. It will examine local evidence for the growth of nationalist sentiment, construction of a national citizenry in discursive democratic processes and the opportunities provided to achieve federation through formal political leadership.

THEORY AND METHODOLOGY

Modernist theorists (XV) of nationalism have argued that nationalist movements have typically been led from above by elites espousing democracy but intent on delimiting it. Jack Snyder's recent study From Voting to Violence (XVI) claims that what is more important is the overall character of the pre-existing political regime. He argues that where nationalism rests on pre-existing democratic institutions it is likely to lead to greater democratisation. In support of his thesis he argues that British nationalism's stability originated from the civic institutions of a liberal democratic regime:

British nationalism, which emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, took the form of civic loyalty to the country's traditions of individual liberty and free speech, and to the state's representative institutions. While rooted in these liberal principles and practices, British identity is a full-blooded nationalism, not just an abstract political philosophy. The British public made willing sacrifices for the nation in the course of frequent wars, revelled in the presumed superiority of its distinctive national traits, glorified its heroes, and took for granted that legitimate rule must serve the popular national interest.... (XVII) The governments established in the Australian colonies at the end of the 1850s were also liberal democratic regimes deriving from a common political heritage that was the legacy of British colonialism and imperialism. A liberal political culture allowed freedom of association and speech that nurtured a strong tradition of political agitation and mobilisation as well as the formation of numerous voluntary associations of civil society. There was a large public space.

If the focus is on the 1890s it might seem that federalism was a political construct engineered by a distant elite. However, if you go further back and look at what was happening in local communities in Victoria in the 1880s there is considerable evidence of popular national consciousness and a politically active citizenry. Nationalist sentiment was mobilised by the middling sorts and given articulation by leadership of formal colonial and intercolonial political institutions in the 1890s.

The most recent theorising on social movements (XVIII) is particularly useful to describe the nationalist project in Australia because it links together consideration of grass roots political activity with institutionalised politics. This theorising has yielded a comparative framework that emphasises not only the significance of symbolic representation and active mobilisation for the success of a grass roots movement, but also the nature of political opportunities in formal institutionalised politics.

The central methodology is one of reconstructing local communities to map the contours of national sentiment and democratic citizenship at the grass roots against the more formal articulation of the federation project in colonial and intercolonial political proceedings.

Ideally a sample of communities would be drawn from each of the colonies. However, given the constraints on resources, the focus is solely on Victoria. (XIX) North Melbourne forms the focus of the larger study and is the reference point for purposes of the argument mounted in this paper. (XX) While the research is spatially limited nonetheless its timeframe is augmented: given that social change takes a long time to be achieved. To really understand the grass roots base of federation this study not only covers the 1890s--which is the usual period for study of federation--but also looks at what was happening in the preceding two decades.

NATIONALIST SENTIMENT: CONSTRUCTING A PEOPLE'S HISTORY

By the mid- to late- nineteenth century, despite evident differences of class, ethnicity and religion, a sentiment of nationalist tribalism was becoming evident in colonial newspapers. A shared identity as `native Australians' was being articulated and a common history was being constructed and narrated. The political significance of these many acts of remembrance was at this very same time being spelled out on the opposite side of the globe in Frenchman Ernest Renan's famous 1882 lecture `what makes a nation?' (XXI) He argued that what was important was that people felt they shared a common past and common hopes for the future. More recently the political philosopher, B.J. Smith (XXII) has also emphasised the importance of remembering for the construction of popular republics.

The catalyst for the creation or a people's history was undoubtedly the colony's jubilee in 1887 and the celebration of the centenary of British colonisation of the continent in 1888. Members of the gold rush generation, although they did not found the colony, had the numerical strength, a political legacy ostensibly free of the convict taint, and the economic good fortune to take...