I know I’ve discussed this on Sydney Anglican’s but I don’t know how thoroughly we’ve bashed this subject here.
Who’s for Abolishing our expensive State governments and having a system of ONE National Legislature writing one set of efficient and easy to understand laws, and funding Local governments according to a population ratio and Local governments running service. Local councils could even appoint representatives to Regional committees that might administrate Regional concerns like Hospitals and waterways (the Murray Darling system being a classic example of how the States are NOT working!).
An online friend, Dr Mark Drummond, has a Phd which indicates that the State Parliaments cost Australia an extra $30 BILLION dollars annually unnecessary extra Parliaments, unnecessary duplication in legal work and extra expense for business, trades, teachers, and all manner of careers trying to meet different rules in different States.
Now consider, England has a much larger population than Australia and… no States. That’s right, one Legislature and no extra State parliaments. California has a population of what… 36 million people? Putting aside their Federal government for a moment, consider having a State rule 36 million? What were those silly arguments against Abolishing the States… not enough representation, too much centralisation? And yet California for all it’s problems seems to be leading America into a greener, cleaner and more energy independent and secure State faster than many countries on earth.
How on earth do they manage to rule that Californian economy without the extra duplication of “States” giving them the “benefits” of extra legislation to deal with? How can California be one State and not 13?
(In other words those Aussies fearful of one Legislature having control of 20 million people, wake up and open your eyes!)
So… remember that boring “Republic” referendum we had a few years ago? What a silly debate. The changes were mainly cosmetic! I say we revisit what it means to be a “Democracy” and a “government” and a “Voting Public” and debate the merits of quite a few changes indeed!
Imagine what we could do with $30 billion extra each year? My preference would be to build Tim Flannery’s series of geothermal & solar power cities in our desert regions AND roll out a National electric very-fast train system. (See “Geothermia” for more). Then Australia would be largely carbon neutral, have more fresh water, and immune from the coming oil shocks.
But nooooo, we have to keep the redundant States, waste all that good money, and occasionally if we build up a surplus give $10 billion back to Australians to spend on Japanese plasma screen TVs.
Dave, you can take my State Government from me when you grasp it from my cold… dead…. hands.
Most West Australians would dig a moat at Eucla, and cast off the Commonwealth Government far sooner, than surrender to a powerful unitary government in Canberra.
Moreover…. as I have said repeatedly in the other place…. it is no mere coincidence that the most free, most democratic, most constitutionally successful states in the world are almost all federal states - USA, Canada, Switzerland, Australia.
I’m impressed you think California worth giving as an example - it’s almost broke thanks to its gradiose interventionist bloated government. Whereas the little states like Wyoming (with a population hardly bigger than Tasmania’s) are doing ok. More little States; fewer big ones - that’s what we need, not ONE BIG government over all of us.
$30 billion is frankly chump change, given the astonishing sums of money being spent by the Commonwealth currently in an attempt to “stimulate” all of us. Even if true, it is a small price to pay for the relatively small government and relatively high individual freedom we all enjoy.
NZ and England aren’t free or successful?
Ooops. I’ll have to remember that.
I’m impressed you think California worth giving as an example - it’s almost broke thanks to its gradiose interventionist bloated government. Whereas the little states like Wyoming (with a population hardly bigger than Tasmania’s) are doing ok. More little States; fewer big ones - that’s what we need, not ONE BIG government over all of us.
Blargh! That’s your argument? What other factors are there? Hmm, let’s see, economic management issues, Hollywood movies migrating to NZ and Australia, oil dependency affecting ALL western nations especially gas-guzzling California, not to mention that it’s probably the home of the financial crisis. There’s just a *chance* there’s probably better economic management in Wyoming. Well, there you are. With all these other issues to tease out, compare, and analyse we’ll just lay it down to the size of the State government will we, and leave it there? By recommending California for our consideration I was not suggesting we adopt everything from California, but consider that it should really be 14 States if governed at the rate we are!
(Another Hint: England’s got 51 million people and no States).
How about the counter argument that maybe the USA as a whole would save trillions if it abolished it’s own States and had a National legislature with clear National laws, and STRONGER local governments running by laws and service implementation?
$30 billion is frankly chump change, given the astonishing sums of money being spent by the Commonwealth currently in an attempt to “stimulate” all of us. Even if true, it is a small price to pay for the relatively small government and relatively high individual freedom we all enjoy.
Except that this would be each and every year hereafter, speed up National responses to crisis, have “tidier” legislation that we can all understand, and solve that troublesome Murray Darling issue. As for your second sentence, you haven’t demonstrated that Federalism = “small government” or “high individual freedom”. Federalism could easily represent large government and a gripping hand of the Federal government intervening in the economy, as in the USA in WW2. All you’ve really done is illustrate the dangers of the “Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc” logical error for us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
I’m for this in theory, but imagine trying to get the many changes to the Constitution approved. The requirement I remember is a majority of people in a majority of states.
If Australia isn’t ‘with-the-times’ enough to try a republic, they won’t try this!
Yeah, probably. However, I’m just trying to keep the discussion alive. If we are ever going to have a Republic debate again, I want it to be a REAL debate about REAL changes to this Nation.
And you’d be surprised how many Aussies are completely on-side already. There are a huge number of academics and public figures coming out as utterly ashamed of the State system. In fact, some of our authors stood at the last election. Their electioneering makes for interesting reading.
Ever thought we are over governed with our nine State, Territory and Federal governments? Been confused by the separate sets of laws and regulations? Felt like you’ve moved overseas when you’ve moved interstate or crossed a State border? Noticed the wasteful duplication? And wish we invested more in education, health and the environment than in bureaucracy? Yes, we do need structural change and we encourage people to start thinking about that. The political parties now representing us don’t. Not one federal parliamentary party has abolishing State Governments in its platform.
Beyond Federation seeks for Australians a system comprising two levels of democratic government - at the national and regional/local levels. Beyond Federation is an umbrella community group, not a political party, which draws its support from people of quite diverse backgrounds.
Formed in January 2002, Beyond Federation consults and lobbies for a two-tiered system of government, and holds regular Shed a Tier Congresses to explore visions and options. So far Congresses have been held in Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Albury, Central Coast, Gippsland and Sunshine Coast. We’re gradually moving to other parts of the country. For Congress and further information updates please see our website:
Duplication of bureaucracies and regulation among the State and Federal governments.
The existing structure costs us up to $30 billion a year, across the private sector as well as the public domain. What could we do with the savings depends on what point of view and preferences you hold but there can be little doubt that such savings could be used in far more productive ways.
The fiscal imbalance between federal and state governments, dated back to the centralisation of income tax powers in 1942, has turned the states into subservient agencies of the federal government.
Meanwhile, local governments, and communities smaller than the present States, are disempowered.
Buck-passing between State and Federal governments has resulted in an endless path of delays, a prominent example being the Murray Darling basin - now in a perilous state environmentally, socially and economically.
Combating climate change has been much too slow altogether. We need a national approach to such a major issue.
Health is another prime example of mounting federal-state problems. We experience destructive competition and squabbles among the States and the Commonwealth over other essentials such as water, land, and electricity, and the concessions given to foreign investors. Industrial relations, education, ports, and taxation have also become major friction areas.
The inconsistency in laws, regulations and standards among the States and the Commonwealth is at times absurd. They undermine national security and integrity and make it harder for police, emergency service workers and others to maintain law, order and safety. People living in border areas, such as Albury-Wodonga or Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, ACT, know about them. Some two years ago the Border Mail reported 1639 differences resulting from different State laws in Victoria and NSW.
Australia has to move on
In 1900 federation made sense. It was an achievement but more than 100 years later, with massive improvements in transport and communication, as well as an integrated domestic market and established sense of national identity, federation is a hindrance. Amazingly our objective cannot be found in the programs of the parliamentary parties at the federal level.
We believe an independent persuasive voice in the parliament is needed to stimulate this objective and negotiate the transition - an issue that has several constitutional ramifications. The existing parliamentary parties are held back, not because they don’t believe this is a laudable objective, but because they all have state interests to protect. The time has come for Australia to progress beyond such barriers, and beyond federation.
NZ and England aren’t free or successful?
Ooops. I’ll have to remember that.
NZ is small - 4 million people: about the right size in my view for a country. If Australia were broken up into its constituent States (and 3 of them have similar or larger populations than NZ), each of them (except perhaps Tasmania) would have an adequate population to operate an efficient government; and there would be no need for anybody in Canberra; and no State would require its own federal system.
As for the UK, it is one of a kind - an “unwritten” constitution, an unelected upper house, an historic monarchy - these constitutional traditions have protected the UK from the grim fate of most large unitary states in Europe; but even the UK has now adopted federal aspects, giving separate parliaments to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
If you abolished Australia’s federal system, you’d be creating the largest unitary government anywhere in the world outside the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China - neither of them a country I’d be all that keen on emulating: if Eastern Staters want to do it, go right ahead - just count WA out.
On 8 April 1933, WA voters were asked the following question in a referendum:
Are you in favour of the State of Western Australia withdrawing from the Federal Commonwealth established under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (Imperial)?
And the result was an over two thirds in favour. I imagine you’d get a similar result today if you tried to abolish state governments.
You’re discussing the UK, I’m discussing England which itself is over double the size of Australia. Yes it has a few unique historical attributes, some of which involve having conquered other nations with a strong sense of their own identity in the past (like Scotland, etc) and those other nations are now being given certain rights of self-government back.
How is that comparable to Australia?
And do you want more Centralisation or less? See, what does some latte sipping bureaucrat from Perth really know about the problems up in Broome or Derby? I say have one strong National legislature in Canberra because our States are already cover ridiculously large areas anyway, and then Constitutionally recognise Local governments. (They are kind of ridden rough-shod already by the State governments). Stronger LOCAL governments supervising our Nationally funded departments means that while we might have National funds being divided on a population & “regional concern” equation, we’d at least know who was responsible for our funding and who is responsible for managing local affairs.
Ultimately, you’re right in that some things would seem to be “more distant” in that the National Department of Health would have budgeting allocated at a National level. However, the Constitution could have certain guarantees about how the Health kitty would get divided up amongst the LOCAL governments (and regional councils of local governments).
Did you ever consider we can protect our rights by adding a power of recall! Imagine if your Regional representative knew that as they headed off to Canberra that they could be recalled if their voting record on certain issues did not meet election promises? Imagine if a certain percentage of the voters in your electorate signed a petition at their local Post Offices to ask for another local election because your candidate had failed to deliver? These and other policies could protect us from the collapse of democracy you seem to find imminent if Australia were to follow England’s lead and have one legislature and set of laws instead of 9.
How on earth are we supposed to know our own laws if just moving from one city to another means we have to train up in local legislation, which might even affect the viability of our business model?
Also, our States competing with each other hurts Australia as a whole. Too many times recently big corporations have approached the States with job offers, and get the States to fight cats and dogs offering tax breaks to the Corporation. It’s a “race to the bottom” and ultimately one State wins the job while Australia as a whole loses billions of dollars. Ridiculous! Absurd! As is the complicated mess that allows the Federal governments to blame the States and the State governments to blame the Feds. It’s time to straighten this mess out, and in an age of the internet and free media, I fail to understand where your paranoia comes from.
There’s only one place I can see where “Federation” as a concept might be legitimate, and that’s at a World Federation level. That’s where the EU offers us a very interesting first glimpse of a model of a future Democratic means of international relations instead of just “Diplomatic”.
Despite all the EU’s problems it is still evolving. The EU’s Lisbon treaty would have been a BIG step in the right direction but for the silly “no” campaign in Ireland that misinformed citizens and ultimately retarded the progress towards a MORE democratic EU that could have been made. For more on that try: http://www.federalunion.org.uk/index.shtml#
You’re discussing the UK, I’m discussing England which itself is over double the size of Australia
Dave, as you know, England has no government of its own - so there is little point in comparing its constitutional arrangements (it has none) with those of Australia.
DAVE LANKSHEAR :
You’re discussing the UK, I’m discussing England which itself is over double the size of Australia.
I’m sure you meant to use the phrase “double the POPULATION of Australia” - double the “size’ is something else. Interestingly England has 130,395 sq kms ( all of UK is 244,820 ) whereas Australia consists of a staggering 7,686,850 sq kms. This means that you could fit almost 59 Englands inside our border. So although we have 22 million to their 51 million population, the size difference is incredible.
I doubt whether anything will ever change with having our States system - but I do wish that there was more uniformity in rules and laws across our whole nation. For example, my daughter has just returned from a weekend teacher training seminar at UNE in Armidale. Some students from Adelaide were amazed to see what we call “zebra crossings” - and asked her what they were. When told of their purpose, they said that they don’t have them in South Australia as pedestrians have to give way to cars !
Surely that’s a joke? We can’t have traffic laws THAT different in our different States can we? Surely there are certain basic road safety issues we HAVE to agree on or people die?
It’s crazy… this is one country. We should have ONE curriculum (which I understand they are working on). Gosh, I was brainstorming with a mate and other than political willpower there’s no reason why the Western world can’t adopt certain international standards for schooling, including special components for their own languages and culture. EG: “English studies” in England might be different to in Australia, and feature different “national texts”, but basically agree on certain standards?
With the internet and modern transport systems (many of which I hope will one day recover from peak oil… even long distance flight might be transformed into blimps with the return of the airship if Algae jet-fuel doesn’t quite pan out), surely we have grounds for more integration in certain international standards of education, career qualifications, medical competency, etc? Doesn’t the Dr Patel case indicate that we need certain international standards we can check and rely on?
The fact that we have different education criteria in our own country is just ridiculous.
Doesn’t the Dr Patel case indicate that we need certain international standards we can check and rely on?
The fact that we have different education criteria in our own country is just ridiculous.
I agree Dave. You would think that there would be just ONE universal standard for many things in our country. I have long believed that there should be just ONE standard system for education and health- to name just two key areas of concern. Why have 8 different state and territorial education departments working on curriculum etc - when just ONE federal department should be setting the standards for all Australians to follow. It’s just plain crazy - and just another excuse to swell the number of bureaucrats. Private industry would never have such a sloppy approach to an “industry wide” problem.
Crime penalties. Uniform road rules ( they’ve almost got there on this one ). Uniform driving penalties - some states ( NSW ) award 3 demerit points for an offense that carries only one - or none - elsewhere !
I’ve had this opinion for some decades now. So having already done the pioneer work on this, I’m glad to see you come on board and join me in the ‘redtape paper revolution’ ;)
Makes sense to me. Australia is way overgoverned. I see the following problems/questions need to be resolved.
1.Canberra. Most other countries have a capital that’s actually a major city in its own right. Canberra has notoriously been in its own little world, not quite in touch with reality.
2.Distance. Yes we have great communications but there’s still a big gap between east and west. The difficulty of understanding and dealing well with regional issues over such a big and diverse area. And a lot of Australia doesn’t like the idea of being treated as Sydney’s hinterland.
3.What size local government? I’m inclined to think they should be bigger. Where I live, my normal day to day life crosses local govt borders.
Then of course, looking at it positively, if we did away with all state and territory governments at the stroke of midnight tonight - then we would have got rid of 7 self absorbed incompetent Labor governments all at once ;)
You see, every cloud does indeed have it’s silver lining.
From the discussions I’ve seen on the Beyond Federation email list many of the experts I read favour keeping Local governments as they are now, but recognising their powers in the constitution. Then for certain functions an administrative layer is added, whereby the people we elect to Local council (who should have better budgets and salaries commensurate to their new responsibilities, but STILL saving 10’s of billions a year) then select Regional administrators for certain Regional tasks. That is, while Albury Wodonga would no longer live under different States and legislation any more but would share the same legislation (a HUGE improvement to running businesses down there!), and while they might keep their local councils intact, they might have representatives on a Regional board… call it what you will.
These Regional layers / Counties / administrators would be in charge of matters larger than the Local council. But the overall goal of Beyond Federation (which is itself a coalition of various sub-groups all interested in reforming our Constitution) is MORE Democracy, which is hard to rationalise if we are going to have less access per capita to our most immediate level of government. So there are those that tend to favour sticking with Local governments structures as they are because both disbanding the States AND Local governments in the one step and trying to restructure EVERYTHING we do at once sounds ... errr, really bad.
However, down the track some visualise writing into the Constitution the mechanism by which local councils could decide to amalgamate if they desired to do so. However, one member of BF lived in Noosa under their amalgamation with 3? other councils. They hated it with a passion. The Local council had all these great community and environmental programs and policies just about in place and then BANG! The Mother Ship absorbed them all and took away the programs installed by the council more intimately connected with the Local community.
This is why the States must be abolished! Our Local councils are just puppets to the States, and have no Constitutionally recognised powers. The States can do anything they wish to Councils! What we need are certain guaranteed powers at the LOCAL level, so that some idiot in Perth can’t run over the desires of the Local government in Derby, which according to google maps is 2251 km away! Alan, do you want to tell me what business Perth has making rules over Derby which is so far away that an equivalent drive could takes you from Barcelona to Warsaw, a journey which can take you through 5 countries!
So we have this enormous continent that is one Nation, not 5, and so we have one State government Lording it over such a vast area. Is it REALLY going to make such a difference to the citizens of Derby if the laws are written by Canberra at a ridiculous 4000 km away compared to Perth’s equally ridiculous 2251? (Again, 5 countries in Europe!)
Or would Derby be more interested in having some extra cash freed up for their local hospital because we as a Nation realised the rational truth: we are in exceptional circumstances to try something new, and can STRENGTHEN our local Democratic rights by recognising Local government powers in the Constitution, and ridding ourselves of an archaic State system that is only an accident of our colonial history?
(Especially when some of the founding fathers were sympathetic to a unitary government in the first place!)
Dave, we should probably have more States - not fewer. Yes, Derby’s laws should probably be written by a government for North West Australia. WA is too big; not as you suggest too small. This goal - more States like in the USA - would be worth pursuing; not the abolition of the States altogether. Dictators abolish federal structures; not democrats.
As for all the talent going to Canberra - those clowns are currently trying to solve a recession which was caused by excessive borrowing to fuel consumer spending; by borrowing billions to hand out money to voters to encourage them to spend more money.
Insanity! our grandchildren will be paying the bills!
I’m thankful we in WA at least have a State Government willing to exercise prudence and responsibility in these trying times.
Heaven help us, if constitutional barriers to federal extravagance are abolished.
Dictators abolish federal structures; not democrats.
Quick, we’d better call England and NZ and warn them!
Your Canberra comments are critiquing economic policy that you (and I) happen to disagree with. Yep, economic policy. But hang on a minute… that’s got nothing to do with our conversation about government structures?
Heaven help us, if constitutional barriers to federal extravagance are abolished.
I’m glad you acknowledge that Federalism is extravagant, but I think we’re moving into leaner times and can’t really afford to pay an extra $30 billion dollars for… what again exactly? Oh yeah, duplication, redundancy, and, wait for it…. MASSIVE CENTRALISATION!
Meanwhile, 5 European countries away from Perth, Derby is still suffering from the fact that Canberra are not writing the only National level laws because they are paying all that extra $$$$ to Perth to double up the legislation and administration of Education, Health, Policing, Child Protection, Welfare, Housing, Transport…. etc.
< sarcasm warning >
But hey, seeing as you’re suggesting creating more states, I’m sure there’s an army of underpaid lawyers just busting to take up their golden ticket seats in another bureaucracy ready to write more redundant, unnecessary laws for the new States of South WA, South East WA, South West WA, Eastern Middle WA, Western Middle WA, East Northern WA and West Northern WA.
I’ve got a great idea! Because we should also recognise the unique cultural contributions of each region, why don’t we let some regions choose to drive on the other side of the road? Or how about have all the road signs and welfare forms in another language? You can’t let Canberra control these things… no way… uniting around certain common sense ideas, that’s right up there with Nazi thought control! No! We must have diversity instead! So I say we forget Dr Mark Drummond and his “saving $30 to $40 billion dollars a year” Phd. Let’s go for broke and pay for a State system costing $200 billion a year! Some might argue that we’d be better off putting that into Education and Health and Transport and Renewable Energy. What hippies! What we really need are more overweight lawyers sipping at their caviar! (Honestly, people just don’t know what’s good for them!)
I say we introduce not only more states, but more STATES! (With a capital S. You know, Countries!) Otherwise… gosh, some Nazi dictator might take control! As you said, “Only Dictators abolish Federations”... that is, unless some of them collapse under their own weight into their constituent parts. Boy, we couldn’t have that happen! Some might even want to join the EU!
1. England has recently introduced federal structures - not abolished them. The Scottish parliament was abolished in the early 1700s and has recently been reinstated.
2. NZ is a unitary state and has been for over 100 years - no sign of abolishing federal structures there.
I stand by my remark that generally it is dictators that abolish federal structures…. democrats do not contemplate such constitutional vandalism.
3. Federal countries generally have smaller governments than unitary states. The supposed savings of abolishing federations are illusory. In real life, they don’t exist. Don’t let real life get in the way of a good theory however.
4. I’m not aware of a single country in the world where both left-hand drive and right-hand drive are tolerated. This is utter nonsense. The differences in traffic laws in Australia are trivial.
Actually I think the world would be a happier place if there were more countries. I don’t have a problem with that. But federation is a good - and successful - compromise.
Enough for me - much as I like the sound of my own voice (or the tapping of my own keyboard), federalism is such a successful system of government, in Australia and around the world, that it does not need me to defend it.
Sorry Dave, I’m with Alan.
The nation of Australia was designed with a federal structure in mind, the combination of the six colonies (as they then were) coming together to form a federal nation. It took decades to come up with that plan in full in the late 1900s. People treat the abolition of states like it is something that could be done overnight. It’s not. It would require the entire rewriting of the Australian Constitution, the throwing out of more than a century of constitutional law that has founded some of the most important legal principles known in this country. You may remember the bickering that went on at the Constitutional Convention about Australia becoming a republic. Can you even imagine the sort of disagreements that would be had were we to completely rewrite our constitution?
Given that political will, sadly, tends to extend only to the next election, I doubt that any Government of either persuasion would even consider doing something like this. The changes would require decades of work, would be fraught by numerous disagreements, and even after that would never pass the rigorous double majority test in section 128 of the Constitution (which, by the way, a change of Constitution would still need to pass, even if it intended to change the method of constitutional alteration).
You live in Sydney and are probably quite satisfied with a government in Canberra that does a lot for where you live, the most populous city in the country, and a government in Macquarie Street that also does a lot for where you live, the most populous city in the State. But if you don’t live in Sydney, or Melbourne, or any other big city, it is the fact that you have representation that isn’t a massively far way away that is a positive for you. Yes, Broome might be 2500km from Perth, but it’s still much closer than Canberra and has the potential to have people that understand their situation far more than a government on the eastern seaboard would. The culture and way of life in WA is very different from here in Sydney, even though we live in the same country and share many different values. Geographic isolation does that - Tasmania is the same in some ways. You can even see differences between places like Melbourne and Sydney simply by their geographic distance. It is important that these people be represented at a more local level - which in Australia is one reason we have states.
I’m not saying the state system is perfect - I personally think that successive federal governments have taken too much power from the states rendering them as somewhat impotent structures designed to implement things that are funded by the Commonwealth. I’d like to see more financial control given back to the states and the powers of the Federal Government delineated somewhat in the way that they were intended to be under section 51 of the Constitution to stop encroachment of powers. Centralist Prime Ministers such as Rudd, Howard and Whitlam haven’t done much to help the federalist cause (nor has our High Court, for that matter, with all due respect of course… :-) But the solution to federal state relation problems is not to abolish one tier of government, it’s to investigate and fix those problems. Like recognising the powers of Local Government in our constitution.
I agree with Alan that we should have more states. This is actually a lot easier than rewriting the constitution and it would enable people in regional and rural areas to have more of a say. The New England region and North Coast of NSW tried to establish a new state for this sort of reason in the 60s and 70s, but got defeated in a referendum because they included Newcastle in the proposed state which didn’t want to be included. In some areas though the vote was clearly in the majority.
If I had my way, states of about the population size of somewhere in between Tasmania and South Australia would be a good size. At the very least, the Northern Territory should achieve statehood, NSW should split off the Mid-North and North Coast and New England regions, and Queensland should split off North Queensland - at least these areas would have sustainable populations for new states. Something like the size of the Parliament of Tasmania would be all that would be needed for the new states that were created which did not have Parliaments already. O
The important thing of making new states is that it would also enable the size of Governments to be cut down. If NSW were split into two or three states the size of our lower and upper houses could be diminished, quite easily. On the other hand, were you to abolish state governments, I quite suspect the size of our national parliament and executive would need to be significantly increased. Most large unitary states have massive parliaments because of the sheer problem of affording local representation to its people geographically. And although, for example, you might have a Federal Department of Transport, it would need to have offices in each capital city, and probably also quite a few regional and rural areas, due to the need to service constituents in quite geographically diverse areas.
New States would also create growth areas - if you wanted to stop people migrating to Sydney and slow down its urban sprawl, build another Government centre in a new state and watch the jobs that are created and opportunities that become available. I guarantee that many thousands of people would actually leave Sydney to pursue opportunities in that new state. The North Coast of NSW is one of the fastest growth areas in the country so it would be perfect for an area to build a new state around.
And Dave - the world at the moment is turning towards federalism. I actually see the European Union as an exercise in federalism of a kind - countries coming together with a central “government” (the EU) but each having their own cultura, social and political l identities and pursuing proper representation at a lower level. And Alan has already mentioned devolution in the UK (interesting the UK Government actually suggested splitting England into 7 regions, which, along with Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as 3 other regions, would have effectively turned England into a federal state. Except for Cornwall which has an active federalist movement, some people didn’t like that idea so it was quietly dropped. But it shows there is support for it.
Why is it better for cops / welfare officers / builders / architects / engineers / lawyers moving from Perth to Sydney to have to relearn the codes of their trade? Sorry, how does that help them? And why do their kids have to adjust to a completely different curriculum? How does that help our kids stability when they’ve already just had to move their home and make all new friends?
The HIGHER costs of running a non-unitary government are not the ONLY costs to running a Federal government / State structure… the other costs to the broader economy have been “guesstimated” to be another $30 billion again! (Woah, there’s $60 billion extra to play with!)
Also, did you ever consider the unique historical factors that went into Federalist countries? That Western Democracies are WESTERN might be a factor: they were established by the rise of the British Empire, profited in America due to their early discovery of oil and being the “OPEC” of the world before WW2, developed capitalism models and democracy that seemed more effective at creating free markets, and many, many other unique historical factors. Don’t confuse “Federalism” with all of that Alan, because that would be particularly lazy and confusing the issue.
Anyway, as Dr Mark Drummond says on this issue:
The mathematical analyses I’ve used to establish that significant financial benefits could be achieved if we amalgamated Commonwealth, State and Territory governments into a single national government are DIRECT estimates based on REAL AUSTRALIAN data, whereas studies that provide opposing views are generally based on data that has little or nothing to do with Australia, and hence can’t be validly applied to Australia.
See his Executive Summary of Phd. http://erl.canberra.edu.au/public/adt-AUC20080825.143939/
See also attached. Twomey and Withers aren’t mathematicians, and if they were they’d realise the analyses they rely on to “show” that federations do better financially than non-federations are ridiculous. But you only need common sense to realise that a list of countries with super rich (till recently!) countries like the US and Switzerland (but not Russia - conveniently left out) is bound to show better economic strength and growth credentials than a list of countries including Greece and Portugal (but not China - no small omission that one)!!!! The Geelong AFL team would probably beat my son’s Under 13 Aussie Rules team too, but what does that prove! The Twomey-Withers analysis is little more than academic fraud/cheating working to pre-determined positions.
Also (and read this slowly and carefully):
The comparison Twomey and Withers rely upon to establish this $86 billion figure is something of a mismatch in which seven wealthy federations (Australia and six of the most locationally advantaged countries in the world: the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland) are pitted against 14 diverse unitary countries (Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) which include some of the poorest and most remotely located OECD countries, such as Portugal, Greece, Finland and New Zealand. This $86 billion estimate would probably be very different if unitary China (with its stunning economic growth in recent decades) and federal Russia (with its mixed and generally poor economic performance), for example, were included in the analysis. (August and Woldring, 2007).
1. England has recently introduced federal structures - not abolished them. The Scottish parliament was abolished in the early 1700s and has recently been reinstated.
Totally WRONG Alan, and how very slippery of you! As I have already pointed out a dozen times, ENGLAND is an entirely different entity to the UK. Please address the facts I am presenting!
ENGLAND has how many States exactly, and yet how many people under its care? Wiki it if you don’t believe me. I’ve already explained that the UK has a history of Britain taking over other nations to contend with, and that this is a completely different historical position to ours. The “devolution” of powers to Scotland is acknowledging that fact. It would be as if Australia had conquered NZ in the deep past, and was finally giving NZ back some sovereignty.
Now, on NZ. You’re argument on NZ is what exactly? No sign of abolishing non-existent Federal structures? That’s an argument somehow? Yep Alan, they have a unitary government, as does ENGLAND…. exactly what Kevin and I are arguing for here.
Federal countries generally have smaller governments than unitary states. The supposed savings of abolishing federations are illusory. In real life, they don’t exist. Don’t let real life get in the way of a good theory however.
Evidence please if you’re quoting “real life” so passionately?
Hi James,
But if you don’t live in Sydney, or Melbourne, or any other big city, it is the fact that you have representation that isn’t a massively far way away that is a positive for you. Yes, Broome might be 2500km from Perth
You see how funny these 2 sentences are together right? 5 European countries away is “close” in your mind? Over half a day’s drive is so remote that it may as well be in another country. 2 days drive is ridiculous. 4 days drive is also “ridiculous”, so lets have a Constitutionally guaranteed formula for handing out the cash to each LOCAL district and let the LOCAL regions and councils decide what to do with it OK?
So James, you’d like new States? MORE Duplication? You basically think that lawyers that move from Sydney to Cowra NSW should be forced to learn new laws, engineers new building codes, District Officer’s new children’s protection laws and forms, police new laws, etc etc etc etc etc?
However, I completely and utterly agree with you on WORLD FEDERALISM. Contrary to what you might think of my views, I adore the EU as an evolving model not of a “United States of Europe” but as a model of how the WORLD could be run. If I were running Europe, I’d keep IT as a “Federation” but abolish the “States” within existing Nation States. Then there’d be the EU level, National level, and Local government level government (with some Regional oversight by Shire / Council nominated representatives).
Alan,
I think the word “Federation” has you a bit confused. Why not consider the National / Local model a “Federation” of agreeing LOCAL governments with more power than they do now, common legislation and policy in areas like Health, Education and Child Protection, but diversity of implementation and management structures at the Local / Regional level?
I work for the State public service, and I can tell you that many functions undertaken by States are going over to the Feds. My department is shifting in about one year.
If education and health go as it has been suggested, there will not be as much responsibility left to State Governnments.
Labor has a long listed aim to have two tiers of Government. As the States are firmly entrenched by the Constitution, only local Councils can go.
States could take over the functions of Councils because they will lose many areas of old responsibility in the next couple of years.
This is where I see things heading, if they want to get rid of some pollies.
Abolishing the local Shires and Councils? No thanks. That would result in a horrific Centralisation of government services! I mean, WA would then cover an area equivalent to 5 or so European COUNTRIES but with no smaller units of government accountable to more local people and concerns? That sounds like far less democracy to me.
I’m about MORE efficient government, MORE money for government services with the same (or less) tax dollars, MORE clarity in our legal systems, and yet sometimes counter-intuitively, MORE democracy as a result of all these reforms.
If we have our Local councils providing the services that are funded equitably by the National government, as guaranteed by a new constitution, then people will identify with their Local council / Shire far more effectively and engage the political process more readily. Local elections will finally mean something, and even National elections might become more invigorating.
I really think that this 2 tiered system of National / Local government would revitalise democracy in our country and reengage a sometimes overly cynical citizen.
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