1. List Changes 2. Webwatch 3. Significant posts to the list 4. Albury-Wodonga meeting 5. The consensus statement 6. Other statements of principle - Charles, and the issue of uniform 7. Other statments of principle - Mark Drummond 8. Other statements of principle - Elaine Thompson 9. Sovereignty and Decentralisation 10. Words, Meaning and what we say 11. The "900 region" model 12. Polls and scope of this group 13. Realism, and other options for change 14. One vote, One value, The Senate and such like 15. Off topic stuff (mostly CIR)
You'll have noticed I've moved asc-discuss to a mailman style manager. This means that you send posts to the same alias as before, but you also have the option of combined posts rather than separate ones, and there will be a mail archive. You can also add yourself to the mailing list and leave it yourself, too.
The Progressive Labour Party :
http://home.mira.net/~plp/
Labor left in Victoria :
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/laborleft/
The Democrats :
http://www.democrats.org.au/about/objectives.htm
... and local government :
http://www.democrats.org.au/issue/localgovt.htm
The Green's site :
http://www.greens.org.au/policy/s1democracy.htm#Dem
Gavin Putland's latest/recent Draft Constitution at:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/putland/dctext.htm
A proposal by David Shannon at:
http://www.suncoast.com.au/republic/policies/responses/shannon.html
Simon Bastin's 'Radical Draft' at: http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/republic/sbastin/vradical.html
Tod Moore's counterfactual Constitution at:
http://www.une.edu.au/apsa/tmoore1.htm
Some details of the last meeting :
http://www.oocities.org/davidbofinger/meeting2.htm
Obviously, this is a summary. Some of the significant posts to the list which I cannot really do justice to in this summary are :
a. Record of the dinner meeting (on the web site) b. David Bofinger's thoughts on Federation, posted 10 April c. My reply to above, posted 10 April d. Mark Drummond, general post 26 April, including Mark's Masters' thesis. I commend this thesis as a good and informative read. d. My post, 27 April, concerning removing the states and leaving local governments as they are e. Max's reply, 28 April f. A.J. Brown, 1 May
Some reference to this is presently on the web page. We agreed at the dinner meeting that Max would write up a review of this meeting for list members to review and post to the list.
Mark noted a relevant reference :
"Shaw & Associates Consulting, Creating the Perfect Border: Border Anomalies Study report prepared for the Murray Regional development Board 1997 Murray Regional Development Board, Albury"
One of the matters discussed at the meeting was the adoption of a consensus statement, which was :
The State governments should be abolished immediately, and their powers (including all sovereignty) transferred to the commonwealth. The commonwealth would be expected to delegate implementational responsibility to the regional level as it sees fit, as is done now by the states.
While originally agreed to by people at the meeting, my recollection was that it was a starting point, from which you could develop to your own target position. However, Mark felt it had too much centralised sovereignty. I suggested an alternative :
The State governments should be abolished immediately, and their powers (including all sovereignty) transferred to the commonwealth. The commonwealth would be expected to delegate implementational responsibility to the regional level as appropriate, as is done now by the states. During the formative period, sovereignty might also be passed on to the regional level (being administered by transitional means before the system is set.) The degree to which such delegation of responsibility and sovereignty takes place is an open issue, and is is not a consensus position.
Australia should move to an affordable "best possible" system of government, absent of the states/territories in their present form, with a one-vote-one-value electoral system, in which political and financial powers and responsibilities presently held by the states/territories are transferred to the Commonwealth and local/regional governments so as to achieve uniform national laws and an appropriate balance of centralisation and decentralisation.
AND
In its efforts to achieve a system as above, the ASC is leading a process of public consultation, education and advocacy in order to provide the public at large with the opportunity to contribute to and share in the ownership of the process of designing a new "best possible" system and bringing it into being.
As a result of input from David and myself, the current consensus position which I've endorsed, and Mark has endorsed the first two sections of, is :
Australia should change its system of government to one in which political and financial powers and responsibilities presently held by the states/territories are transferred to the Commonwealth and local/regional governments (the latter formed with the consent of the relevant communities) but so as to achieve uniform national laws.
In its efforts to achieve a system as above, the ASC is pursuing a process of public consultation, education and advocacy in order to provide the people of Australia with the opportunity to participate in the process of designing a new system of government and bringing it into being.
The ASC endorses changes to the current system of government which improve the allocation of powers and responisibilities between the three tiers, and result in uniform laws & regulations, and less competition between the states.
This is presently up grabs; if a given number of people endorse it, then we can put this fact on the website. I realise not everyone will be totally happy with it, but in the spirit of compromise, I hope we can agree to it :)
Charles suggested the following four principles :
One. We should have only ONE (not ten) parliaments making LAWS for this nation of 20 million people.
Two. The PEOPLE must be empowered in a way that restores their right to say how they will be governed.
Three. Administration of the laws and the delivery of government services must be done by organisations CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE.
Four. The division of powers between levels of government on the basis of subject matter alone (as in our current Constitution), is no longer feasible.
Principles one and four have made their way into a consensus statement under review, as "uniform national laws". Principle three comes in as "consent of the relevant communities" and "decentralisation so people have a stake in local matters". Principle two has not entered any positions, while it may be a sound principle it has less relevance to abolishing the states.
Reviewing them one by one :
One. We should have only ONE (not ten) parliaments making LAWS for this nation of 20 million people.
This assumes we have a clear delineation between laws and locally made regulation. (What about "council by-laws" ??), though Charles has stated that he also believes in national regulations.
Eliane Thompson has put forth a notion that laws can be made nationally, but their implementation could be determined locally.
Two. The PEOPLE must be empowered in a way that restores their right to say how they will be governed.
Debate seems to indicate that this leads to the notion of citizen initiated referenda, and David rightly decided it off topic and took it to asc-chat.
Three. Administration of the laws and the delivery of government services must be done by organisations CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE.
David has criticised this for being vague, and I do see his point. While its nice to have a concise statement of principle, I can see problems with it. Charles elaborated with :
"What I mean is that, although it is fine for one law making body, it is not fine for a citizen to have to deal with a remote, monolithic bureaucracy. "Reasonable access" to the people administering the system is a must. This is not only for the "feel good" of the citizen but also for feed-back to the central bureaucracy. (Obviously, "resonable access" is going to be different for someone living 400 miles west of Alice Springs and someone living in Sydney.)"
Four. The division of powers between levels of government on the basis of subject matter alone (as in our current Constitution), is no longer feasible.
David criticised this for "reference by exclusion", and that's a fair point. Charles replied with :
"Currently, our Constitution allocates power to the federal gov't by subject matter - defence, customs, immigration, etc. All else is the province of State Gov'ts. This means that State Gov'ts are responsible for the subject matter, say, education. Principle Four is designed to recognise that it is not appropriate to allocate responsibility for,say, education, to one level of gov't. "Policy" on education is obviously the responsibility of a central gov't so that we have a common system across the country but implementation could well be different in different parts and, say, a regional gov't should have the power to vary the implementation. Hence the need to allocate responsibilities to various levels of gov't, not simply by subject matter."
This point was developed through a recent discussion about what "uniform national laws" mean. The meaning of this term was questioned by Brian Austen. Mark replied with :
"Sure the words uniform and national can be regarded as duplicated, but I think such reinforced emphasis is apt here."
"I think the idea is simply that we'd adopt a national criminal code, national commercial law regime, national civil law and court system - in other words national laws across the board. Such a change would make things cheaper and easier for business, harder for criminals, easier for law enforcement agencies (police etc.), cheaper and easier for citizens including those resorting to courts for justice. So justice outcomes and access could be expected to improve. There'd be a reduced need for the services of bureaucrats, lawyers and accountants but surely that would be a good thing."
To me, the notion of national and uniform laws allows for local variation, but as envisaged by the law makers under that law. While "uniform" in the sense of being the result of a single law, its implementation can vary as allowed for by that law.
This means we are talking about appropriate decentralisation, rather than forced decentralisation which is the result of an accident of history (having the states). We have decentralisation because its consistent with the application of a given policy.
This might be termed "laws and regulations whose origin can be traced via delegated authority to a single source in law or policy".
Here's some points by Mark :
We can do better than the states and territories - at least in their present form
Close to people local/regional governments need to be strengthened to address local concerns (and act to counterbalance globalisation).
Need better balance of centralised and decentralised forces
Economic/fiscal justice/equity - localities/regions should be entitled to guaranteed revenue shares rather than present "trickle down" revenues at mercy of what higher levels of government will provide, subject to
Need for system that is affordable, taking into account Australia's geographic/economic disadvantages, - system to be absent of wasteful duplication in bureaucracy and regulatory burdens
Recognition that a "one size fits all" model of subnational/regional/local government unlikely to "fit the bill" given diversity of settlement patterns - we CAN wear a degree of diversity in subnational government models - two tier in some places three in others though if regional AND local, the relationship likely to be intimate enough to make the distinction academic.
Recognition that the number of subnational/regional/local governments will need to be sufficient to provide opportunity for all diverse localities to find a comfortable home but not so large as to be unwieldy (though there has hitherto probably been too much worry if the number of subnational governments is too large - experiences overseas and with our own state systems suggests that a higher level of government CAN more than adequately coordinate with well over even 100 or so subnational governments!!)
That a process of public consultation, education, advocacy is essential to provide public at large opportunity to contribute to and share in the ownership of the process of designing the "best possible" system; the critical need for this "sharing of ownership" constantly reinforced by reform and change management experiences worldwide.
This is that we should focus a system around four elements :
- responsiveness - responsibility - accountability - efficiencyCertainly, we could always say it would be better to have more of this, so we have a related statement the present system positively lacks some of these elements.
David does not want sovereignty at anything other than the national level, in the sense that he understands sovereignty and an important consequence :
What bothers me about this is that the moment we say "region X is entitled to money" it means there's nobody who can say "Region X, you no longer have a function. In 2001 when we adopted this system you made sense, but now the eastern half of you is really an extension of region Y, and the rest ought to be combined with pieces from region Z to make a new region." And I think it should be possible for somebody to say that, without the need for a referendum.
"My main problem is simply that the statement reflects an extremely centralised form of government - greatly imbalanced in this respect I believe, with grossly insufficient implied decentralisation which others in the group to my knowledge and I regard as critical."
We could get around this issue : A region has sovereignty, with one exception. The National Government could make changes to regions' makeup according to constitutional principles on application to the a regional boundary authority, mentioned in the constitution and having independence similar to the reserve bank and high court. Sub-national regions could have security of entitlement and recognition, apart from changes under what would become a clause of the constitution.
Remaining elements of the allocation of powers between the national government and the regions would provide the decentralisation that Mark wants.
As far as the powers granted the regions, David wants this to be at the discretion of the national government, while Mark would want to have changes possible only through referendum. Perhaps acts changing these powers need 80% parliamentary votes in favour in both houses, rather than the usual majority.
In the last section, I suggested we have a "hybrid" version of sovereignty, which underlines Mark's point about sovereignty not being a black and white issue. The situation I envisage has elements of sovereignty, but has an operational definition which dilutes the "pure" sovereignty which David talks about somewhat. Sovereignty, indeed, then becomes a "shade of grey".
There's been a lot of discussion on this notion, particularly between David and Mark. I understand David is concerned about the consequences of sub-national sovereignty, where a region or laws regarding regions outlive their purpose but are retained by the regions only because of pig-headedness and their sovereignty.
Sovereignty can be operationally defined in many ways, and Mark's point is that sovereignty is much more than a simple definition. We could have a "hybrid" sovereignty as described above, which we could still _call_ sovereignty. I understand David is willing to ditch the term "sovereignty" in favour of a discussion of its consequences.
However, attaching the word sovereignty to our position statement makes it appear more confrontational than it needs to be.
Regardless of the mathematics, a fair point is that there is an optimum way of expressing something, in terms of the detail or the words we use. To much detail, or too decisive an expression, and we put people off. To little, and we are not saying enough to make the exercise of saying something worthwhile.
This illuminates a point about the statements of consensus. There is a first issue about the words we use, and a second about whether we agree with what is described quite apart from the actual words used.
Its my hope, however, that the present statement of purpose up for discussion can accomodate David's views, even thouggh there may be differences in detailed positions.
In what represents the ongoing evolution of my PhD "model design process/thinking", my PhD is converging upon a system in which sovereignty is shared between the national government and localities - the latter being present local governments more or less (YES 900 or so of them) in that localities are entitled to (1) raise their own local+government taxes (e.g. rates/land taxes) and (2) guaranteed revenue entitlements from the national government (like+the horizontal equalization grants currently given to the states according to Grants Commission formulas).
Local governments would assume powers presently held by local governments plus powers and responsibilities for what can be termed "regional economic development" (including community, industry and labour market support elements) but perhaps most importantly would receive a massive boost in spending power (using some of the moneys freed up when the states are gone), hence enabling them to do what they do now but much better in terms of close to the people service provision.
So the only difference between local governments as envisaged and their present form is (1) they'd have buckets of money perhaps twice as big as presently, (2) their entitlement to equitable revenue grants would be constitutionally entrenched, and (3) they'd assume powers and responsibilities that they'd be expected to be willing and able (given the funding boosts) to assume in the form anyhow of "regional economic development" as above.
I hope and believe everybody reading this has in their mind to build a better system of government, one that is simpler and can be made really accountable. It is not about abolishing the states, for if this was done what does Tasmania become, it is a state of Australia, and will remain so. This is about taking a part of the government system, and making it simpler, streamlining it, making it fit the needs of the Australian people. This is about taking the governments of eight regions of Australia and making one national government.
I have trouble with the idea of setting up regions be it thirty or sixty. Even with sixty regions many will still be bigger then Victoria. When this is so how can there be a community of interest in such a vast area. What will be done with the large cities, will they be one region, or will they be divided up, how? People only have+an interest in their community and have no interest in a region.
I believe from what I read here, is that there is a great misunderstanding as to what local government,or councils role is, and what they actually do. If anyone looks a Victoria and sees what has happened there since the amalgamations, they will dismiss the chance of having the people agreeing to having the local councils made bigger.
The issue is not whether we can have a workable government involving 900 regions, but rather whether we can accept the necessary lack of independence and one way flow of authority which goes along with this.
I keep having to asking and as yet have not got an answer, from the people who want more states or regions, what powers they will have, how will the government be elected, were will the parliaments be. Is it 30 or 100 regions, what will define a region. How is any of this going to fix the problems we now have, is it only going to be 30 or 100 worse then the eight we now have.
I respect Max's objection to deafening silence on why - FUNCTIONALLY - larger regions/smaller states are the logical subnational unit in a two-tiered system, but as yet have no answer for him or anyone! POLITICALLY I have some senses why, but functionally needs quite a few years worth of work.
"Incidentally just because the ASC may believe abolition of the states is the best option, doesn't mean it can't support less radical proposals as being better than the present system. Perhaps we should make that clear."
And I've tried to include material in a position statement to reflect this. However, I'm also aware of a view that we should not dilute our position, lest we lose focus.
The question "Does the three tiered system of government need changing?" at present has received 303 responses as follows:
76.90% saying YES, 19.47% saying NO, 2.97% saying NOT SURE, and 0.66% saying DON'T CARE
By contrast, the question "Should the States be Abolished?" at present has received 271 responses as follows:
49.82% saying YES, 47.97% saying NO, 1.85% saying NOT SURE, and 0.37% saying DON'T CARE
The above results provide empirical support for the notion that those supportive of state abolition more or less constitute a subset of those who believe our three tiered system of government need changing.
One problem is of course the nature of the sample. Self selection of people voting, multiple votes, etc. etc. But assume there is nevertheless some significance to the values outlined.
One interpretation is that while people feel frustrated with the present system, and want change, they are unwilling to commit themselves to the sort of change that would actually get the improvements consistent with their frustrations. Therefore, they support reforming the three tier system but not abolishing the states.
I have to be careful not to be too patronising here. It is always possible people are making the decisions they make for their own very good reasons.
The alternate data point is my impression of people I know, and Peter Elyard's impressions from the talks he gives.
However, another interpretation is that people relate to "Shed a Tier" but not "Abolish the States", even though there's a lot in common. Changing our name to "Abolish State Government Collective" has been suggested, something I could go along with, though it would have been nice to differentiate ourselves from a party of the same name. I plan to have a vote on this issue soon.
We have a federal system of six well established, independent and constitutionally based States with two territories at least one of which will inevitably become a State. None of them are going to go away voluntarily and few people want them to go away. They are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
There are essentially two things that need fixing. The current States, except Tasmania, are too centralised. The arrangement of powers and responsibilities and possibly the financial sharing of the total cake need adjustment.
What might be desirable and achievable is a move towards more States with a rearranged mix of powers. The additional States might sensibly be called Regions; northern Queensland and northern New South Wales, with the Northern territory are potentially achievable targets. What would be the optimum boundaries; what would be the optimum set of powers and how should governing be structured. Can such an arrangement be seen to eventually fit within a new regional structure for Australia comprising 50 or 60 or so governing entities.
And, for a note of realism. A referendum to abolish the States requires a majority in a majority of States. Given Mark's figures, there is virtually no prospect within the even vaguely foreseeable future to achieve majorities in WA, Tas, SA, Qld, and probably Vic and NSW as well.
Even if it was a good idea, its not going to happen.
I work in Commonwealth department. As more functions are centralised in Canberra, the longer they take, the more expensive they are, and the quality drops to match the sag in morale in the nether provinces. I would have thought that Pauline is a fine example of the results of "uniform" policy making. At one stage the group was in tune with the idea of government (ie decision making) being closer to people affected.
My main problem with Brian's position is that it is dismissive of the alternatives, rather than attempting to argue them through.
I have an inclination to a system with 50 or 60 governing entities (like you), but am willing to argue through the issues, rather than dismissing out of hand the idea of having 900 councils and one Federal Government as unrealistic.
Arguing things through seems to me more positive than dismissing this or that as unrealistic. If it is unrealistic, there must be reasons for it to be unrealistic.
The view I adopt is a two stage one. First, you get the ideas out there to the point where there is a movement. From that point in the future, it becomes possible in "the foreseeable future".
Just how much you embrace the slant of "Its all too difficult, it will never happen" is up to you. Presumably you have some sense of "this is a good idea, and is worth pursuing" if you're in the ASC at all. But ultimately it is a matter for personal choice. I do not think the options we are pursuing are too abstract, or too unrealistic. They are ideas which are worth pursuit.
Mark suggested having 1V1V in our consensus statement, but we've since jettisoned the idea. I felt it was a bit too sloganistic and off the point, but that's not the only view.
"A one-vote-one-value electoral system is one designed to achieve DEMOCRATIC JUSTICE (an important foundation principle) in which the number of elected representatives is proportional to the number of votes for a particular candidate/party."
"I think the sense meant here is that there is no deliberate bias in the electoral system aimed at making some voters have a greater influence on decisions than do other voters. The major flaw in Australia's electoral system, assuming one believes in 1V1V, is the equal allocation of senators to each state, independent of the number of people in that state. In our present system New South Wales and Tasmania have twelve senators each. In a 1V1V system Tasmania would (check) have two and New South Wales would (guess) have somewhere in the twenty-five to thirty range. So today a Tasmanian voter has twelve to fifteen times the influence on the senate of a New South Welsh voter."
Hence, then it appears there is a conflict between 1V1V and state representation in the Senate. However, there's an important point about the Senate, from Brian :
"Not once in my memory (having worked there for a time) or my understanding has the Tasmanian Senators voted together. Certainly on nothing substantial. In fact most of the time they split fairly equally for and against questions put to the vote. I suppose it could be said that Tasmanian voters get more questions without notice than voters from New South Wales. I am not sure that represents "influence"."
While we can say that some electorates have greater representation per head than others, the political party system means that parliamentarians rarely represent the interest of "their region" in any real sense. (how does party politics relate to a regional interest ?) We could say that the system contravenes 1V1V, but this nonuniformity is rarely abused in a way which directly furthers one state compared to others.
A broader point (made by Mark in times past) is that a reasonably defined country region having a larger population than Tasmania has much less influence and available funds. This is however, a separate issue to parlimentary representation, or the makeup of the Senate.
In spite of contravening 1V1V, the Senate probably does function well as a house of review. According to AJ Brown :
"The right tactic has been suggested, which is to work out the purposes served by a national upper house and figure out how to get there. There are many valid reasons why many parliamentary democracies (national and subnational) have retained houses of review."
"Under whatever alternative system, there is also natural attractiveness in having a second house continue to represent minorities unrepresented elsewhere (as far as I'm concerned, thank God for Tasmania's and WA's incredibly miniscule quotas in helping deliver some wildcards, e.g. Greens and even Harradine); and a house providing the geographic/regional representation the senate was supposed to, but has never done. Boil these things down and there is probably still a role for a bicameral process."
If the senate really acted as house of state advocacy it would be far less democratic than it is, because some states really would be getting more representaton than others. The fact that people vote for the senate without strong regard for state issues (can someone more knowledgable confirm or debunk that statement?) is simultaneously (a) a democratising effect and (b) evidence against state relevance.
(However, I do seem to recall posturing from some senators - particularly WA senators - about representing their state. It is not a completely dead notion.)
Ultimately, I think we need to accept there may be a need for a house of review, but that the present senate, with representation along state lines, is an anachronism and should not be seen as supporting the notion of the states - rather than pursuing 1V1V as such. I approve of the notion of 1V1V, but do not see it as a "rallying cry".
Charles wrote :
I argue that, because the PEOPLE cannot INITIATE referenda, we are in the hands of the politicians when it comes to, say, changing the way we are governed by reducing the power of politicians and enhancing that of citizens or, say, becoming a republic with an elected Head of State.
"You're saying that you need to talk directly to the people administering the system, not just by phone or e-mail or whatever is going to be the preferred remote method in the future. I guess I can sympathise with that, but:
* I'm not sure if it's something that should be discussed in the context of constitutional reform, maybe it should be left to the policies held by a candidate from time to time and let the people decide whether to elect.
* It seems a principle that will get weaker with time, as communications get better. I guess part of your reasoning is that people should be able to go up in person so they can shout and make noise and thus evade being ignored?"
I guess it depends how much faith you have in your elected representatives, as people you delegate to make decisions on your behalf in an effort to minimise cognitive costs. My feeling is that they should be trusted least when their own interests are most involved. I suppose your cases are places where direct input from the people is more likely to be required.
At the momement, however, we do not have the _option_ of dealing with democracy in a more participative fashion, and perhaps that is significant.
While possibly important, this issue is only incidentally related to the issue of Abolishing State Governments, and I cannot see it being closely related.