Mark began with his comments in reply Greg Craven's article in the Australian, 'Varied states hold the key to our rich federal mosaic'.
"The old cry that they are nothing more than lines on a colonial map may be discarded".
Professor Craven's claim that state boundaries represent some sort of watertight cultural divide overlooks the plain reality that diversity within state bounds well exceeds diversity among the states - the urban-rural divide being a case in point (i.e. rural places have more in common irrespective of which state they fall within etc.)
"The states serve to separate powers geographically" My letter below addresses this one - the point is that devolving powers only as far as entities as vast in size as NSW (in both land area and population), WA and QLD (the latter two especially in terms of land area) hardly achieves any substantive decentralization as clearly implied by Prof Craven.
"Even more pointedly on the score of popular democracy, the states are programmed to respond to the wishes of their electorates"
But again the electorates are too big - they do not constitute close to people governments and mask intra-state diversity including in terms of democratic preferences etc. How often do we see comparative statistics tables comparing NSW versus QLD versus TAS etc. A point here is that the Hunter and Riverina in NSW might have statistics (on any demographic or other measure) that depart as much from the NSW average as the TAS statistics might.
(Following a real beauty!!) "To put this in a more fashionable form, the states are communities. They are a means by which people can feel free they are more than undifferentiated units in a national economic whole"
NO NO NO Greg: people feel part of TWO undifferentiated wholes in the present system - sending us cross-eyed as well as neglected! Accepting the country as an appropriately undifferentiated whole (the entire basis of country unity!), the problem is that, again, the states are generally far too big to distil out any substantive local differentiation. Prof Craven uses football codes as a proxy for significant cultural division. Notwithstanding that Aussie Rules is played well into southern NSW, if that's the best he can do ...
And as for the communities - the states again are simply far too big inland area and even in population terms to be regarded as any sort ofcommunity in any intimate "close knit community" sense.
"Finally the states are social laboratories. With a national and six state governments busily legislating, a much wider range of policy options are experimented with in Australia than in comparable unitary states. Worthwhile options survive and are taken up. The detritus falls to the bottom of the federal fish tank."
This overlooks the petty-minded parochialism that makes states differ for sake of difference (albeit knowing full well that falling into uniform line threatens their justification for existence). How does Craven's claim explain the rail gauge fiasco? And recent legislation regarding carp (allowed in ACT, banned elsewhere)? Differences in school starting ages? And I guess the shortage of doctors in the bush is such a great idea that all the states are doing it!!! Come on Greg????
In this day and age we can quite easily look at what other comparable (I assume Greg means first world democratic countries) are doing. I'm a fan of the Swiss and Scandinavian systems - the former a federal system though the latter are unitary though highly decentralised with a sort of social contract of power sharing between national and local government, whereas the arguably uncivilised/adversarial/British tradition pioneer countries like USA, Canada and Australia needed to draw a up legal contracts (in form of a federal constitution) to impose a power sharing scheme which, again, arguably more civilised countries like the Scandinavian ones could manage simply through an entrenched culture of power sharing and cooperation between central and local levels of society.
"The states, then, are to be defended on two grounds. Aesthetically, they are storehouses of subtle diversity in a world much threatened by Los Angeles sitcom homogeneity. Functionally, they are expressions of precisely those principles of government that, in other contexts, we rush to defend. We are so ready to assert that one must be an Australian, rather than a West Australian. Would it not be richer to be both?"
The diversity issue has been addressed earlier - inter-state diversity is less rich than intra-state or inter-regional diversity (where regions here are defined in terms of greater significance than state boundary terms). Much of the rural neglect/alienation problem in part connected with Hansonism seems connected with this neglect of close to people localities and their very real but diverse needs.
What principles is he referring to? If the principle of subsidiarity (according to which it is claimed that power should be devolved to the closest to the people level practicable etc.), say, is such a great idea, then Prof Craven overlooks just how extremely centralised (in terms of constitutional as well as fiscal power) our states are. The states are hypocritical for complaining of federal centralisation whilst at the same time exercising such centralised control which flies in the face of subsidiarity. If the principle of democracy is to be taken seriously then close to the people democracy is surely essential and needs to be backed up by "buckets of money" with which close to people governments can competently address the needs of all our communities.
Professor Greg Craven ("Similar diversity: The Australian States and the Australian nation", SMH, 21/3) raises various flimsy defences of our present federal arrangements which demand urgent rectification.
Whereas at Federation we were about the wealthiest country in the world, the rigours of global competition have seen our wealth slip significantly relative to other first world democracies. At the Centenary of Federation our dollar is now worth well under half the US dollar value it held in 1981, representing an average annual devaluation of 4% compounded over 19 years. This decline is no doubt partly due to the unique disadvantages we face due to our far flung settlement patterns and isolated location between Asia and Antarctica. But we have also suffered under the increasingly crippling weight of nine centralised sovereign governments (the commonwealth, state and territory governments) and the enormous, relentlessly compounding costs of duplicated bureaucracy and regulatory friction they impose.
Contrary to Professor Craven's claims, none of our mainland states nor the northern territory can legitimately claim to be close to the people like the state equivalents are in places like Switzerland, Germany and even the United States.
We can do little to change our geographical circumstances and associated economic disadvantages, but fortunately, our Constitution and democracy do allow us to change our system of government!
Unless we seriously pursue an economically (and hence socially and environmentally) sustainable and affordable system of government, with strong national and close to the people governments to provide a hitherto unseen balance of centralisation and decentralisation, expect our national "share price" to slide further!
Abolish the States!
The conservative WA Professor Craven (SMH 21/3, pp. 3 and 13) is opposed to a unitary state but his defence of the existing federal system is very unconvincing. His principal justification is that the subtle cultural differences between the states are good diversity. Sure, but there are commonalities, divergencies and interests right across the nation which are surely much more important than those state divergencies.
Proposals for a unitary Australia with appropriate regions is described by him as revealing national insecurity. Why? To me the insecurity appears to be with those who fear such change.
Why replace the federal organisation? Because it is now a highly counterproductive division of power; it has become a costly hindrance to the economy; investors are exploiting state rivalries to the full - at our expense. Surely we are talking every day about surviving in a globalised world. We now must and can unite this nation much more effectively. The tyranny of size and distance have largely disappeared - excellent transport and communications systems have seen to that.
With a population of barely 19 million million does Australia still need 9 Parliaments (a total of 15 chambers), plus 9 civil services? Over 800 politicians? The country has far too many politicians per head of population, four times as many as the UK and six times that of the US! In almost every sphere of public endeavour and policy the pressures to find national solutions to problems are overwhelming.
I certainly am in favour of abolishing the present political entities called "States" and replacing them with 25 to 40 regional jurisdictions, which would incorporate what is now local councils, and would more directly deal with local issues and better utilise funding. Each of these autonomous "regions" (new "states") would elect two Federal Senators, and those would be a better balance in Parliament than the present makeup of that chamber. The regional government would be in the same format as present local councils, to avoid a huge burden of redundant mini-parliaments.
I believe in abolishing local and state governments and establishing bioregions that are centred on sustainability - own water catchments, industrial cities and food production, and gradually turning away from global trade so that we can employ our own kids and get on with fighting for human rights in the world
There was some discussion of electoral systems, with Bear having real problems with the proportional system, but no-one else (that I could tell) having anywhere close to the same dislike. There was mention of proportional representation.
Then there were parliamentary systems. This was perhaps a little more on topic.
I am not a supporter of the Westminster System for many reasons (and strongly advocate an extra-parliamentary system for Australia with a symbolic President) but I should point out that the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of Malta, which both have the Westminster System, use Proportional Representation for their national parliaments. I haven't heard about major problems there.
The term "extra-parliamentary executive' requires explanation.
1. Essentially it means that the political executive is not "in and off the parliament" - in the Westminster it is. Ministers must be "in and off the parliament" . They also tend to dominate the legislature - (which is quite undesirable in that it interferes with the true function of the legislature in my view).
2. There are two kinds of "Extra-Parliamentary executive" . (a) The Presidential system of the United States which has a very strong Presidency - it is in fact quite unique although some Latin American countries have tried to copy it - rather unsuccessfully. (b) The Extra-parliamentary executives of most European countries which are not "in and off the Parliament" - they are outside it. Ministers often can attend debate in the legislature but they do not vote in it. Many of such countries have symbolic Presidents, eg. Italy, Greece, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Czech Repulic - also South Africa (no longer a Westminster system. All of these Republics have Proportional Representation and multi-party systems in the legislature as a result. (Intally has partly done away with PR last year). As I said Malta and Ireland have symbolic Presidents - operating somewhat as our G-G., combined with Westminster system and PR.
3. In an extra-parliamentary system (other than the US) the symbolic President is part of the political executive but often only the symbolic part, broker, umpire, arbitrator, etc. Nothing incompatible with that. Only in France is there a kind of dual executive in that the President of the Fifth Republic (de Gaulle's creation) does have shared powers with the Government. He also chairs the Ministerial meetings but there is a Premier who heads the (coalition) Government. Contrary to expectations this has not given rise to major problems even though the President and Premier can and do belong to opposing parties. France is an exception though.
www.ablesoft.net/shedatier
2. Shed a Tier - a lobby group set up to abolish state governments; at: http://www.shedatier.com.au/
Contact Councillor Max Bradley Chairman Shed A Tier Po Box 37 Berrigan 2712 Ph Fax 03 58 852722
3. The Abolish States Collective - a discussion group seeking to develop cooperative approaches to achieve the abolition of the states; at: http:// www.oocities.org/davidbofinger/asc.htm
4. Work by Mr Chris Hurford AO on two tier government involving some 50 region states at:
http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/geog/regionalstates/
5. Australian Regionalism: Federation to Future - a research project conducted by Griffith University's Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance (KCELJAG) along with the Courier Mail, which is exploring the value of our system of government with a view to developing a better system.
At:http://www.gu.edu.au/centre/kceljag/home.htm
Contact: A J Brown Haig Patapan Key Centre for Ethics Law Justice & Governance Griffith University Nathan QLD 4111 For more information Ph (07) 3875 5490 Fax (07) 3875 6634
6. University of Canberra PhD student Mark Drummond, working on PhD with provisional title:
The Design of a "BEST POSSIBLE" SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT FOR AUSTRALIA with emphasis on local and/or regional government structures and boundaries, and the powers, responsibilities and revenue entitlements of each level of government.
Towards a best-possible new system of government http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/2001/Jan01/Drummond.htm
A $30 billion annual boost that better government can deliver! http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/2001/Jan01/Drummond2.htm
Getting a 'best possible' system of government by referendum without delay. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/2001/feb01/Drummond.htm
7. Opportunities to have your say in response to the following questions (at the websites indicated):
"Should the States be Abolished?" www.publicdebate.com.au/is/193/index.html
"Does the three tiered system of government need changing?" www.publicdebate.com.au/is/14/index.html