Speech by Mr Tony Windsor
Independent Federal MP for New England
5th Shed A Tier Congress
Canberra, 28 June 2002
Thank you Max, Jim, other guests here today, ladies and gentlemen.
But firstly, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I'm a little bit tired given what happened last night.
I'll try and say a few comments, a few words, that, hopefully will, as Jim said, add to the debate. And I think it's very important that we do, as a society, talk about where we would like to be, and probably more importantly than where we would like to be as individuals, is where the community would like to be.
So, I think one of the problems that we do have, and Jim would infer too, particularly with our almost divisive parliamentary system, is that we tend not to be inclusive of other points of view, and we tend to rush to a point of view, sometimes fairly ill informed as to how we got there, and then feel defensive about moving away from it.
The media has some responsibility in relation to that, but the political system that we've developed, the non-consensual system, even though last night we saw some forced consensus, because of the two houses of parliament. But there is not enough of consensual government in my view, in the broader sense.
Obviously, coming from an area known as New England, and the electorate is New England, and having been a state member of parliament for nearly 11 years, the issue of how we're governed, the equity of government, the largesse of government, how policy is developed, has been an issue that has been on a lot of people's minds for quite some time, but particularly in the last decade.
And I think we're at quite a unique point in our political history, and maybe it's something we should take advantage of in relation to the sorts of things that people in this room are talking about.
We've actually, over the last 10 or 12 years, maybe even 15, we've developed an economic philosophy policy that both major parties agree with. So, in that sense, we've moved away from division - the worker, the boss, the unions versus the barons of enterprise, used to be the division. We've removed some of that division by agreeing that we're going to have a common economic policy.
And whether you're Paul Keating or John Howard, a lot of that, through competition policy, economic rationalism, a range of other things ... there is this common thread, and the issues of division have moved on to environmental issues, and health and education related issues.
But there has been, during that period of time, another division has been created, and that's the city-country divide that's arrived.
And they feel - and it's probably one of the very reasons why I've been elected in the political process - they feel that they've been alienated by the two big groups through this decision to have a common policy and not disagree with each other into the future. So they've marginalised, in a sense, the small and the remote - those who have distance to contend with. And that's a real concern to me
And most of the people who come to me and talk about new states, or let's reinvigorate the new state of New England, or talk about regional governance and removal of the states ... most of those people are doing it because they feel as though the current system has alienated them. And I think there's a fair degree of truth in that - that they have been alienated. But the answer I've given every time I've entered this debate - and personally I believe that we should do away with state governments and have regional governments - so I guess I'm backing both horses, saying no states and new states. Because I think, constitutionally recognised and properly done, regional governments would virtually be states of their own anyway. So whether we can have a debate on those two issues - I think, in some senses, they're almost the same issue.
So my view would be, given the experience of NSW, and NSW probably isn't the best one to pick on because of this absolute dominance of the Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong area, where 70% of the population reside, so obviously you're going to have 70% of the politicians and policy decisions that are about country people are going to be made by people who don't live there. So you don't have this consensual arrangement.
From time to time we have visitations of cabinets and ministerial visits and suggesting they're paying attention to what's happening. But mostly that is window dressing. So you've got this feeling of alienation.
And what I tended to do, as a state member of parliament, is try and get some broad parameters - some objectivity into the argument.
If you do create regional governments or you do create new states, and you are fortunate enough to have them constitutionally recognised so that they get a share of the cake, as it were, because a lot of people think they're not getting their fair share, you must have some objectivity in the debate that actually shows that you will be better off.
Now I don't know the answer to that, and it is almost impossible in this parliament - and Jim may have some clues concerning this. It is almost impossible to get objective information about where the money is going. Are country people getting more than their fair share? Less than their fair share? It's a little bit easier in the state. But there is such a grey area, where the money disappears into various government channels, that it is very hard to prove in an objective sense that there are negatives or positives. However, my personal view is that country people get less than what they put in.
But to have a strong argument for regional governments, you would have to be able to show, in my view, that you don't only get that nice warm fuzzy feeling about being able to govern yourself, you are able to deliver better services to the communities that you represent.
I think what would happen is not your normal economic rationalist response and efficiency curve response.
What you would see, and Jim touched on it too - I thought it was very appropriate what he said about Vietnam, is that once you get people involved, you'll get much more creativity coming through. It's not always dollar driven. If you re-develop a sense of community and all those sorts of positives will happen, if you have your states or no states, in regions that have common bonds. If you can re-establish the common bonds, in a sense, and remove the pressure of remote government, I think a whole range of things could, potentially, start to occur.
Now, to achieve that goal, or any change in a layer of government, or how we're being governed, a number of things have got to happen. And, in my view, you've got to have some objective research to show that there are better ways of doing it.
And, a preamble to that, I guess, is to show that the system we've got at the moment isn't delivering equity to all Australians, on a geographical basis.
In fact, the common policy of the Liberal party and the Labor party is one that I call the sort of 'feed bowl' mentality: where the most efficient way to deliver the highest number of services, to the greatest number of people, at the lowest possible cost, is to put them in a feed bowl.
And we're actually doing that in communities like Sydney. And we don't - our economic system doesn't cost the social costs of cramped populations and the health costs of smog etc. in the Sydney basin, and what we're going to be paying for the next 20 years for asthma and all those health related - we don't cost them, they're not in the budgets that governments make decisions on today. We're building more and more freeways at enormous expenses. All it does is clog up another artery and generate another round of car sales and less train travel etc. etc. We all know the problem.
So that feed bowl mentality is failing us. It might be efficient in terms of straight economics, and I rather glibly use the term sometimes that, if we put people in a high rise feed bowl, you can even use gravity for some economic advantage to get the refuse out of the place.
But in my view we have gone far too far with that degree of logic, because it doesn't build in any of the social consequences of what we're doing. It doesn't take regard of the size of Australia as a nation. We're quite unique. There is nothing like us: an island continent, 20 million people, relatively clean and green environment, a whole range of opportunities that this feed bowl mentality is sending out - a whole range of negative signals to those people, and actually shrinking out of those populations.
And what you're seeing, in terms of policy, the way policy is delivered - small communities will always be disadvantaged.
Even if it's aged care. With aged care, for instance, it is uneconomic to have an aged care facility with less than I think 49 beds. So all communities under that, sort of, economic aged care criteria, will be deemed not to be able to have somewhere for their aged to live.
That's what the theory - the policy says that's what the theory says. It's not quite as black and white as that, but that's the tendency of what is happening.
So, in doing that, people make decisions where they're going to retire - not when they're 70, they make it when they're 40, or even earlier. You lose these people out of your communities.
If you had a regional government structure that's constitutionally recognised - I don't think you could trust anyone in this place to allow that to happen without strings attached to it - but if we're talking about what we'd like to see happen. If it was properly constitutionally recognised - given some real powers of administration in relation to its activities - remove the state governments as well, gave the national government responsibilities for those very important things that Jim raised - aged care was one of them - interacting with the state and federal systems, a lot of that could be removed, so you'd remove a lot of the legal argy-bargy, particularly in relation to resource management.
The Murray Darling system for instance: four states, and four different water acts, four different this, that and the other - hopeless, absolutely hopeless.
Even though there has been some movement on cross-border issues, the big issues are still dominated by this protectionism of the states.
It doesn't matter who they are - whether they're Labor or Liberal or whatever - they impose on their particular area.
So you could construct a regionally based domestic government, in a sense, in the framework of a large national government that was only responsible for those things which did have the national implications. In my view there are some things that the national government is currently involved in which they shouldn't be involved in as well, but they have to be the key player in most or all of those national resource and trade related ... and obviously international events.
I'll be here until 11 o'clock. Then I have to do some radio interviews and I'll come back a bit later, and then I'll have to fly out this afternoon.
I guess that if there's a single message that I would leave with those who do want change.
Regrettably you do have to have some objectivity basically that goes to the arguments. Otherwise you get exactly what Jim was saying about people frustrated with the party system, but they don't know what they might miss out if they move too far away from it.
You'll get exactly the same thing if you can't sell the message in an academically assessed campaign.
Some of that will include raw numbers. Some of it will include introducing new numbers like the evaluation of social costs and health costs if we don't do things in a different way.
Some of that may well require some degree of costing in relation to the better society that we can develop through having a more participatory approach, rather than the Sydney domination of NSW or the Canberra domination of the nation.
The other thing, of course, that you're going to have in your favour - that you're going to have to think seriously about is - if I lived in NSW and there was the threat of splitting NSW into six zones or adding two more states or whatever, and I asked the people of Sydney to voice their opinion at a referendum, I'd say the answer would always be "no".
So, it is very important that we do introduce criteria where there is something in it for those people as well. And I think some of those health and social related issues with the failing of our community structures - these are particularly prevalent in parts of Sydney - may well be part of a drive of that agenda.
I don't think it can be driven by saying we poor old country folk out there are sick of you terrible city people taking all our stuff - we'll form a new state - and we want you to help us pay for it, then we'll take all the money you've taken from us. I don't think we can market it in that sense. It has to embrace benefits for all.
I think one of the common threads, though, is that there is a feeling by most Australians that we do have too many politicians, and that there is too much overlay. Why have we got a state minister for education, and a federal minister for education? The national resource issues that we talked about earlier: why do those sort of things happen? And there has to be a better way of doing it. So I think we've got to link those real advantages of changing into the 21st century so that they embrace everybody rather than become a guerrilla attack from the country about neglect, and inequity and those sorts of issues.
So good luck with the debate
I know you haven't got a lot of people in, but you're obviously all very keen on some part of the debate, otherwise you wouldn't be here, and I do congratulate you for that.
I have a saying, that my research assistant up the back has heard it many times - I have a saying that I think aptly applies to what you people are trying to do. It is along the lines that the world is run by those who turn up. If we don't get involved in what is happening around you and you don't think about what could happen, the world that you live in is determined by other people, who may not have your interests at heart, and whether you're operating a school group or at a level of government, the world is run by those who take the time to participate in the process.
So I do congratulate you for taking that time and I hope that the rest of the day is constructive.
Thank you.