Over the last few years, we've run a mailing list within Beyond Federation. There's been a lot of discussion, and its brought out a lot of issues. However, if you were to check the mailing list archives, you'd find it a very difficult things to come to grips with.
So, a publication that I'm working on in association with others is to bring to together a lot of issues in Abolishing State Government, based on mailing list discussion and also incorporating extracted material from others and new interviews and discussions with people like Peter Woods.
I'm going to cover a few of the things which will end up in the booklet, to give you a flavour of it.
One thing which becomes obvious are the dualities, the opposing sides. This is true even within the broader movement to abolish the states. But we can also note the opposition; we overall believe one thing, and the other side either believes in the status quo or wants more states.
But I'll now focus on the range of views within the movment; in particular on some issues about replacing State governments with subnational governments.
A first source of tension is over just how we are to relate to local governments, and how they compare to larger entities like Brisbane City and the ACT.
Some say that local government is corrupt. And then again, people like Max Bradley will cite the checks that take place on local government. He'll point out that more people at higher levels of government have been charged with corruption than at local government level. Jim Snow observes that the opportunity for profit is greatest at local government where there is a bouyant development economy.
Peter Woods will point out that Councilors must be present for the whole meeting, not just at a division like in State and Federal government levels, and you can address your local government meeting in person ... try doing that at state parliament.
And, if we assume that local government can sometimes do good things, its capabilities are tied by the land and environment court (at least in NSW). There's a tension between local autonomy and state wide planning. A council does not have to worry about the larger issues that a state government does, and can narrowly and selfishly just worry about its own civic amenity. But equally, the state government structures can intervene in council affairs for reasons which are not transparent or perhaps not even good.
While there's a lot of interest in local government, we must remember that it only spends 5% of total government spending. However, the decisions that it makes can affect the flows of much greater amounts of money, and affect people's lives disproprotionately to its total spending.
But corruption can be categorised : there's diverting money "out of the till", so to speak, which I understand is difficult and would require significant collaboration.
But there's still the possibility of corruption in the decisions which are made at Council meetings. There's an argument that while local government does not allow gross corruption, but it does allow for corruption at the margins. That is, if there is some issue which the council is split pretty much evenly, if just one councilor changes sides based corruption, they will have an influence. But, for issues which have a relatively clear majority one way or another, there is less opportunity for corruption, as the system does check against collaboration.
But there is an important division in the models for changing government; some talk about replacing the states with regional government, and some talk about merely removing the states and perhaps beefing up the local councils, but leaving local council responsibilities closer to how they are now.
These two groups make supporting claims about small scale local government compared to the larger entities like Brisbane City : those wanting to simply remove the states and leave councils much as they are sing the praises of small councils and emphasise the problems of Brisbane City, while those wanting regional government emphasise the problems of small councils and emphase the advantages of larger entities like Brisbane City.
Frank Stilwell, a Sydney academic, has noted that as you increase the size of a government entity, you increase the available money to perform good initiatives, but limit democratic accessibility.
Mark Drummond has noted that whenever you draw boundaries and have a capital or centre, you can develop core and periphery problems. But, its a bit difficult to not draw boundaries ... nobody wants a single national government without any structure below that.
Its related to the divide between city and country. There an old debate on whether city subsidises the country, or vice-versa. Obviously, if we share an economy, we do that because there are benefits. I mean, we could separate each of the professions into their own economies, but because they cannot interact, that defeats the purpose of having professions. Now, while we can see that one side or the other has an advantage, we can easily take the analysis too far.
But its an issue I hope to give some consideration to.
But, getting back to the councils and Brisbane City; some look upon Brisbane City as having the money to do good things, and operate on a scale which delivers benefits for its residents. Others criticise Brisbane City for a lack of transparency and democracy ... but some have suggested that structural reform of Brisbane City would rectify this and retain its other benefits.
But looking back to local government ... one advantage of small local government, noted by Brad Row, is that an individual can get enough votes to obtain a seat on Council. Once Councils get large, its no longer possible for an individual to get in. You need some sort of larger structure; if not a party in name, then at least something that has a lot of the characteristics of a party.
Of course, this assumes something like what we have now. Changes through technology and the internet have been noted on the list. So far, as a candidate, you've had to "push" your message to the community. Sometimes some kind soul might arrange for a hall to host speeches from prospective candidates, or a local paper might publish some interviews. But fundamentally, its "push".
If candidates put their information on the web, and local councils provide links to their sites, then you can have a "pull" situation. But, in order for this to work, people have to take an interest.
This brings up another fundamental duality : between changes to structures, and changes to community attitudes.
Even if we assume that councils have some degree of corruption, its only possible because people do not scrutinise their councilors well enough and hold them accountable.
If we had an attitude of scruitiny, then this could get rid of a great many perceived problems with councils.
But, we can seek this change of attitude through a change of structure. If we remove the states, then we only have two levels of government for the community to focus on. Local government rises in prominence and visibility, which should make people take a greater interest in it. And so, we obtain greater democracy.
There are barriers : David Bofinger has noted that the TV stations and major newspapers have a coverage which corresponds to State and National Government, not local government. So, the current situation lends more media scrutiny to state and federal government compared to local government.
This is an obstacle : local government must rise in visibility and prominence, forcing it to become more accountable ; but sources of scrutiny and information must also increase. Not impossible ... I was talking about the internet, but it an obstacle.
I've reviewed some issues emerging from a discussion of how the states would be replaced. But there's a lot of other generally relevant issues.
One of the issues is the problems with the current system, and the motivations for change. We're perhaps aware of issues like duplicated bureaucracy, inconsistent laws and similar. I plan to include them in the boolket, but I expect they'll be considered at other presentations during this congress, so I won't go into it here.
But one important problem which I'll consider is the Murray-Darling River. We know there is a salinity problem. Salinity is caused through problems with the river water making contact with the more salty groundwater, and also with salt bearing rocks. It has nothing to do with whether the water is taken out of the river or not. But, irrigation does mean the two bodies of water come into contact, and the salinity of the river is increased.
But, irrigation means economic activity, and each state separately tries to pursue economic growth, so there's a tension between the states as they squabble over the river's resources, quite apart from any tension between economic activity and its effect on the environment.
We've also spent some time discussing the nature of farming, what crops are the most profitable, and how this seems be sending some strange signals to the farmers. We don't just have a unguided economic activity, but there is a great deal regulation in the mix as well, and it is difficult to make sense of.
According to classical government theory, its one of the main points to having a central government. The central government can sort out externalities, that is negative impacts, between the sub national government entities. A classic example would be a state which sets up its polluting industry to pollute the river get before it goes across the border. In a sense, this is what is happening now. While salinity does increase, each upstream state wants to have the states downstream deal with it.
However, there's a constitutional brake on the Commmonwealth's power : that the Commonwealth Government shall not unreasonably restrict a state's access to water. Well, this is outside the bounds of reason. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth Government has not really forcefully coordinated an approach to the Murray-Darling, and as a result it has suffered more than it needed to, even if we're make recent gains.
But, it brings up the issue of inter-state equity. Is the government intervening because its a large scale problem which requires the resources they can bring to bear, or merely because it results from the interaction between states.
Dr. Chrissy Sharpe, of the WA Greens, has brought up this issue. She points out that while the Eastern States have a salinity problem, WA has one of great magnitude.
Its an issue which underlies the ambiguity in our Federation. What do we share ? What can we reasonably expect to gain ?
Speaking of WA, there is some tension with WA thinking of the Eastern states as grabbing the lion's share of money an influence, with WA resources subsidising them. Chrissy Sharpe can at least see more broadly than this. But she notes that, while people in Perth might see the people in the Eastern states as drawing on Western Australia, people in country WA see Perth as drawing on their resources.
Now, I'm not saying that there's no truth in these issues. But, it seems to be a natural thing that emerges, where one group tends to look resentfully at another. Whether there is a good rational basis or not, its a very easy state to get into.
An important issue is the nature of the Senate. It does not represent the states as originally envisaged, but it has developed into an important check on government power. And while it does not represent the states, different population areas nevertheless have vastly differing representation.
So, the Senate is a mixed bag. While some advocate reform of the areas covered by senate seats, there is some support for the continuation of some sort of second house with representation from larger electorates.
From consideration of the Senate emerges the issue of representation itself. What are the implications of "one-vote-one-value". Do we follow it at the moment ? How vigorously should we pursue it ? When can we deviate from it ?
There is the issue of constitutional change. That's one path ahead; another is to let the states slow become irrelevant and redundant. But, assuming we are changing the constitution, there are some people who look upon our constitution as cast in stone. The holy writ, passed down to us, something to be left pure and untarnished, with the threat of demons unleashed if we dare to meddle with it.
However, the people who wrote the Consitution did not see it as something that would end up that way. They endorsed flexibility and change.
The means for changing the constitution was not intended as a barrier to change, nor a statement that the Consitution was best left alone, but rather an assurance that that change would be worthwhile.
Tasmania's Andrew Inglis Clark, one of the main constitutional architects, saw it as needing to be "a living force" and not something which worked as the "dead hand of the past".
Given how few referenda have been passed, some have claimed that the pursuit of constitutional change is a hopeless cause. But, if you consider constitutional change in a bit more detail, a different picture emerges. This analysis is based on the views of George Winterton, a Sydney academic, and Ted Mack, a retired Sydney MP.
Many attempts at constitutional change were party political, something which is obvious now and must have been obvious then. The Labor party tried to nationalise industry; the Liberal party tried to remove the communist party. These are the most obvious examples, but less dramatic party linked changes were also rejected.
Its also clear that the public voted against changes which would have increased the power of the Federal government. These were simple increases. It was not a case of increasing the checks on that power along with any such increases to power.
This is the fundamentally different thing about the changes put forward; nobody wants to give the Federal government a free hand; increased powers are matched with increased checks and balances.
Another issue is the supposed advantages of the current federal system. An interesting set was put forward by Geoffrey de Q. Walker, in his article "Ten Advantages of a Federal Constitution". Gavin Putland wrote an article for online opinion, responding to these point from a regionalist position.
However, I plan to cover the points from a more general perspective. His advantages were :
1. The right of choice and exit 2. The possibility of experiment 3. Accommodating regional preferences and diversity 4. Participation in government and the countering of elitism 5. The federal division of powers protects liberty 6. Better supervision of government 7. Stability 8. Fail-safe design 9. Competition and efficiency in government 10. A competitive edge for the nation
The right of choice and exit is one which only those financially well off to move are able to take advantage of; in contrast, a working government system benefits all.
Rather than having experiment, States do different things for the sakes of bloody mindedness, and this is a limited benefit. There is much activity overseas in similar which could be considered for inspiration.
The states have more disparity within them than between them; a farmer in Northern NSW may have more in common with farmer in Queensland than with Sydneysider. Smaller government divisions would be meaningfully able to capture this diversity.
A complex government system, as we have, means that governments can buck pass and dodge responsibility. A simpler government system is easier to understand and influence.
In the US, it was their Federal Government which intervened on behalf of blacks in the Southern States. There's no evidence that a Federal system protects liberty.
A system which is more complex is more difficult to supervise. Its difficult to see how a Federal system involving the States as we have them now is easier to supervise.
Rather than having states to counter power, high courts and different houses of parliament are more effective checks without the associated waste.
Supposed fail-safe design means that the ship can go on with one of its compartments failed. However, equivalently the whole ship can be slowly rusting because nobody notices; the whole nation can be sick like someone with a cold and never recover.
My reply to the competition argument is similar to that for experiment.
As for financial advantage, Mark Drummond has calculated that the States cost us at least $30 billion dollars a year, something we would save in removing the states. This has probably been commented on elsewhere at this congress.
The booklet is still in preparation. I've put out some text for review, but there's been limited feedback so far. We're not sure whether we'll publish it as a paper document, or as a pdf file available from our webpage, or whether we can get a publisher.
But, as I outlined earlier on, I think it is a worthwhile thing to pursue. We don't know how well read it would be, but its certainly to to be doing something positive.