More democratic
Fairer
More innovative
More responsible
Co-Convenor, Beyond Federation Network.
Plato:
Government must be with the willing consent of the governed.
Government is with the resentful sufferance of the governed.
THE SHARED GOVERNMENT OPTION
Jim Snow, July 2003
Jim Snow is Co-Convenor of Beyond Federation. As federal member for Eden-Monaro from 1983 to 1996 he introduced two proposals into the Parliament calling on Cabinet to examine the need for State Governments. The proposals were both briefly debated, adjourned and never put to a vote.
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Beyond Federation is a network of people and groups who agree that the federal system in Australia prevents progress, fairness and huge cost savings in government. The federal system inhibits democracy. Beyond Federation includes groups such as Shed A Tier (involved in preparing for this conference) and individuals.
Members of the network agree that Australia’s state governments and their colony-based boundaries are the culprits.
This paper follows a fully referenced document I wrote in 1998, entitled ‘Shared Government’, now being updated. ‘Shared Government’ is just one of the range of proposals put to Beyond Federation congresses.
The option is one of many and is put forward to show that economic, environmental, and social progress can be enhanced, along with democracy, by reducing the number of central governments in Australia to one and by strengthening the local sector.
WIDESPREAD SUPPORT
Commonwealth ministers including Dr Brendan Nelson, Wilson Tuckey and Tony Abbott have all questioned the wisdom of different and conflicting state services when good reasons for those differences are lacking. Their recent comments follow strong support for removal of the State Government tier by Labor leaders including Bob Hawke and Lindsay Tanner, the Greens, the Democrats and, in the 1990’s, the Business Council of Australia and writer, Rodney Hall. Prime Minister Howard has also said that Australia would be better off without State Governments.
The Prime Minister added that we just have to put up with state governments, a remark that should make it clear that most reformers need to convince voters rather than politicians in this day of surveys and opinion polling.
As our network has found, there is no lack of support from the people. Commonwealth government sponsored Federation discussions in towns and suburbs throughout Australia brought forward the suggestion ‘ABOLISH STATE GOVERNMENTS’ from more than fifty meetings. The matter was not on any agenda for discussion; it was high on the agenda of many who attended.
Along with this support there has been consistent erosion of State powers -
Since federation most Prime Ministers and High Courts in Australia have whittled away at state powers in ad hoc way. Some of the important tax, transport, environmental, health and social service measures in our nation have been the positive results.
Sometimes the states have co-operated to achieve uniformity, often they have accepted federal intrusion (with funds) to improve infrastructure and services and frequently the cooperation has failed to endure.
Whatever the source of moves to uniformity – governments or courts – there has been no attempt to decide:
Where there should be diversity.
Our constitution was formed after a series of conventions around the country. The founding fathers accepted the idea of an evolving constitution and people need to demand that we have another look at our political system and whether it is in the right shape for the 21st century.
Is there uniformity where it is needed? Is there enough diversity to encourage initiative and innovation where it is needed?
Having set priorities and cost cuts and efficiencies from everyone else those of us in politics failed to apply those demands from ourselves.
We failed to foster a more efficient system and thereby hampered the transfer of information, needs and ideas from neighbourhood, workplace, and our community associations and organisations to where they can best influence policy-making – the local sector of government and Australia’s parliament and its executive.
The successful reformers at the times of Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence brought great opportunities for the natural human inclination towards democracy and civic virtue. The intentions of the reformers was to improve both the power and duties of people as participants in community and government and their aims have only succeeded insofar as people have been engaged in community and government.
When people are disinterested in community and government – when people feel they have no say they ask no questions and corruption happens.
When people are disinterested in community and government there is no duty of care for community and government, the only possible conduits of roads, schools, hospitals and environmental sustainability. Hugh Mackay quotes the 19th century essayist William Hazlitt: ‘People who love liberty love others. People who love power love themselves’. So where there is no sense of duty towards others, vandalism and crime will thrive.
Community involvement brings both engagement – a sense of belonging - and responsibility. While there has been some progress in achieving a sense of belonging there have also been some serious lapses:
PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND GOVERNMENT.
With three levels of government making different rules about issues such as transport, roads, childcare, community health, people do not know where the buck stops or who to go to when there is a problem.
STANDARDS AND RULES ARE DIFFERENT WHEN THEY SHOULD BE THE SAME.
Having large centralist state governments means there is little opportunity for diversity yet plenty of opportunity for differing rules and regulations when they should be the same throughout Australia:
A child moving from one state to another should not be upset and discouraged by quite different education standards. A child moving from Victoria to Queensland might expect to cope with local emphases on environmental or workplace requirements but should not have to be bored with English already covered and distressed by Mathematics for which there has been no introduction.
A cancer patient visiting relatives in Canberra should not have to be distressed and horribly inconvenienced by the refusal of a pharmacist to supply medicine on the prescription of a NSW Doctor.
A Doctor from South Africa accepted for practice in a Victorian town on the Murray should not be barred from practicing in a NSW hospital which lacks a Doctor and is just over the river.
When an accused law-breaker is not extradited for trial because of state differences there are delays in justice, further crimes can be perpetrated and lives threatened. When a criminal has fled interstate there can be long delays in extradition.
Federal Minister Tony Abbott suggested that States be cut out states as funding agents for schools, hospitals and public services. He has listed problem areas where State administration is unnecessary, costly or unfair:
Health
Adoption
Drug control
Food standards
Doctor, pharmacy and nurse registration
Forestry
Railways – travel and freight transport and different systems
Road transport
Driver Licences
School starting ages
Basic school curriculums
Professional and technical requirements
Consumer protection and labelling
Safety standards
Flora and fauna
Industrial law
Company law
Partnership
Probate
Aviation
One could add gun laws – recent disputes between the Commonwealth and States on handgun control surely does not require another Port Arthur.
Those differences hurt people and are a cost to taxpayers and businesses. They burden people creating misunderstanding, hostility, distress, illness, and legal disputes and lower productivity.
Like his leader, Abbott see the stupidity of the arrangement but all he talks about is by-passing the states – an action his own government if not another may change if the political complexion of the states changed.
YET THERE IS LITTLE REAL OPPORTUNITY FOR DIVERSITY
People need more opportunity to develop their ideas. There are opportunities for diversity between localities – cities, provincial, rural and remote – only to be unleashed when those localities achieve more power: country from city domination and city from having to administer the country.
Community structures must be small enough to allow local ideas to develop and big enough to have a say in national decision making. This is why SHARED GOVERNMENT proposes less than 30 regions or ‘territories’ to administer the local sector – in place of State and local government.
The Shared Government option tries to achieve sufficient cohesiveness for local advancement and sufficient power in the national parliament to protect the right to pursue that local advancement.
MAINLAND STATE BOUNDARIES DO NOTHING FOR LOCAL DIVERSITY AND NOTHING FOR LOCAL ADVANCEMENT.
The boundaries are based on lines drawn by colonial Australians and distant Englishmen and our mobile population is increasingly questioning their logic. Bryan Pape, Chair of the New England National Party Electorate Council has suggested 20 states with some state functions going to the Commonwealth.
This desire coincides with those in Beyond Federation who believe that the large cities would do a good job administering themselves at the sub-national level and that non-metropolitan areas would work better if their boundaries took more account of common interest.
If non-metropolitan Australia were not administered by parliaments with city majorities there would be more freedom for local ideas to develop and if the cities ran themselves the opportunities for advancement seen in Singapore, Hong Kong, Brisbane and, more recently, Canberra, would be available
-AND IT MAY BE A BETTER WAY TO SPEND DOLLARS
The cost of government is unnecessarily expensive and diverts funds from peoples’ pockets, businesses, more efficient democracy and better services and facilities.
My Co-Convenor, Mark Drummond, has shown that the big, centralist tier of State Governments is more expensive – tens of billions of dollars more expensive per year – than many of the suggested alternatives.
We would do better to leave more funds for our communities, businesses and organisations to seek out their own strengths and develop their own ideas.
We would do better to cease the current accusations of improper expenditure between Commonwealth and States.
We would do better to cease the arguments over money where the Commonwealth has fiscal but not legal responsibility.
We would do better to cease the costly duplication where there is dual responsibility by both State and Commonwealth and where there is responsibility by all three levels.
Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is a good example of cost savings when one central government is in control of an issue that does not require diverse arrangements. Canada, with its provinces running expensive local schemes has praised our scheme and the single Commonwealth ‘monopsony’ power to negotiate terms of price and reimbursement with drug companies. The costs have been kept down Canadians told the Australian Prescriber Vol. 25 no 6, 2002.
Beyond Federation community congresses give people a chance to discuss alternatives put forward to reduce the cost of government.
We also have the opportunity to achieve better democracy by firming up the sovereignty of the people – giving Australians more authority.
WHERE IS THE AUTHORITY?
Globalisation is rightly seen by many as too much economic control by global firms. We have increasing global control but no global rules for them to operate under.
The ideas developed under Shared Government should go some way towards insulating communities from control by global firms whether media, agribusiness, drug companies, financial or any other type. They may even strengthen communities against any defence threat from without or within.
While the world’s governments try to get their act together nations and communities can structure their operations so that
They are able to fall back on their own resources and develop their own momentum.
Localities and workplaces are given a better opportunity to have a say in national policies that can help or hinder that momentum.
The idea of Shared Government is to link government from neighbourhood through district or suburb through their territory to the national parliament and even from where people associate (workplace, organisation) to the national parliament.
SHARED GOVERNMENT – THE IDEA
Shared government means the sharing of government IN THE NATIONAL Parliament between a local sector represented in the Senate and a national sector represented in the House of Representatives.
This is something like the original and failed intention of the Senate as a state house.
Under the proposal the term ‘territory’ is used to designate suggested local government areas. I see no real problem with most of the terms used for sub-national divisions – counties, provinces, regions or states. ‘States’ may confused with the present system, yet may be a way of adapting from federalism by keeping the five present state mainland capitals as city states and Tasmania - all as states. ‘Region’ is a general term often used for local, national and international arrangements.
The arrangements for local representation under shared government:
These arrangements limit the number of local government areas to not more than 27 to ensure democratic representation at the national level, so that they are viable:
Up to 27 territories based on common interest rather than population.
Each metropolis is one territory and Tasmania is one territory. The five metropolitan territories may have planning divisions of up to 1 million people.
Non-metropolitan territories are based on one or more existing growth centres or viable towns or cities.
Each territory has a Congress consisting of
An Executive, the administering body of the Territory, with an elected salaried Governor, and (with numbers according to the Territory population) elected salaried Members and elected salaried Senators who also serve on the National Parliament. Meets regularly when the Senate is not meeting.
A Congress consisting of the Executive and all Mayors and Deputy Mayors meeting once or twice a year.
A District council meeting consisting of the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Neighbourhood Wardens and Deputies and one rostered executive member. Meets at least once monthly.
all the above appointments are elected at the same poll.
The Duties:
NEIGHBOURHOOD
Each town or city neighbourhood and each rural district has an elected warden and a deputy who receive an honorarium but no salary. The wardens respond to community needs in relation to emergencies such as fire, flood, and other disasters and civil defence if needed. The deputies respond to other local needs including welfare and social needs. Both are able to refer community needs and problems to government administration and full time elected representatives. Both are able to encourage local volunteer activity and training and neighbourhood meetings. The successful and ongoing Neighbourhood Watch meetings reported in a limited number of areas of Australia, including my own town of Queanbeyan, are examples of what can contribute to community understanding of government, democracy and responsibility. People receive briefings and discuss a wide range of issues including drugs, services, emergency arrangements and local needs.
DISTRICT
Voters appoint a town, suburb or rural area Mayor and Deputy-Mayor – also on honorariums. Both formally meet with the wardens and deputies at district meetings and serve on the Territory Congress which meets once or twice a year.
TERRITORY
The salaried executive Governor, Members and Senators of the Territory congress effectively run the territory but must give attention to recommendations of congress and, if rejected, allow further reconsideration by congress at least once either at a special or ordinary meeting.
EXECUTIVE
Executive members must attend Executive meetings, Congress and, by roster, district meetings.
SENATE
Senators must attend Congress Executive, Congress and the national Parliament. It would be necessary to transfer the Senate Estimate Committee role to the House of Representatives to allow time for the full Local Sector obligations of the Senators and to ensure that they hear the local needs.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MEMBERSHIP MAY BE AS NOW OR SEE ‘SUGGESTED RESEARCH’ BELOW.
Those who called for rationalisation of everything else have shunned rationalisation of government. If the founding parents of our constitution could move beyond colonial divisions we can move beyond federation and consider the wisdom of research and work being done on a system that has failed to move with the times.
Suggested research on representation:
As I worked on the Shared Government idea I developed the realization that geographic representation, while still relevant no longer represented people’s vital interests and activities properly and that this may be another reason for popular dissatisfaction with politicians.
In the words of Hudson and Stokes: PLACE HAS BECOME A COMPLEX THEORETICAL MATTER AND CANNOT BE REDUCED TO PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OR AN ECONOMIC REGION.
The workplace has become socially more important than neighbourhood and is often the scene of many liaisons and friendships. The workplace is the economic basis of the nation rather than the neighbourhood. The local area we live in may not be as important as what we do. Workplace and neighbourhood used to coincide. Similarly activities and interests used to mostly be confined to neighbourhood. With Internet and mobility this is no longer the case.
Therefore it would be sensible to examine whether people should be represented by their function in society – whether in employment, employer, retired, home duties or other. Preliminary work on this has shown that a House of representatives based on function could more equitably represent Australians because:
It complements representation in the Senate of where we live with what we do in the House of Representatives.
It raises the value of our functions in the workplace (what we create becomes as important as where we live).
The idea lends itself to proportional representation and reduces the power of people in marginal seats, spreading that power across all electors.
Representatives of creators of goods, services and leisure pursuits are more likely to respond to the needs of the economy.
Persons under-represented in the parliament now – retailers, construction industry, home-duties, hospitality industry – whether employer or employee would elect people, as would those in home duties and retirement. Thus they would have a say and a responsibility where they do not so far. Lawyers were among those over-represented in my exercise.
Functional representation has a bad record. The first UK parliament, Italy under Mussolini, Hong Kong and Indonesia (army representation) have had a very selective and undemocratic form of functional representation. At least they recognised the notion that it is important to have the powerful represented.
A democratic form of functional representation could include both the powerful and the powerless.
I suggest research into possible democratic forms of functional representation and even representation by one’s interests or activities or both.