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Money is the weapon in this war

By Bruce Haigh - posted Thursday, 13 September 2007


Messing about with structures will not solve the underlying problems of governance besetting Australia.

Successive federal governments, culminating in the Howard Government, have been users not nurturers. They have not value added.

At the root of the problem is a failure to respect or understand the nature of democracy. To be successful, a democracy requires understanding, commitment, respect and constant nurturing. Over the past 30 years we have witnessed an abuse of democracy through ignorance, selfishness and greed. This immaturity has been reflected and encouraged by our elected leaders at all levels of government and by the media.

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How can local government be held accountable with the appallingly low standards maintained by many local newspapers, TV and radio stations in rural Australia? This observation applies equally to the state and federal sphere. It would not matter what reforming structures were put in place, they soon come undone in the absence of public scrutiny.

Government in Australia is adversarial. Howard v the People, Howard v the States, the States v Local Government: all levels of government complain about lobby groups, special interest groups, minority groups, yet the adversarial system creates them. The squeaky wheel gets attention. No vision, no decision-making on a needs basis and no equitable distribution of resources.

Money is the weapon in this war. The Commonwealth collects 80 per cent of revenue, the states spend, indeed are required to spend 50 per cent. There is a shortfall: state and local government consistently get the rough end of the stick.

Beattie’s solution has been to apply downward pressure (it’s easier) on local government. But issues of local government are more complex and while amalgamations might offer some temporary relief it will not solve underlying problems. It is an unimaginative solution but what can we expect from a man who is about to sell 8,000 megalitres of water from the Warrego River to major irrigators, the same group that Howard will favour under his flawed Murray-Darling “proposal”.

Control over the collection and distribution of money gives Howard the whip hand. It is power. This power has been abused by a succession of federal governments, treasurers and prime ministers as they played with politics rather than implement policies and acted with short rather than long term vision.

Changing structures will not necessarily change the nature of government. For as long as we elect less than average individuals to the three levels of government nothing will change, no matter what we do with the structures. For as long as journalists remain more concerned with the mortgage than morality our political process will continue in decline no matter how we redefine the structures.

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If we choose not to get involved in the political process, other than at election time, we should not complain about branch stacking; a perversion of the political process that delivers the lowest common denominator as a candidate. A change of structure will not ensure honesty or good intent and without them even the best designed political structure will fail.

It is obscene and immoral that the Howard Government has a surplus of $17 billion of tax payers' money in the run up to the election with the prospect that they will spend some or all of it on short term schemes to get re-elected. For as long as governments behave like that, and are allowed to behave like that, no re-jigging of the structure will reform the political process. Checks and balances to curb the abuse of power is probably the best we can hope for if the national interest proves insufficient to direct and govern political behaviour.

The debate over the future system of government has been launched by the political opportunism of Howard. An investigation into his abuse of power and how it was made possible will provide a guide to the weaknesses in government and how best they might be addressed.

There is no doubt that the structures of government are in need of reform, but the process should not be reactive and hasty; it should be thought through and implemented with care. In any case reform should be a continuous process in response to on-going change.

Selling public assets in response to party ideology has not been in the national good.

It is hard to identify the public good in the sale of the Commonwealth Bank, a corporation which helped keep the other banks honest. In the light of the oil companies rorting motorists maybe it would have been sensible not to have sold the Commonwealth Oil Refinery (COR) to BP. Who has gained from the sale of Telstra, Qantas, CSL and water utilities? Who has gained from the private funding of road works? Who will gain if Iemma sells off electricity companies? Is it proposed to privatise the water in the Murray-Darling Basin?

Perhaps a consensus needs to develop on the role of government before structural reform is attempted.

If state government is folded into local government won’t the competition between the states be replaced by competition between local governments? And there will be a lot more local government entities than there are state governments.

If a local government area becomes Labor dominated will a Liberal federal government squeeze it for funds?

Wouldn’t an aggressive and dictatorial federal government abolish local government and appoint its own area manager arguing that the only vote that counts is for the government that collects the bulk of taxes?

Without co-operation and proper financial arrangements between the states and the commonwealth the relationship will inevitably struggle. The same would be true if the states were abolished and the commonwealth dealt directly with local government. The bottom line is that for any arrangement to work good will is required.

A commonwealth government, unconstrained by the checks imposed by the states, would only be as good as its intentions, which as we have observed with the Howard Government have not been good.

What would happen to the state courts and legal system? Would they be transferred to local government? Could they be transferred to local government? Or would the federal government take them over? Not a good idea in my opinion.

What would happen to the Senate?

A question that arises is: what greater or further abuses of power would have been achieved by Howard without the constraint offered by the states?

Perhaps if we want a more responsive political process we should change the system of voting to first past the post.

There is a case for decentralisation in rural areas; one area of concern is the provision of health services. A greater involvement on the part of local government in health delivery together with the reinstatement of hospital boards might assist in meeting normal standards.

The running of Post Offices might be contracted out to local government as a means of raising extra money. We might look at common purchasing practices by local government and the centralisation, or perhaps outsourcing, of town planning.

Even outside of this debate and certainly as part of any change to government the commonwealth should, as a matter of urgency (be made to) accept responsibility for all major infrastructure development, perhaps in conjunction with defence spending, spending on ports, airfields, roads, railways and the delivery and conservation of water.

The scope for the introduction and implementation of efficiencies within and between the three levels of government are infinite and would no doubt save a lot of money. I can’t see a case for the abolition of state government within the terms now being proposed, mainly because of the abuse of power by the Howard Government. If this democracy is going to function as we want, we need to look at ways of preventing those abuses occurring again.

A start might be to create a standing committee on the preservation and enhancement of democracy comprising members of all three tiers of government.

Issues relating to media reform, and ways and means of boosting our collective self confidence and respect, are matters for another debate and other papers.

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About the Author

Bruce Haigh is a political commentator and retired diplomat who served in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1972-73 and 1986-88, and in South Africa from 1976-1979

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