Ten advantages of a federal constitution

Some commentators see sociocultural diversity as the only possible explanation and justification of federalism and argue that Australia is too homogeneous to be a federation. Yet federalism plainly works best when sociocultural differences are not too great or too territorially delineated. Multi-ethnic federations are among the hardest to sustain. Australia’s relative sociocultural homogeneity is therefore an argument for, not against, a federal structure.

Federalism’s tolerance for diversity has the further advantage of preventing the national government from being forced to take sides on matters of purely regional concern. This is consistent with the axiom of modern management science that problems should so far as possible be dealt with where they arise. For example, the Northern Territory’s voluntary euthanasia legislation became a national political issue because, as a territory enactment, it could be overridden by a Commonwealth Act. Had the issue arisen in a state, there might still have been a nationwide debate but the federal government would not have been directly involved.

4. Participation in government and the countering of elitism

A federation is inherently more democratic than a unitary system because there are more levels of government for public opinion to affect.

This more deeply democratic aspect of federalism is especially important at a time when elitist theories of government, albeit clothed in democratic rhetoric, are once again in vogue. The struggle between the idea of government by the people and government by an elite is as old as the Western political tradition itself. Elitism, however, has been dominant throughout most of history.

Throughout the 19th century, critics assailed the belief that the common man could govern as being contrary to experience and an absurdity. One after another, new theories were advanced to justify rule by a select few, on technocratic grounds, on the basis of some romantic ‘superman’ mystique, or by reason of a supposed historical inevitability. In the 20th century those theories brought forth the twin poisoned fruit of communism and Hitlerian national socialism.

The 1960s saw the sprouting of a new hybrid model of government that lies somewhere between the traditional poles of democracy and elitism, a model in which the power of an enlightened minority would help democracy to survive and progress. Variations of this model have come to be known as the ‘theories of democratic elitism’.

The new wave of elitism has gained momentum from the trend towards globalisation. The growth of global consciousness is no doubt a good thing, but the other side of the coin is that it has opened the way for undemocratic bodies such as the United Nations and its agencies to implement an elitist agenda under the pretext of promulgating ‘international norms’.

International relations circles have acknowledged this problem and labelled it ‘democratic deficit’, but no steps other than cosmetic measures have been taken to overcome it.