The new federalism [1990]

What Consensus Bob omitted to mention was that Sir Ninian, in his final address as Governor General, declared his firm preference for the disappearance of state governments. He also failed to mention that as ACTU President he himself described Australian federalism as "absurd folly". So much for the impartial review.

Mr Hawke also spoke with deep feeling about the high cost of duplication. What he did not say was that his preference for removing duplication was to dissolve, absorb or over-ride all state government functions.

We can now expect lots of federally funded studies from "unbiased" centralists into the costs of duplication and the stupidity of different standards.

The PM likes to quote non-uniform railway gauges or education standards as a ludicrous result of federalism. In fact, the non-uniformity is caused not by federalism, but by state monopoly ownership or control of the rail and education industries. One major aim of Federalism was to prevent individual states from hindering free trade between states. Exclusive state monopolies such as Queensland Rail are offensive to this sensible federalist principle.

Coerced uniformity is a positive evil, whether practiced by federal or state governments. It smothers diversity and competition, which are the tools of discovery and innovation and the passports to "The Clever Country". World industries such as cars, cameras, computers and videos achieve whatever degree of standardisation and diversity the markets demand without any World Standards Regulators. Railways and schools would have developed similarly diverse but voluntary Australia-wide standards were it not for rigid legal monopolies operating within strict state borders.

Many people fail to distinguish between duplication, which is bad, and decentralisation, which is good. Duplication occurs where we have both a state and a federal department of health, resources or whatever.

Decentralisation occurs where the Commonwealth eliminates duplication by vacating the field entirely, leaving it to those people who are closer to those who use, pay for, or are affected by the taxes, regulations and controls they impose.

The essence of federalism is decentralisation and it is the only system suitable or acceptable to huge, diverse nation-continents such as Australia, USSR, USA or the EEC. Any attempt by the more populous states to enforce tight central control on scattered minorities will result in discord, secession and eventually revolt.

The role model for Australia must not be "One huge telephone company" so beloved by the Marxists, but a people-controlled confederation such as Switzerland. It should include the people's right to veto any act or regulation.

Politicians always fear referenda, with good reason. When consulted, the people monotonously reject proposals which enlarge central power or which benefit sectional interests, no matter how cunningly they are wrapped in pretty words such as "consensus", "co-operation" or "the national interest".

The effective conquest of federalism by centralism has been achieved by a combination of brinkmanship (federal income tax as an emergency war time measure), bribery (conditional federal grants), deceit (referenda designed to achieve more than was obvious from the words) and unconstitutional legalism (external affairs powers). This process was assisted in recent years by a heavily politicised and centralist high court. Four men, all centralists, played a major role in this defeat - Dr Evatt, Lionel Murphy, Malcolm Fraser and Gareth Evans.

The destruction of Federalism has gone too far, and we must start the repair. The first step should be a crash program to eliminate duplication between federal and state public services.