Canning federalism - the Liberals' legacy?

That means that those who seriously support such changes will need to look towards the potentially powerful Senate for change because at least it is possible for voters to vote for people other than the major party candidates in the Senate and have some success. The major parties instruct their voters to vote for them in the Senate as well, but there is no real need for voters to follow these instructions; however, in the past most major party voters do follow these instructions and so there exists a nexus between their two votes. This nexus will need to be broken by voters - they need to de-couple their two votes - and vote for parties or Independents who desire system change.

Only when such candidates are successful in gaining seats in the Senate is it conceivable that major parties may yield to pressures for system change - in return for support for their own policy programs. If major party voters do not de-couple their votes we end up with a "Rubberstamp Senate", such as we have now, and the entire purpose of the Senate is thereby destroyed given the rigid nature of the major party systems.

The only other alternative is that the ALP changes its mind on federalism. That is not what the ALP is talking about right now though. Their defensive counter to Mr Howard's brazen opportunism, amazingly, is to "improve federalism", a stronger COAG role, but not drastic surgery. We have heard all this before. It is a non-solution.

Mr Rudd fears to frighten the horses by bold initiatives on system change. Yet there is growing popular support for this kind of reform. The people want transparency, simplicity, clear accountability, meaningful decentralisation, more funding for local government and a stop to the endless blame shifting that is part of the increasingly useless two-party tyranny.

If the ALP is elected federally there is an exceptional opportunity to restructure Australia. One would think that is where the ALP wants to move the public debate, soon. Thus far there is no sign of it.