tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/federation-8040/articlesfederation – The Conversation2023-03-26T00:40:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020492023-03-26T00:40:54Z2023-03-26T00:40:54ZAustralia is now almost entirely held by Labor – but that doesn’t necessarily make life easier for leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517472/original/file-20230325-280-n8w4up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff (right) is now the only non-Labor leader at federal or state level.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Dominic Perrottet gave a gracious concession speech after his defeat in the New South Wales election on Saturday night, it was hard to avoid favourable comparison with the United States. There was no sign of rancour or hyper-partisanship. He praised Labor’s Chris Minns for a clean campaign. He predicted Minns would be a “fine” premier, urging people to “get behind him”.</p>
<p>But in one respect, our politics do look more American: Australia now has “red” and “blue” states, although we reverse their political colour scheme. The maps have already begun to appear on social media. The Australian mainland, with its five states and two territories, is now “red”. Only little Tasmania remains “blue”, looking like an antipodean Taiwan, with the sole surviving Liberal government in the country.</p>
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<p>These look like good times for Labor. It is not quite there yet, but the last time – indeed, the only time – it has been in office in all nine of Australia’s jurisdictions was for a few months between late November 2007 and early September 2008, between Kevin Rudd’s federal victory and Alan Carpenter’s loss to Colin Barnett in Western Australia a little over nine months later. </p>
<p>The parties of the right have also only once, since 1910, held office everywhere: for just over a year, in 1969-70, between a win in Tasmania and a loss in South Australia. In those days, the bar was a little lower than today, for neither the Northern Territory nor Australian Capital Territory had gained self-government yet. Australia had six sub-national jurisdictions, not the eight of today.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-is-odds-on-for-a-narrow-victory-in-nsw-election-but-it-is-far-from-a-sure-bet-201174">Labor is odds-on for a narrow victory in NSW election, but it is far from a sure bet</a>
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<p>An obvious question to ask of these circumstances is whether they matter for the governments involved. Is it, for example, easier for a federal government if the states and territories are ruled by the same party? Is it better for a state or territory government if the government on the federal scene has the same complexion?</p>
<p>Like so many historical questions, the answer isn’t simple.</p>
<p>If government by one party is rare in Australia, a situation where one party has become preponderant nationally is not. The 1980s, for instance, was a Labor decade in ways that extended well beyond the ascendancy of the Hawke government. Labor was also in power in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia for much of the decade. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, there was something of a reversal. Beginning in New South Wales in 1988, all four of those states became Coalition or Liberal by 1993. To balance things a little, Labor won power in Tasmania (in an Accord with Greens Independents) and Queensland in 1989. But when the John Howard government came to office in March 1996, there was just one Labor government left in Australia, that of Bob Carr in New South Wales, which had returned to office the previous year.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517473/original/file-20230325-1922-77vz42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">When John Howard came to office following the 1996 federal election, only NSW had a Labor state government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Graham/AAP</span></span>
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<p>These configurations very likely reverberated in federal electoral politics. In 1990, as Labor’s tide went out in Victoria, it was coming in for the party in Queensland. The early unpopularity of some hardline policies of the Kennett government in Victoria possibly helped Paul Keating in the 1993 election.</p>
<p>There was some irony here, since Keating’s relations with Kennett were healthy in a way they had not been with John Cain, Victorian Labor premier through much of the 1980s. Cain, who tried to steer his government on a Keynesian path in an era of economic rationalism, blamed Hawke government economic policy for many of the difficulties his state had faced during the decade.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-antony-green-professor-andy-marks-and-ashleigh-raper-on-the-nsw-election-201957">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Antony Green, Professor Andy Marks and Ashleigh Raper on the NSW election</a>
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<p>Here is a reminder there is no guarantee of sweetness and light simply because the same party holds office in a state and in Canberra. The history of strong disagreement between federal and state governments of the same complexion is almost as long as the history of the two-party system itself. </p>
<p>When the Fisher Labor government sought additional powers via a constitutional referendum in 1911, it was stymied by opposition from the New South Wales Labor government, and especially the attorney-general, William Holman, who saw in the proposals a dangerous trend towards centralisation of power. </p>
<p>The most spectacular clashes between federal and state government have arguably occurred when they have represented different sides of politics. Those over censorship and conscription during the first world war in 1917 between T.J. Ryan, the Queensland Labor premier, and Billy Hughes, who had split the Labor Party and formed the Nationalists, were legendary.</p>
<p>Gough Whitlam’s exasperation with Joh Bjelke-Petersen led him to call the Queensland premier a “bible-bashing bastard”. The latter’s actions in filling a casual vacancy with a Senator hostile to the Whitlam government, and a similar action by a Liberal premier of New South Wales, damaged Whitlam. But it should be recalled that there were also strains, over money, between Whitlam’s government and that of his Labor counterpart in South Australia, Don Dunstan. </p>
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<p>Conversely, there is little evidence until quite late in the day that the Howard Coalition government was greatly hampered by having to face a wall of Labor governments in the early 2000s. </p>
<p>There was a rather pointed walk-out from a Premiers’ Conference over health policy in 2003; one of the premiers involved was still chuckling about it years later when recounting the stunt to me. And the premiers, especially Victoria’s Steve Bracks, made difficulty over the Murray-Darling basin policy late in the life of Howard’s government.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, state and territory governments, whatever their stripe, have a strong incentive to cooperate, even if few are as simpatico as Labor prime minister Ben Chifley, and South Australian Liberal and Country League premier Tom Playford in the years following World War Two. Meanwhile, Scott Morrison’s relations with both Gladys Berejiklian and Dominic Perrottet disclose how unhappy political families can become.</p>
<p>Anthony Albanese will be taking nothing for granted in his relations with Labor state and territory governments. And the premiers and chief ministers will know better than to expect too many free kicks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Bongiorno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History shows us there is no guarantee of sweetness and light simply because the same party holds office in a state and in Canberra.Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1885802022-08-29T20:02:14Z2022-08-29T20:02:14ZDemocracies are fragile. Australians must act urgently to safeguard ours<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481442/original/file-20220829-33878-3yol5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The solicitor-general’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/morrisons-multiple-ministries-legal-but-flouted-principle-of-responsible-government-solicitor-general-189227">recent finding</a> that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s furtive accrual of ministerial portfolios “fundamentally undermined” the principles of responsible government has drawn attention to the precarity of democracy. In seeking to safeguard our democracy, we must consider the extent to which Australians’ long-standing apathy about our democratic system allowed Morrison to treat it with such contempt.</p>
<p>Democracy is under threat around the world. Donald Trump’s autocratic populism and the attempted coup at the Capitol in January 2021 are familiar to Australians, but so-called “strongmen” have been white-anting democratic conventions in countries including the Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Venezuela and Brazil for the past two decades. </p>
<p>Democratic government is a compact between the people and the state. It relies on robust institutions and an engaged and informed citizenry that holds its elected representatives to account. Complacency and ignorance provide fertile ground for populists and autocrats to spread misinformation, undermine institutions and disregard democratic conventions.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrisons-multiple-portfolios-why-the-law-has-nothing-to-do-with-it-188892">Morrison's multiple portfolios: why the law has nothing to do with it</a>
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<p>Australians have recently shown enough concern to reject Morrison’s secretive and misleading government even before the ministries scandal was revealed. </p>
<p>Yet, worryingly, there is plenty of evidence that Australians remain both apathetic and ignorant about their democracy and its institutional guardrails.</p>
<p>Civics education was reintroduced in Australian schools in 1997. Yet, the most <a href="https://acaraweb.blob.core.windows.net/acaraweb/docs/default-source/assessment-and-reporting-publications/nap-cc-key-results-2019.pdf">recent review</a> of the civics curriculum indicated only 38% of Year 10 students – the level at which the compulsory civic curriculum finishes – are proficient in civics and citizenship knowledge. Young people care passionately about issues such as gender equality and climate change, yet are ill-equipped to participate in Australian democracy.</p>
<p>The data about civics education sit within a wider context that is highly concerning. Faith in our democracy has been plummeting since the early 21st century. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/The-2019-Australian-Federal-Election-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study.pdf">2019 ANU Australian Election Study</a> found that trust in government had reached its lowest level on record, with only one in four Australians saying they had confidence in their political leaders and institutions. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.edelman.com.au/trust-barometer-2021-australia">Edelman Trust barometer</a> indicated a spike in trust in democracy in Australia during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. That pattern has not been sustained. <a href="https://www.edelman.com/trust/2022-trust-barometer">The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer</a> found trust in democracy among Australians had fallen six points since 2021, the second biggest decline behind Germany. </p>
<p>If we are to protect our democracy from bad-faith actors in the future, we need to restore faith in government and equip people with the skills to be vigilant custodians. This formidable task must begin with encouraging a sentimental attachment to Australian democracy.</p>
<h2>Federation disappeared from view</h2>
<p>Unlike Americans, whose precarious democracy is extravagantly mythologised, Australians are not inclined to celebrate their democratic achievement. This tendency can be traced to our national beginnings. </p>
<p>When the Commonwealth of Australia was created in 1901, Australians were more inclined to believe that nations were made in war rather than an act of the British parliament. Some, like the first Attorney-General Alfred Deakin, sought to establish a commemorative tradition on January 1. Deakin suggested the date be known as Commonwealth Day but found little support among his colleagues. The Federation poet George Essex Evans tried to muster pride in the fact that Australia was “Free-born of nations, Virgin white, Not won by blood nor ringed with steel”. But <a href="https://www.angloboerwar.com/books/96-hales-campaign-pictures-of-the-war/1957-hales-contents">the sentiment of</a> journalist and author A.G. Hales more accurately represented the view of the majority:</p>
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<p>A nation is never a nation</p>
<p>Worthy of pride or place</p>
<p>Till the mothers have sent their firstborn</p>
<p>To look death on the field in the face […]</p>
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<p>The peaceful achievement of a national democratic government at Federation simply disappeared from view.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481440/original/file-20220829-62013-8l0l6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Why is the great achievement of Australian federation in 1901 not more widely celebrated?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Museum of Australia</span></span>
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<h2>Anzac became our founding myth</h2>
<p>Australians manufactured a creation myth 14 years later, during the first world war. According to the Anzac legend, Australia was born on April 25 1915 when Australian and New Zealander soldiers stormed the cliffs at Gallipoli.</p>
<p>The popularity of the Anzac legend declined during the 1960s and 1970s but has undergone a massive resurgence since then. Bob Hawke’s “pilgrimage” to Gallipoli with a group of elderly veterans in 1990 began the pattern of prime ministers inserting themselves at the heart of Anzac commemoration. </p>
<p>Since 2012, governments have channelled more than A$1 billion of taxpayer money into Anzac commemoration. This spending bonanza includes <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/david-stephens-why-is-australia-spending-so-much-more-on-the-great-war-centenary-than-any-other-country/">$550 million</a> on the centenary of the first world war – more than any other nation and possibly more than all other nations combined. Governments have also spent <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/100m-monash-centre-on-track-to-miss-visitor-target-by-many-thousands-20181204-p50k2z.html">$100 million John Monash Centre</a> at Villers-Bretonneux in France and the controversial <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-07/australian-war-memorial-expansion-given-approval-early-works/100196328">$500 million renovation</a> of the Australian War Memorial.</p>
<p>This extraordinary outlay of money would be more wisely spent by our political leaders on sponsoring a mythology of Australian democracy. </p>
<h2>Why we need a mythology of Australian democracy</h2>
<p>Australia has more than enough material with which to build a democratic legend. As the political scientist Judith Brett <a href="https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2018/opinion/from-secret-ballot-to-democracy-sausage">has written</a>, the Australian colonies and the early Commonwealth were </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a laboratory for new ideas about democracy, and new methods of achieving them.</p>
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<p>The colonies pioneered government-provided ballot papers and provided separate voting booths, which allowed people to cast their votes in secret. Women were early to get the vote, though when the Commonwealth enfranchised women in 1902 it disenfranchised Indigenous women and men. </p>
<p>In 1911, Saturday voting was introduced, making it easier for working people to cast their ballots. Preferential voting was introduced in 1918 and compulsory voting in 1924. Along with our non-partisan, bureaucratically managed election campaigns, compulsory voting helps Australia ameliorate the polarisation and voter suppression that are eroding American democracy.</p>
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<span class="caption">Compulsory and Saturday voting has done much to bolster Australian democracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
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<p>While the Anzac legend is rooted in Australia’s Anglo-Celtic heritage, a democratic legend has the potential to appeal more widely. The latest <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-census-nearly-half-australians-have-parent-born-overseas#:%7E:text=The%202021%20Census%20found%20that,cent%20reporting%20a%20birthplace%20overseas.">census results</a> confirm the cultural diversity of our population: 27.6% of us were born overseas, and 48.7% have at least one parent born overseas. </p>
<p>In addition to those who feel no connection to the Anzac legend, some of us come from places where democratic mores are not culturally entrenched. We need to include all Australians in the democratic project.</p>
<p>A concerted public education program must reckon with the failures of Australian democracy. These are most glaring in the treatment of Indigenous Australians and non-white people. The United States stands as a cautionary tale of a nation whose democratic swagger does not match reality.</p>
<p>Creating a sense of civic custodianship will not only protect our democratic system. It is also essential to achieving major initiatives such as an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a republic and the federation reform that is urgently needed. Only eight of 44 referendums have succeeded since Federation, because Australians who are uncertain or disengaged simply vote “No”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/changing-the-australian-constitution-is-not-easy-but-we-need-to-stop-thinking-its-impossible-183626">Changing the Australian Constitution is not easy. But we need to stop thinking it's impossible</a>
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<p>Humans protect what they value. Australians are not inclined to learn about their democracy because they feel little attachment to it. This sentimental deficit must be filled by a concerted effort by government to enthuse Australians about our democratic system. </p>
<p>Imagine if the Commonwealth showed the same commitment to fanning a mythology of Australian democracy as it has to propagandising the Anzac legend. A $1 billion campaign to mythologise the democracy sausage – that could work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She volunteered for the independent candidate for Goldstein in the May 2022 federal election. </span></em></p>Australia has a great story to tell about its democracy – recent events have shown the importance of understanding and celebrating that.Carolyn Holbrook, Senior Lecturer in History, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1670482021-12-20T22:09:20Z2021-12-20T22:09:20ZRepublic of Western Australia: how the west has always charted its own course, from secession to COVID<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435518/original/file-20211203-23-mt9cbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C2%2C459%2C352&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Four secessionist delegates holding the proposed flag for Western Australia in 1934.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of WA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For nearly two years, Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan has sealed his state off from the rest of the world to pursue a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MarkMcGowanMP/posts/388455319309986">hugely popular</a> zero-COVID strategy. </p>
<p>Now the state is inching closer to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-13/wa-border-open-date-announced-by-mark-mcgowan/100683620">reopening its borders</a> to the world in early February, when 90% of the adult population is hopefully double-vaccinated. </p>
<p>The pandemic has tested the strength of the federation in many ways, but no state or territory has sealed itself off from the rest of the country as WA has. </p>
<p>McGowan’s <a href="https://expressdigest.com/wa-premier-mark-mcgowan-launches-a-blistering-attack-on-basket-case-nsw-over-covid-catastrophe/">strong stance on borders</a> has reminded many of the long streak of separateness that has defined WA throughout history and placed it at odds with its eastern neighbours. </p>
<p>The distance from its sister states (and, before federation, sister colonies) helped make WA a late and somewhat reluctant member of the Commonwealth of Australia. This feeling of separateness remains today, although formal secession, once a dream of WA residents, is still a fantasy.</p>
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<h2>Reluctance, then acceptance, of federation</h2>
<p>By the 1890s, the campaign to unite the Australian colonies was gaining momentum. A depression in the eastern colonies bolstered the argument that all Australians would benefit from a common market.</p>
<p>Western Australians were far from convinced. The discovery of gold had led to a rapid growth of WA’s population and wealth. Western Australians worried their prosperity would be undermined by greater competition with the eastern states.</p>
<p>WA did not hold a referendum on federation in 1898 and 1899 when the other colonies did. But public sentiment soon shifted. The Gold Rush had sparked an influx of colonists from eastern Australia to the goldfields around Kalgoorlie, and pressure from these “tothersiders” saw the WA parliament reluctantly agree to a referendum. </p>
<p>More than half of the “yes” vote in the 1900 referendum came from easterners working in the goldfields. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-why-western-australia-would-find-it-difficult-to-divorce-canberra-14663">Breaking up is hard to do: why Western Australia would find it difficult to divorce Canberra </a>
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<h2>Immediate attempts to break away</h2>
<p>It took only five years, however, for the WA legislative assembly to tire of federation. In 1906, it passed a resolution in favour of WA’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth that did not lead anywhere.</p>
<p>The real impetus for an actual secession movement came during the Great Depression. Western Australians became increasingly resentful of protectionist tariffs imposed by the Commonwealth government on foreign imports. This protectionism seemed to benefit manufacturers in New South Wales and Victoria at the expense of primary producers like them. </p>
<p>In 1930, a Dominion League took wing in WA. The league was a pressure group whose aim was to make their state autonomous from Canberra. WA would instead be a “dominion” of the British Empire in the same way Australia and Canada were. </p>
<p>The Dominion League persuaded the Nationalist government led by James Mitchell to submit a referendum for secession to WA voters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435517/original/file-20211203-25-42h665.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A meeting of the Dominion League for the secession movement, 1934.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of WA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The referendum took place on April 8 1933, at the same time as a state election. By a majority of two to one, Western Australians voted in favour of secession. </p>
<p>Voters also elected a Labor state government, and the premier, Philip Collier, was confronted by popular sentiment that was overwhelmingly in favour of separation from Canberra. He could not stop a loyal WA delegation petitioning the British parliament for secession in 1935. </p>
<p>The route the secessionist delegation favoured was an <a href="https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/prod/filestore.nsf/FileURL/mrdoc_12573.pdf/$FILE/Secession%20Act%201934%20-%20%5B00-00-00%5D.pdf?OpenElement">imperial act of parliament</a>. This would amend the Australian Constitution, which had been enshrined in an act of the UK parliament. </p>
<p>The British parliament, however, rejected the state’s petition. It maintained that its own <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/history-of-the-commonwealth/statute-westminster#:%7E:text=Statute%20of%20Westminster%20gives%20legal,facto%20independence%20of%20the%20dominions.">1931 Statute of Westminster</a> had given Australia dominion autonomy. So the only way WA could achieve independence would be with Canberra’s consent.</p>
<p>The Dominion League was bitterly disappointed, and got a modicum of revenge in 1937 by voting out the most prominent local advocate of federation, Senator George Pearce. </p>
<p>In the longer term, the federal parliament helped turn around the mood for separation in WA. It did this, in part, by promoting financial aid to WA and other smaller states through the Commonwealth Grants Commission. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435516/original/file-20211203-17-bp2jam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A souvenir envelope marking the celebration of the secession referendum in 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>WA battles with Canberra over resources</h2>
<p>From the 1930s onward, WA often clashed with Canberra and the eastern states. </p>
<p>One fight was over a 1938 decision of the Lyons government to stop the Japanese-led development of iron ore deposits at Yampi Sound, off Australia’s northwest. To do so, the Lyons government completely prohibited the sale of any Australian iron ore to foreign countries.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1950s, WA governments campaigned to modify the federal iron ore embargo. Finally, in 1959, the WA government led by Premier David Brand and Charles Court, the minister for industrial development, took unilateral action. It decided to advertise a public tender for the development of deposits at Mount Goldsworthy, a mining area that used Port Hedland as its outlet. </p>
<p>This started a chain of events that eventually persuaded the Menzies government to relax the embargo in 1960. The end of the embargo allowed the development of what would become Australia’s greatest export industry. </p>
<p>Then, in the 1960s and ‘70s, Canberra’s stipulation of minimum prices for WA mineral exports enraged the state government. </p>
<p>Court, WA premier from 1974-82, also campaigned against the Whitlam government’s plan to bypass WA by developing the oil and gas resources of the North West Shelf through a sovereign oil company. </p>
<p>In this context, a <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/159324082">“Westralian” secession movement</a> was revived with the financial backing of mining magnate Lang Hancock. It harked back to the rhetoric of the secessionist movement of the 1930s, but failed to translate an anti-Canberra sentiment into a concrete outcome like the 1933 secession plebiscite.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wa-border-challenge-why-states-not-courts-need-to-make-the-hard-calls-during-health-emergencies-143541">WA border challenge: why states, not courts, need to make the hard calls during health emergencies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Echoes of the past</h2>
<p>As recently as 2017, a group of WA Liberals revived a proposal to make the state an independent nation. </p>
<p>Since then, WA and the Commonwealth have frequently been at loggerheads, most recently over Clive Palmer’s challenge to WA’s closed borders during COVID (which the Morrison government backed for months until realising McGowan’s stance had overwhelming public support). </p>
<p>Today, distance and hard borders are being hailed as potential saviours of the west from the pandemic and the interminable lockdowns in the eastern states. After closing itself off for nearly two years, WA seems finally ready to reopen, although those long-harbored secessionist dreams will likely never die.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lee receives funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for a history of the Department of Trade. </span></em></p>WA Premier Mark McGowan’s strong stance on borders has reminded many of the long streak of separateness that has defined Western Australia throughout history.David Lee, Associate Professor of History, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1653142021-08-12T20:02:15Z2021-08-12T20:02:15ZFriday essay: Our utopia … careful what you wish for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415223/original/file-20210809-23-10wntby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C31%2C1556%2C1223&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A slide by Gordon H. Woodhouse to accompany a 1901 lecture by his father Clarence entitled 'exploration and development of Australia'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1752211">State Library of Victoria</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Roman Quaedvlieg <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-01/border-force-commissioner-operational-matters-roman-quaedvlieg/6586274">standing tall in his smart black suit</a> — medals glistening, insignia flashing — looked every bit the man-in-uniform from central casting when he posed between then Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on 1 July 2015 to launch a new paramilitary unit to protect Australia’s borders. </p>
<p>Australian Border Force was modelled on a similar agency created in Britain two years earlier but with a distinctive accent. Its <a href="https://osb.homeaffairs.gov.au/">Operation Sovereign Borders</a> had changed the culture of military, policing and customs agencies in Australia as they were pushed out of their silos with a new shared priority: stop refugees arriving by boat. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just 14 months earlier Scott Morrison, then the Immigration Minister, had <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/we-will-stop-the-boats-promise-check/5474206?nw=0">announced</a> the formation of the new armed and uniformed force, describing it as the “reform dividend from stopping the boats”. </p>
<p>The 70 year-old department had gained a new role: “Border Protection”. The old tags — “Multiculturalism”, “Citizenship” and “Ethnic Affairs” — were artefacts of other ages when population growth coupled with social cohesion had been the goal. The armed Border Force that had emerged out of the chrysalis of the old customs service, complete with new uniforms, ranks and insignia, on that mid-winter day was another sign of Canberra’s increasing preoccupation with security and militarisation. </p>
<p>Fear and safety were still at the heart of the political narrative just as they had been for most of the time since 2001, when Prime Minister John Howard won an unlikely election victory by declaring over and over: “<a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22library/partypol/1178395%22">We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances under which they come</a>”. </p>
<p>He liked to reassure people that Australia would still be taking more than its share of refugees, but the proportion of overseas-born residents fell over the early years of his prime ministership. After decades of multiculturalism the Australian ear was once again being attuned to new arrivals as threat.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cruel-costly-and-ineffective-australias-offshore-processing-asylum-seeker-policy-turns-9-166014">Cruel, costly and ineffective: Australia's offshore processing asylum seeker policy turns 9</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Taking it to the streets</h2>
<p>By 2015, Australia’s proportion of overseas-born residents was nudging the all-time high of 30% reached in the 1890s, but multiculturalism was still a grubby word. </p>
<p>Without irony, Commissioner Quaedvlieg cut to the chase, reducing the new nearly 6,000-strong agency’s role to its essence: “to protect our utopia”. Decades before, the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin had <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=krN_n7UpJI0C&lpg=PA20&ots=wt6iRtQdd3&dq=The%20idea%20of%20a%20perfect%20society%20is%20a%20very%20old%20dream%2C%20whether%20because%20of%20the%20ills%20of%20the%20present%20which%20lead%20men%20to%20conceive%20what%20their%20world%20would%20be%20like%20without%20them&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=The%20idea%20of%20a%20perfect%20society%20is%20a%20very%20old%20dream,%20whether%20because%20of%20the%20ills%20of%20the%20present%20which%20lead%20men%20to%20conceive%20what%20their%20world%20would%20be%20like%20without%20them&f=false">elegantly demolished the idea of utopias</a>, suggesting they were “a fiction deliberately constructed as satires intended to shame those who control existing regimes”. </p>
<p>A month after the launch of Border Force, its first big public exercise, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/border-force-fiasco-operation-fortitude-cancelled-as-protest-shuts-down-melbourne-streets-20150828-gjah7n.html">Operation Fortitude</a>, was announced. Officers were to walk the streets of Melbourne and seek proof of the right of residence of “any individual we cross paths with”. The warning was clear: If you commit border fraud you should know it’s only a matter of time before you are caught. </p>
<p>The residents of the Melbourne branch of “our utopia” fought back with a dose of theatricality, to prove Berlin’s point, and the joint operation with the Victorian Police was abandoned in a flurry of protests and press releases. Prime Minister Abbott <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/prime-minister-tony-abbott-says-border-force-operation-fortitude-was-a-mistake-20150829-gjammd.html">declared</a>, “Nothing happened here except the issue of a poorly worded press release”. </p>
<p>Within a couple of years, the uniformed commissioner from central casting had gone. The intent, however, remained clear. Immigration might be at an all-time high, but exclusion was still the key, and national security was at the centre of Australian public life.</p>
<h2>Ills of the past and present</h2>
<p>Deciding who could come and the circumstances under which they could enter the country has, as we have been again reminded during COVID times, been central to the management of the Australian utopia since 1901. </p>
<p>Again <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87435.The_Crooked_Timber_of_Humanity?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=VF2HdXEbmH&rank=9">Isaiah Berlin</a> notes the: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] idea of the perfect society is a very old dream, whether because of the ills of the present which lead men to conceive what their world would be like without them … or perhaps they are social fantasies – simple exercises in the poetical imagination. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Australia at the time of Federation was awash with bad poetry by mediocre poets. So if conceiving the nation as a utopia was an exercise of the poetical imagination, it was inevitably flawed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="drawing of crowd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom Roberts’ depiction of the opening of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia May 9, 1901, By H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York at Melbourne’s Exhibition Buildings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1660125">State Library of Victoria/Tom Roberts</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first step towards the creation of Australia’s white utopia was brutal and relentless. It depended on the humiliation and elimination, by design and neglect, of the million First Nations people who in 1788 still called the continent home as they had done for countless generations, managed with an elaborate, ancient patchwork of languages, social relations, trade and lore. </p>
<p>Although the Australian Constitution explicitly excluded them from the census, by the time the <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/facts-and-figures/population-and-households">3.7 million</a> new arrivals became Australians in 1901, the First Nations population <a href="https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-population-in-australia#toc0">had been reduced</a>, systematically and deliberately, to about 90,000 people.</p>
<p>The men who debated the legislation that would shape the new nation preferred to avert their eyes. They were not, however, ignorant of what had gone before. </p>
<p>Even in a world shaped by race there was argument, opposition and some shame. Months after Australia became legally, unequivocally white, the parliament debated whether to recognise the survivors who preceded them. </p>
<p>The senate leader and future High Court justice <a href="https://biography.senate.gov.au/richard-edward-oconnor/">Richard O’Connor</a> argued that just as the right to vote was being extended to women — because in some states, they already had the franchise — the same principle should apply to Aboriginal people who had the right to vote in four of the former colonies. “It would be a monstrous thing, an unheard-of piece of savagery”, he declared, “to treat the Aboriginals whose land we were occupying to deprive them absolutely of any right to vote in their own country”.</p>
<p>Not everyone agreed. The former Tasmanian premier <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/braddon-sir-edward-nicholas-coventry-5330">Edward Braddon</a> summed up the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=5zHAGNPTkqIC&lpg=PA121&ots=PSKZmhnR3f&dq=Evans%2C%20R%20'Pigmentia%E2%80%99%3A%20Racial%20fears%20and%20white%20Australia%2C%20Berghahn%20Books%3B%20Meaney%2C%20The%20Sydney%20Morning%20Herald%2C%2013%20March%201913.&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=pigmentia&f=false">majority sentiment</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are told we have taken their country from them. But it seems a poor sort of justice to recompense those people for the loss of the country by giving them votes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This argument prevailed. White women and Maori were the only <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/women#:%7E:text=Section%204%20of%20the%20Commonwealth,she%20was%20already%20entitled%20to">exceptions</a>: “no aboriginal native of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Islands of the Pacific” could enrol to vote. Within its first two years, the parliament had failed two moral tests.</p>
<p>At the heart of the Australia embraced by those who met in Melbourne in the Federation Parliament was the idea of a model society populated by men like them. Utopian dreams had played out in many ways in shaping the new nation. A decade earlier, nearly 300 colonialists sailed to Paraguay in a flawed attempt to create a more perfect, and even whiter, society called <a href="https://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/1893-the-new-australia-colony-collection/index.html">New Australia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white photo of huts" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looking for an even whiter utopia, several hundred people set off for Paraguay to establish the New Australia colony between 1892–1905.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3532740438/in/photolist-6obdDU">Flickr/State Library of NSW</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prime Minister Edmund Barton, in the middle of the first year of the century, firmly <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/APF/monographs/Within_Chinas_Orbit/Chapterone">grounded the new nation</a> in the “instinct of self-preservation quickened by experience”. Optimism tempered by fear. </p>
<p>What became known as the White Australia policy was necessary, he said, because “we know that coloured and white labour cannot exist side by side; we are well aware that China can swamp us with a single year’s surplus population”. </p>
<p>Future prime minister Billy Hughes spelt out the two steps of this dance when he <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15404648">candidly observed</a> that having “killed everybody else to get it”, the inauguration of Canberra — which they considered calling Utopia — as the national capital “was unfolding without the slightest trace of the race we have banished from the face of the earth […] we should not be too proud lest we should too in time disappear. We must take steps to safeguard the foothold we now have”.</p>
<h2>Fresh eyes</h2>
<p>In 1923 Myra Willard — a recent graduate of the University of Sydney — paid Melbourne University Press to publish its first monograph, her book <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/history-of-the-white-australia-policy-to-1920-paperback-softback">History of the White Australia Policy to 1920</a>. She wrote with a contemporaneous eye. </p>
<p>The debates in the colonies before Federation were still close enough for the lines between them and the 1901 legislation to be thickly etched with detail. She grimly recounted the way each colony penalised and excluded “coolies” and “celestials”.</p>
<p>“The desire to guard themselves effectively against the dangers of Asiatic immigration was one of the most powerful influences which drew the Colonies together,” she wrote. She quoted with approval the now infamous speech by Attorney-General Alfred Deakin in which he described the principle of white Australia as the “universal motive power” that had dissolved colonial opposition to Federation. At heart, he <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/APF/monographs/Within_Chinas_Orbit/Chapterone">declared</a>, was “the desire that we should be one people and remain one people without the admixture of other races”.</p>
<p>The Australian utopia depended on a “united race”. This would be ensured by “prohibiting the intermarriage and association that could degrade”. As Deakin declaimed in September that year, “inspired by the same ideas and an aspiration towards the same ideals of a people possessing a cast of character, tone of thought … unity of race is an absolute essential to the unity of Australia”.</p>
<p>The legislation was finally, if somewhat reluctantly, signed by Governor General Lord Hopetoun just before Christmas 1901. London was discomfited by the determination of the new nation to exclude and proposed amendments to save face with her imperial allies in Europe and Japan. Willard wrote in 1923, “Australia’s policy does not as yet seem to be generally understood or sanctioned by world opinion”. It was, she maintained, despite the negative connotations, really a positive policy that ensured Australia would be a productive global contributor of resources and supplies.</p>
<p>By the time the legislation passed, those with Chinese heritage were fewer than they had been in the 19th century. It did not take long before Indian residents who had lived in Fremantle for years, as British subjects, were denied the right to return to Australia after visiting their homeland. Those of German heritage, who made up about 5% of the population at the turn of the century, soon became pariahs — wartime internment was followed by the deportation of 6,000 Australians of German heritage.</p>
<p>Gough Whitlam <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/end-of-white-australia-policy">revoked</a> the policy as one of his first acts as prime minister. </p>
<p>“Right up to our election in 1972”, he <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/756135.100_Years">recalled</a>, “there had to be, from any country outside Europe, an application for entry referred to Canberra and a confidential report on their appearance […] The photograph wasn’t enough, because by a strong light or powdering you could reduce the colour of your exposed parts. It was said that the test was in extreme cases, ‘Drop your daks’ because you can’t change the colour of your bum’.” </p>
<p>For Michael Wesley, now deputy vice chancellor international at the University of Melbourne, and thousands of others, this meant that his Australian-born mother could return home with her Indian husband and brown babies without fear of deportation.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/german-experience-in-australia-during-ww1-damaged-road-to-multiculturalism-38594">German experience in Australia during WW1 damaged road to multiculturalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The echoes still resonate. Fast forward to this year, when the average time in immigration detention rose to 627 days and the then Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/peter-dutton-defends-decision-to-deport-minor-to-new-zealand-following-backlash-over-trash-comments">described</a> deporting New Zealand-born long-term Australian residents who had been jailed as “taking the trash out”. </p>
<p>The suite of bills passed in that first parliament — at least as much as the Constitution — determined the social nature of Australia for much of the 20th century. As Deakin said a couple of years after the White Australia policy was adopted, “it goes down to the roots of our national existence, the roots from which the British social system has sprung”. </p>
<p>By the time he was prime minister, the bureaucratic method of exclusion was even <a href="https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1903-alfred-deakin">clearer</a>: “the object of the [language] test is not to allow persons to enter the Commonwealth, but to keep them out”. John Howard could not have asked for a better crib sheet than the speeches of the Federation Parliament when preparing his 2001 election campaign.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FxlunUpz-Nc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘It’s about this nation saying to the world, we are a generous open-hearted people … but we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Survival against the odds</h2>
<p>That Australia has emerged as a cohesive multicultural society, with people drawn from hundreds of different countries — and increasingly from those that were once explicitly excluded — is a remarkable achievement. That the First Nations people have survived is in many ways even more remarkable. </p>
<p>But the foundation story of our notional utopia is still undigested and recurs unwittingly in policy language and political rhetoric, in legal and administrative practice and personal abuse. </p>
<p>The brutal speed and wilful political rejection of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-has-brought-a-global-reckoning-with-history-this-is-why-the-uluru-statement-is-so-crucial-149974">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> would have shamed even the members of the Federation Parliament; the failure to turn enquiry into action on the oldest issue in the land — treaty, truth-telling and settlement with the descendants of those who have always been here — is unconscionable. </p>
<p>Methods of border control are now more likely to be couched in the convoluted small print attached to visas, employment conditions and bureaucratic processes, but at some level the old order prevails — there has been no national apology to those who were humiliated by the White Australia policy, no formal truth-telling to address these sins of the past at a national level. It has taken 23 years for the compensation recommended by Stolen Children inquiry to be parsimoniously granted.</p>
<p>Hands are thrown up in mock astonishment when another example of institutional or official racism, discrimination or maltreatment makes the headlines. Over a decade, the cost of detaining (and breaking) those refugees who felt compelled to leave their homeland reached double-digit billions. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/21/australia-address-abuses-raised-un-review">International criticism</a> is once again worn with bravado as a badge of honour rather than a mark of shame. It was surprisingly easy to jettison 50 years of careful relationship-building with China.</p>
<p>Ever since those first debates in the Federation Parliament there has been a moral deficit in Australian politics, a reluctance to go back to first principles, to meaningfully make amends. Until this is addressed there will always be an action deficit. The big public health campaigns have not extended to addressing the lingering racism that has equally pernicious consequences. </p>
<p>No national political leaders rose to the defence of Adam Goodes when the 2014 Australian of the Year was called “an ape” and booed off the footy field. None came to the defence of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/yassmin-abdelmagied-on-becoming-australias-most-publicly-hated-muslim-20170816-gxxb7d.htmlv">Yassmin Abdel-Magied</a> when she sought to contribute to public life. The response to the never-ending list of Aboriginal deaths in custody is couched in mealy-mouthed administrivia. </p>
<p>When Prime Minister Julia Gillard was battered by misogynist hectoring, the message to other women was clear: don’t get ideas above your station. Almost every week a woman dies at the hands of her intimate partner, but overwhelmed police seem powerless to help. </p>
<p>Our treatment of refugees attracts a global condemnation that is dismissed as readily today as it was in 1901. Behrouz Boochani will probably never set foot in the country he described so searingly in his much awarded <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39284186-no-friend-but-the-mountains?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=LjTkWE6v8u&rank=1">No Friend but the Mountains</a>, and despite public support, the Murugappans — <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56768529">the Biloela family</a> — spent nearly three years in costly detention on Christmas Island. </p>
<p>Yet when the government banned Australian citizens and permanent residents who happened to be in India as COVID raged from returning home under threat of fines and jail terms, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/01/coalition-condemned-for-outrageous-decision-to-fine-or-imprison-australians-returning-from-india">outcry</a> was impossible to ignore. </p>
<p>The brutality of the old ways still lives in the memory. A colleague recalled her traumatic fear, during the family’s first trip to India with their Pakistani-born father, that the White Australia policy would be reintroduced and they would be denied re-entry. It had happened to those returning to Fremantle Harbour a century earlier — and, astonishingly, again in 2021.</p>
<h2>Utopia out of step</h2>
<p>Public sentiment is at odds with that of those who are most committed to the old status quo. Survey after survey shows a populace willing to embrace change that means people are treated better. But there are few leaders willing to make the case, fearful of an imagined backlash, rather than embracing the need for big tough conversation. Transformation is left to the slow accretion of a new normal. </p>
<p>Tens of thousands turned up at the football waving “<a href="https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/istandwithadam-social-media-campaign-rallies-for-sydney-swans-star-adam-goodes-20150801-gip9p9.html">I stand with Adam</a>” banners years before the AFL officially apologised to Goodes. </p>
<p>Those affronted by official treatment of refugees engage in endless protest campaigns, travel to detention centres, provide support and lobby. The Black Lives Matter movement has galvanised some of the biggest demonstrations seen in the country, despite COVID, and the calls for action on the unfinished business of the 33-old Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the other inquiries are becoming impossible to ignore.</p>
<p>There is much to be learnt from First Nations people. Their survival and generosity is an inspiration that needs to be taken seriously and acted upon. Without righting this foundational wrong, this country will be forever stuck on a political treadmill, running but going nowhere.</p>
<h2>Art speaks volumes</h2>
<p>It is striking that one of the most important Aboriginal artists to have captivated the world came from a place called <a href="https://www.rahc.com.au/sites/default/files/documents/community_profiles/Utopia%20Community%20Profile.pdf">Utopia</a>. Hers was the land of the Alyawarr people for millennia before its brief life as a cattle station. It is a place as impoverished as any of the remote settlements in northern Australia, returned to their traditional owners with only grudging support from the state. But the semi-arid country is the source of dreaming and a culture that speaks to the world when brought to life on canvas. <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/utopia/emily-kame-kngwarreye">Emily Kame Kngwarreye</a>’s paintings are displayed in galleries, palaces and private collections around the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Indigenous painting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of Australia’s most famous contemporary paintings, Earth’s Creation 1, by Emily Kame Kngwarreye.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photos-cdn.aap.com.au/Preview/20171116001324130248?assetType=IMAGE&path=/aap_dev6/device/imagearc/2017/11-16/d8/07/4c/aapimage-6xkxsl8bf9v1favm02vt_minihighres.jpg">AAP Image/Emily Kame Kngwarreye</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>They are more than great works of art. It is what Australian art always aspired to be. In the <a href="https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/1387/homeland-sacred-visions-and-the-settler-state/">words</a> of the influential Aboriginal scholar and advocate Marcia Langton, Emily’s paintings</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] fulfil the primary historical function of Australian art by showing the settler Australian audience, caught ambiguously between old and new lands, a new way to belong in this place rather than another […] </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Creating a utopia, or at least an aspiration to do better, requires more imagination and courage than our current system of professional politics permits. </p>
<p>It needs more art and better faith. Politics, like everything else, is now in thrall to corporate modes of organisation and communication. </p>
<p>The emphasis is on the mission (to get elected) and KPIs (to deliver on promises). The headline of every corporate plan is the “vision”. It is always the hardest thing to define. But without a vision, any plan is meaningless. Our utopia needs a new vision, one not tinged by shame. The old ones have failed the test of time.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract of Facing foundational wrongs — careful what you wish for, republished with permission from <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/editions/hey-utopia/">GriffithReview73: Hey Utopia!</a>, edited by Ashley Hay.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julianne Schultz is Professor of Media and Culture at Griffith University, publisher and founding editor of Griffith Review and chair of The Conversation Media Group. Her book The Idea of Australia: a search for the soul of the nation will be published by Allen and Unwin.
</span></em></p>Exclusion has been central to utopian ideas of Australia since before Federation. It still lingers. To progress in this climate-challenged century, Australia’s foundational wrongs must be righted.Julianne Schultz, Professor of Media and Culture, Griffith University, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409412020-07-02T04:11:59Z2020-07-02T04:11:59ZBorder closures, identity and political tensions: how Australia’s past pandemics shape our COVID-19 response<p>Tensions over border closures are in the news again, now states are gradually lifting travel restrictions <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/sa-delays-victorian-border-reopening-amid-coronavirus/12405632">to all</a> <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/coronavirus/2020/06/30/queensland-border-victoria/">except Victorians</a>.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison says singling out Victorians is an overreaction to Melbourne’s coronavirus spike, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/get-some-perspective-pm-calls-out-premiers-for-closing-borders-to-victoria-20200630-p557q4.html">urging</a> the states “to get some perspective”.</p>
<p>Federal-state tensions over border closures and other pandemic quarantine measures are not new, and not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>Our new <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/puar.13224">research</a> shows such measures are entwined in our history and tied to Australia’s identity as a nation. We also show how our experiences during past pandemics guide the plans we now use, and alter, to control the coronavirus.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/national-and-state-leaders-may-not-always-agree-but-this-hasnt-hindered-our-coronavirus-response-136152">National and state leaders may not always agree, but this hasn't hindered our coronavirus response</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Bubonic plague, federation and national identity</h2>
<p>In early 1900, <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/bubonic-plague">bubonic plague</a> broke out just months before federation, introduced by infected rats on ships.</p>
<p>When a new vaccine was available, the New South Wales government planned to inoculate just front-line workers. </p>
<p>Journalists called for a broader inoculation campaign and the government soon faced a “melee” <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/learning-from-forgotten-epidemics/">in which</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…men fought, women fainted and the offices [of the Board of Health] were damaged. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Patients and contacts were quarantined at the <a href="https://www.qstation.com.au/our-story.html">North Head Quarantine Station</a>. Affected suburbs were quarantined and sanitation commenced.</p>
<p>The health board <a href="https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/plague-sydney-1900/">openly criticised</a> the government for its handling of the quarantine measures, laying the groundwork for quarantine policy in the newly independent Australia.</p>
<p>Quarantine then became essential to a vision of Australia as an island nation where “island” stood for immunity and where non-Australians were viewed as “diseased”. </p>
<p>Public health is mentioned twice in the Australian constitution. <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html">Section 51(ix)</a> gives parliament the power to quarantine, and <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s69.html">section 69</a> requires states and territories to transfer quarantine services to the Commonwealth.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00597">Quarantine Act</a> was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40111469?seq=1">later merged</a> to form the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1901A00017">Immigration Restriction Act</a>, with quarantine influencing immigration policy. </p>
<p>Ports then became centres of immigration, trade, biopolitics and biosecurity.</p>
<h2>Spanish flu sparked border disputes too</h2>
<p>In 1918, at the onset of the Spanish flu, quarantine policy included border closures, quarantine camps (for people stuck at borders) and school closures. These measures initially controlled widespread outbreaks in Australia.</p>
<p>However, Victoria quibbled over whether NSW had accurately diagnosed this as an influenza pandemic. Queensland closed its borders, despite only the Commonwealth having the legal powers to do so.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-isnt-the-first-global-pandemic-and-it-wont-be-the-last-heres-what-weve-learned-from-4-others-throughout-history-136231">This isn't the first global pandemic, and it won't be the last. Here's what we've learned from 4 others throughout history</a>
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<p>When World War I ended, many returning soldiers broke quarantine. Quarantine measures were not coordinated at the Commonwealth level; states and territories each went their own way.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344957/original/file-20200701-54182-1xi9yxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Quarantine camps, like this one at Wallangarra in Queensland, were set up during the Spanish flu pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hwmobs/33951814795/in/photolist-TJcVFa-YhgcRx-atsaix-XTKch7-UaKNVR-V9MpKW-UP7JCA-MLhyLw-LRP6K1-MLhndw-HCnkAZ-HzYnQ7-HCmst8-GP2158-HCn2kF-Hjh81L-HCn4qH-GP1U5H-HFEyxo-GNWKdo-GNWpWY-bYHyHs-VzVoWC-WS74kD-MPhwS2-MFUxbv-azS5yy-aWj2ht-2eHp2Cd-iK4YSS-iK6XWw-js1RoA-2iRKFBT-2iErL2N-do1pQW-2iPBTMC-2iPxv95-dJogXQ-dJhQ6D-gaEtvV-wZtUUa-gYh1Qz-gaDNYg-gaDNsr-cN1cWE-cN1bV9-cN1cQS-cN1c6h-cN1d6C-gaDVZw">Aussie~mobs/Public Domain/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were different policies about state border closures, quarantine camps, mask wearing, school closures and public gatherings. Infection spread and hospitals were overwhelmed.</p>
<p>The legacy? The states and territories ceded quarantine control to the Commonwealth. And <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8500.1952.tb01591.x">in 1921</a>, the Commonwealth created its own health department.</p>
<h2>The 1990s brought new threats</h2>
<p>Over the next seven decades, Australia linked quarantine surveillance to national survival. It shifted from prioritising human health to biosecurity and protection of Australia’s flora, fauna and agriculture. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, new human threats emerged. <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/5/2/99-0202_article">Avian influenza in 1997</a> led the federal government to recognise Australia may be ill-prepared to face a pandemic. <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cditech-influenza.htm">By 1999</a> Australia had its first <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cditech-influenza.htm/$FILE/influenza.pdf">influenza pandemic plan</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/todays-disease-names-are-less-catchy-but-also-less-likely-to-cause-stigma-131465">Today's disease names are less catchy, but also less likely to cause stigma</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/sars/about/fs-sars.html">In 2003</a>, severe acute respiratory syndrome (or SARS) emerged in China and Hong Kong. Australia responded by discouraging nonessential travel and started health screening incoming passengers.</p>
<p>The next threat, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5305a1.htm">2004 H5N1 Avian influenza</a>, was a dry run for future responses. This resulted <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-ahmppi.htm">in the 2008</a> Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza, which included border control and social isolation measures.</p>
<h2>Which brings us to today</h2>
<p>While lessons learned from past pandemics are with us today, we’ve seen changes to policy mid-pandemic. March saw the formation of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-national-cabinet-and-is-it-democratic-135036">National Cabinet</a> to endorse and coordinate actions across the nation. </p>
<p>Uncertainty over border control continues, especially surrounding the potential for <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-covid-19-death-toll-reaches-100-20200519-p54uhb.html">cruise</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/wa-premier-fears-more-covid-19-infections-after-six-test-positive-on-live-export-ship-in-fremantle">live-export ships</a> to import coronavirus infections.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-has-seriously-tested-our-border-security-have-we-learned-from-our-mistakes-134794">Coronavirus has seriously tested our border security. Have we learned from our mistakes?</a>
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</em>
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<p>Then there are border closures between states and territories, creating tensions and a potential <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/28/clive-palmer-launches-high-court-challenge-to-queensland-coronavirus-border-closure">high court challenge</a>.</p>
<p>Border quibbles between states and territories will likely continue in this and future pandemics due to geographical, epidemiological and political differences.</p>
<p>Australia’s success during COVID-19 as a nation, is in part due to Australian quarantine policy being so closely tied to its island nature and learnings from previous pandemics.</p>
<p>Lessons learnt from handling COVID-19 will also strengthen future pandemic responses and hopefully will make them more coordinated.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/4-ways-australias-coronavirus-response-was-a-triumph-and-4-ways-it-fell-short-139845">4 ways Australia's coronavirus response was a triumph, and 4 ways it fell short</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Moloney is Past President, Paediatrics & Child Health Division, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Moloney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s island identity and attitude to border security was forged from handling pandemics since the time of federation. Here’s what we’ve learned along the way.Susan Moloney, Associate Professor, Paediatrics, Griffith UniversityKim Moloney, Senior Lecturer in Global Public Administration and Public Policy, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1314532020-06-04T02:37:55Z2020-06-04T02:37:55ZHenry Parkes had a vision of a new Australian nation. In 1901, it became a reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339105/original/file-20200602-133910-n23k0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C91%2C750%2C725&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of New South Wales/Photographer H.B. Solomons, 1887</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation is running a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/key-figures-in-australian-political-history-86822">series of articles</a> on key figures in Australian political history, looking at the way they changed the nature of debate, its impact then, and its relevance to politics today. You can read our piece on Julia Gillard <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-julia-gillard-forever-changed-australian-politics-especially-for-women-138528">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>Henry Parkes, known today as the “<a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/parkes-sir-henry-4366">Father of Federation</a>”, set in motion the process that led to the joining of Australia’s six colonies in 1901 – a significant moment that heralded the birth of a new nation. </p>
<p>While he did not live to see the outcome – he died five years before the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia – Parkes had been the driving force behind the idea of federation and a key architect of the process that ultimately created it.</p>
<p>Parkes’s vision was to unite the British colonies into a self-governing and democratic nation that spanned the continent. The new country would have a constitution written by Australians, but would remain “under the British crown” in an enduring relationship with the land of his birth. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-julia-gillard-forever-changed-australian-politics-especially-for-women-138528">How Julia Gillard forever changed Australian politics - especially for women</a>
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<p>Perhaps the most defining moment of his political career came in 1889, when he gave his <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/tenterfield-oration">Tenterfield Oration</a>. Much like US President Abraham Lincoln’s <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm">Gettysburg Address</a> in 1863, Parkes’ speech was little reported at the time, but later took on legendary status.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The great question which we have to consider is, whether the time has not now arisen for the creation on this Australian continent of an Australian government and an Australian parliament … Surely what the Americans have done by war, Australians can bring about in peace.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>From radical ideas to a career in politics</h2>
<p>Parkes was born in Warwickshire, England, in 1815 into a family of poor tenant farmers. After his family was forced off the farm by debt in 1823, <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/802776?lookfor=Henry%20Parkes&offset=1&max=1193">he later worked</a> in Birmingham and London.</p>
<p>In 1838, Parkes moved to New South Wales as a bounty migrant with his young wife and developed considerable talent as a journalist. This was all the more remarkable given he was largely self-educated. </p>
<p>He eventually gravitated to politics and associated himself with the radical patriots in the colony. With these radicals, Parkes pushed for universal suffrage, the transformation of the Australian colonies into a federal republic and, above all, for free trade. He also campaigned against the transportation of convicts from the UK. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-how-women-gained-the-right-to-vote-74080">Australian politics explainer: how women gained the right to vote</a>
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<p>Parkes later moved away from radicalism and republicanism, deciding he could achieve more in government. When New South Wales achieved control over its local affairs in the 1850s, <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/members/Pages/member-details.aspx?pk=426">Parkes joined the legislative assembly</a> as one of a small group of liberals. </p>
<p>Parkes devoted his career to politics, moving through the ranks of the pro-free trade liberals to serve five terms as premier of New South Wales from 1872-91. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316548/original/file-20200221-92551-1bdg1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sir Henry Parkes with the coalition ministry in 1880.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/26602074@N06/3111387425">Blue Mountains City Library/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Parkes advocates for a federal council</h2>
<p>After the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859, there were five self-governing colonies in eastern Australia. The colonies were competitive and largely concerned with their own affairs. Federation was not a pressing issue.</p>
<p>Parkes was still relatively new to politics in the 1860s, but he nonetheless became a tireless crusader for his idea of a colonial union. As NSW colonial secretary, he proposed establishing a federal council of representatives from all five colonies in 1867, and again as premier in 1880. Both times, it went nowhere.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-writing-of-our-constitution-74518">Australian politics explainer: the writing of our Constitution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>However, a few years later, the colonies finally began to see the benefits of a stronger federation, due to unease over the expanding influence of the French and Germans in the Pacific. All except NSW ultimately supported the establishment of the federal council in 1885. </p>
<p>The new council had limited legislative powers and no permanent executive powers or revenues of its own. The absence of NSW also weakened it.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it was the first major form of inter-colonial cooperation. The council also allowed federalists to meet and exchange ideas, setting in motion the more ambitious campaign for federation led by Parkes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339106/original/file-20200602-133855-pajq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of Henry Parkes today in the town named after him in NSW.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Tenterfield address and dawn of federation</h2>
<p>By the end of the 1880s, opinion was divided over the future of the Australian colonies. While some advocated to “cut the painter” and separate from Britain, others preferred to protect the current system. </p>
<p>The concept of an “imperial federation” with a single federal state consisting of the UK at the centre and the self-governing colonies was also gaining popularity.</p>
<p>One of the primary obstacles to federation was the struggle between New South Wales, which supported free trade, and other colonies like Victoria, which advocated protectionism. Parkes was able to neutralise this problem by proposing that once a federation was created, a Commonwealth parliament could legislate on tariff policy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-writing-of-our-constitution-74518">Australian politics explainer: the writing of our Constitution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 1889, Parkes grasped the nettle. He proposed to the Victorian government that the colonies should appoint delegates to a convention, which would draw up the constitution for a nation and discuss its relationship with Britain. </p>
<p>Later that year, Parkes travelled to Queensland armed with a report on colonial defence to garner Queensland’s support for his cause. On his return journey, he delivered his famous <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/tenterfield-oration">address at Tenterfield</a> calling for “a great national government for all Australia”. </p>
<p>In 1890, Parkes finally succeeded in putting together an informal colonial conference in Melbourne that led to the first <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:constitution/conventions/1890-1005">National Australasian Convention</a> in Sydney the following year. It was a revolutionary moment for the future country and produced the fundamentals of the federal system we have today. </p>
<p>Led by Parkes, the delegates in Melbourne and Sydney sketched out a House of Representatives, representing the people, and a Senate representing the colonies (later states). They also specified powers for the Commonwealth and the states, and envisioned a High Court to interpret the constitution. </p>
<p>Both conventions were a triumph for Parkes. Alfred Deakin, a young Victorian legislator at the time, <a href="http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/pdf/fed0002.pdf">noted he was</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>from first to last, the chief and leader. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>More conventions were held over the coming years to iron out the details of a bill that was finalised in 1899 and transmitted to the UK for ratification by the British parliament. </p>
<h2>Parkes’s legacy today</h2>
<p>Parkes’s championing of the federal movement transformed Australia’s political agenda at a time when the colonies were still content to chart separate courses.</p>
<p>After his death, referendums were held in all the colonies in 1899 and 1900 and the people voted “yes”. Australia finally <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/federation">became a federation on January 1 1901</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339107/original/file-20200602-133875-c8xxmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Federation celebrations in Queen Street, Brisbane, 1901.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the federation procession in Melbourne in 1901, Parkes was the only leader who received public homage, with his image and slogans festooned on signs and other paraphernalia. Other politicians, including the country’s first prime minister, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barton-sir-edmund-toby-71">Edmund Barton</a>, yielded him the preeminent position in the pantheon of federation fathers. </p>
<p>After 120 years, Australians take federation as a given. But had it not been for Parkes, Australia would probably not have become a nation in 1901, and the system of government we have today might well be very different.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parkes is known as the ‘Father of Federation’. His tireless championing of a united Australia brought the colonies together and set them on a course for nationhood.David Lee, Associate Professor of History , UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1375932020-05-01T06:00:11Z2020-05-01T06:00:11ZIf COVID-19 is a national emergency, can the federal government take control of schools?<p>The <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/schools-offered-three-billion-to-have-students-back-in-class/12196094">federal government this week offered</a> independent schools across the country an advance of A$3 billion if they committed to having at least half their students back in the classroom by June 1. </p>
<p>In the case of some states, particularly Victoria, this instruction is in direct contrast to that of the premiers. Victorian schools, following advice from the state’s Chief Health Officer, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/coronavirus-victoria-independent-schools-federal-government-push/12196088">are committed to online learning for term two</a> with children only attending schools if they have to, such as if their parents are essential workers.</p>
<p>Victoria’s education minister James Merlino <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/coronavirus-victoria-independent-schools-federal-government-push/12196088">has said</a> the federal government is “forcing” independent schools to undermine the state’s strategy. In <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-26/opposition-wants-schools-reopened-with-coronavirus-precautions/12185902">regard to schools</a>, he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let me be very clear, particularly to the federal government who do not run any schools, we will only transition back to face-to-face teaching for all students when that is the advice of the Victorian Chief Health Officer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The federal government has <a href="https://ministers.dese.gov.au/tehan/updated-advice-social-distancing-school">consistently maintained</a> the position it is safe for schools to remain open. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1255125963379109892"}"></div></p>
<p>The federal government funds independent schools, and the state is in charge of public schools. But beyond these arrangements, is there anything in the Australian Constitution that might give the Commonwealth control over schools in a national emergency situation like the case of a pandemic?</p>
<h2>What the Constitution allows the Commonwealth</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/senate/powers_practice_n_procedures/constitution">Australian Constitution</a> was written in the 1890s and came into effect in 1901. It predates the first world war and the influenza pandemic that followed it. </p>
<p>There is no general emergency power, but it does give the Commonwealth power over “the naval and military defence of the Commonwealth” (<a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/senate/powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/link.aspx?_id=AFF6CA564BC3465AA325E73053DED4AA&_z=z#chapter-01_part-05_51">s51(vi)</a>). This power was used extensively in both world wars to control many aspects of life from curfews to bread prices. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/senate/powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/link.aspx?_id=AFF6CA564BC3465AA325E73053DED4AA&_z=z#chapter-01_part-05_51">also has control of quarantine</a> under s51(ix), but there is no mention of health or education – or indeed the economy – though there are some commercial powers such as over foreign, trading and financial corporations (s51(xx)). </p>
<p>There is a power under s51(xxiiiA) to provide benefits to students and others and for health and medical purposes.</p>
<h2>How the Commonwealth can control the states</h2>
<p>The Commonwealth and states have done a pretty good job of cooperating so far. The National Cabinet of Commonwealth ministers and state premiers (a concept not found in the Constitution) has made joint decisions on the public health response.</p>
<p>But the messaging on schools has been inconsistent with the federal government claiming it’s safe, while some premiers have taken their own route and transitioned to online learning.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-reasons-its-safe-for-kids-to-go-back-to-school-137064">5 reasons it's safe for kids to go back to school</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Legally and constitutionally the Commonwealth can’t force schools to open. The fact it has attempted to induce independent schools to reopen by bringing forward a payment highlights that the Commonwealth’s involvement in education, as in so many areas, is through the power of the purse. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth has an almost unlimited power of taxation under <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/senate/powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/link.aspx?_id=AFF6CA564BC3465AA325E73053DED4AA&_z=z#chapter-01_part-05_51">s51(ii)</a>, together with its power under <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/senate/powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/link.aspx?_id=63B954D0FFB44EC78FC18B10C53EBCCE&_z=z#chapter-04_96">s96</a> to make grants to states “on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit”. </p>
<p>This reached an extreme in the Howard era when the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/pm-unfurls-his-patriotic-school-agenda-20040623-gdj6uq.html">Commonwealth made a payment to state schools</a> conditional on them having at least an hour of physical education per week, and a flagpole. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1255611295602061312"}"></div></p>
<p>To be allowed to operate, all schools <a href="https://asl.acara.edu.au/">must be registered</a> with the respective school registration authority in each state or territory, which means states have jurisdiction over school operations. So, if Victoria or any other state decides to compel schools in the state to remain closed (or reopen), it has the power to do so.</p>
<h2>What about in an emergency situation?</h2>
<p>The Commonwealth’s power to act in an emergency was tested in the global financial crisis of 2008-10 when the Rudd government sent out a “Tax Bonus” payment to all taxpayers. This was challenged by constitutional law lecturer Bryan Pape as going beyond Commonwealth power. </p>
<p>The High Court, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2009/23.html">in Pape v Commissioner of Taxation</a>, agreed the tax bonus was not authorised by the taxation power, but accepted that there was a global emergency and the payment was in response to it. </p>
<p>Chief Justice French <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2009/23.html">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The executive power of the Commonwealth conferred by s61 of the Constitution extends to the power to expend public moneys for the purpose of avoiding or mitigating the large scale adverse effects of the circumstances affecting the national economy […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Could the Commonwealth claim we are in a national emergency and kids must go back to school? That would be harder to argue than that they should stay home to avoid the virus. It would also be hard for the Commonwealth to argue that an economic imperative trumps a state’s judgement about what is safe for the community. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sending-children-back-to-school-during-coronavirus-has-human-rights-implications-137251">Sending children back to school during coronavirus has human rights implications</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>In the case of Rudd’s tax bonus, the Commonwealth was trying to send every taxpayer a cheque. That is a rather different matter to forcing taxpayers to send their children to school, especially against the wishes of the state. </p>
<p>Let’s hope the Commonwealth and states can reach agreement on this and together get the risk of transmission down to a level we can all accept.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The federal government is trying to entice independent schools to open by offering them advance payments. But do they have powers beyond enticement with which they could control state schools?Matt Harvey, Lecturer in Law, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1361522020-04-14T19:54:38Z2020-04-14T19:54:38ZNational and state leaders may not always agree, but this hasn’t hindered our coronavirus response<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327599/original/file-20200414-147001-1124z9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is understandable why the different measures introduced across Australia to contain COVID-19 have caused confusion. It does seem inexplicable that the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/07/social-distancing-rules-australia-coronavirus-strict-new-laws-legal-illegal-state-physical-restrictions-guidelines-explained-nsw-victoria-qld-queensland-act-sa-wa-two-person-rule">rules</a> – and penalties for breaching them – are different depending on where one lives. </p>
<p>It is also understandable that the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/finger-pointing-over-the-ruby-princess-debacle-wont-help-solve-coronavirus-crisis">finger-pointing</a> between the Australian Border Force and the NSW government over the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/coronavirus-investigation-into-ruby-princess-will-take-months/12146398">Ruby Princess debacle</a> is regarded as a sign of weak governance arrangements caused by overlapping state and federal responsibilities for the nation’s borders.</p>
<p>But as understandable as these reactions might be, Australia’s response to COVID-19 is a testament to the benefits of federation, with its multiple tiers of government. </p>
<h2>A useful division of governmental labour</h2>
<p>The two levels of government have responded to this crisis in slightly different ways, especially initially. </p>
<p>It was the premiers and chief ministers who acted decisively to manage the spread of the pandemic when it first emerged. Their primary concern was to minimise further transmission of the virus, and to prevent the health system from becoming overwhelmed by the influx of infected patients. </p>
<p>While some of the premiers were warning that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-mass-school-closures-and-industry-shutdown-on-the-cards-says-victorias-premier">extreme measures</a> would have to be instituted, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was still suggesting it was acceptable for people to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-13/coronavirus-scott-morrison-coag-premiers-cancelling-events/12053382">attend sporting events</a> ahead of a ban on mass gatherings. </p>
<p>For Morrison, the (very) reasonable concern has been on <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/coronavirus-shutdown-has-human-costs-20200325-p54do9">reducing the human costs of the virus for the economy</a>. This has rendered the prime minister slightly less disposed to push for stringent <a href="https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-indicates-eliminating-covid-19-would-come-at-too-high-a-cost-135857">measures that might cause further economic ruin</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-scott-morrison-is-steering-in-the-right-direction-but-were-going-to-need-a-bigger-boat-135209">Vital Signs: Scott Morrison is steering in the right direction, but we're going to need a bigger boat</a>
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<p>The different focuses of the two levels of government is in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-23/federal-and-state-governments-school-closures-amid-coronavirus/12080062">constant tension</a>, but this provides a check on each other in managing their particular core (constitutional) responsibilities during the pandemic. </p>
<p>Moreover, it has permitted a useful division of governmental labour during this crisis. The federal government is able to concentrate on managing the economy, while the states and territories are able to prioritise managing the health of their populations and hospital systems. </p>
<p>And through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-national-cabinet-and-is-it-democratic-135036">National Cabinet</a>, the consultative body consisting of the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers, the country’s leaders have been able to coordinate their activities and share vital information.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-national-cabinet-and-is-it-democratic-135036">Explainer: what is the national cabinet and is it democratic?</a>
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</em>
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<h2>States and territories need to adapt policies for their residents</h2>
<p>Although the social distancing measures imposed by the states and territories are different, they stem from guidelines agreed to by the National Cabinet.</p>
<p>Differences in their application by the state and territories can be partly explained by differences in size and demographics. </p>
<p>Some states are more <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Main%20Features102018-19?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2018-19&num=&view=">densely populated</a> than others, which places their residents at greater risk of community transmission. Some also have a higher proportion of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-older-people-more-at-risk-of-coronavirus-133770">older Australians</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-will-devastate-aboriginal-communities-if-we-dont-act-now-133766">remote Indigenous populations</a> – two communities that are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. </p>
<p>These differences are on top of the fact some states and territories have natural geographical features that enable them to more easily control who enters the state, for example, Tasmania and Western Australia. This enables these leaders to consider less stringent social distancing and other measures than their counterparts. </p>
<p>It makes good sense, therefore, that national guidelines should be adapted to meet the unique challenges of each state or territory.</p>
<h2>Why the Ruby Princess is not a failure of federalism</h2>
<p>It is undeniable the decision to allow the Ruby Princess passengers to disembark was disastrous, since it has been linked to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-police-raid-ruby-princess-cruise-ship-question-crew-20200409-p54ifm.html">hundreds of infections and upwards of 15 deaths at last count</a>.</p>
<p>However, it is far from clear the incident could have been avoided if Australia had only one level of government. </p>
<p>The fiasco resulted from a series of poor decisions involving multiple state agencies and one federal agency. It was likely aggravated by the possibly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/criminal-investigation-launched-ruby-princess-cruise-ship-coronavirus-disaster">misleading or inaccurate</a> information provided by the cruise ship operator about the health of those on board. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-has-seriously-tested-our-border-security-have-we-learned-from-our-mistakes-134794">Coronavirus has seriously tested our border security. Have we learned from our mistakes?</a>
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</em>
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<p>But the decision-making failure(s) that occurred here are not unique to federations. The challenge of adequately vetting information under pressure, and coordinating the overlapping responsibilities of different administrative agencies, occurs within all governments. </p>
<p>If anything, federations have greater capacity to reduce the intensity, frequency and scale of policy failures. </p>
<p>As a model of government, federations do not prevent bad policies from being implemented. Rather, they can minimise the harm caused by bad policies. A policy failure in one state, for instance, will generally only affect that particular state – not the entire country. </p>
<p>Importantly, leaders can <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-has-seriously-tested-our-border-security-have-we-learned-from-our-mistakes-134794">learn</a> from the policy errors made by their counterparts. </p>
<h2>Federalism as a salve to poor leadership</h2>
<p>Those who need further convincing about the benefits of federalism need look to the United States. </p>
<p>The devastation that is unfolding in the US has been amplified by the absence of competent national leadership. The Trump administration vacillates between dismissing the pandemic and arguing the economic costs of shutting down the country are graver than the loss of lives. </p>
<p>But amid the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/10/contact-tracing-coronavirus-strategy/">national decision-making vacuum</a>, many <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/01/coronavirus-state-governors-best-worst-covid-19-159945">state governors</a> have risen to the challenge. Some have even sought <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/coronavirus-trump-governors-152539">alliances</a> with other governors to coordinate regional responses to the crisis.</p>
<p>That federations give rise to multiple governmental leaders might seem inefficient. But this pandemic has revealed that not all leaders rise to the challenge during crises. When this occurs, having other leaders who can step into the breach can prove critical.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Yes, there has been friction over social distancing restrictions and the Ruby Princess debacle, but our federal system of government has actually worked very well during the crisis.Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301342020-02-03T18:58:29Z2020-02-03T18:58:29ZDid they see it coming? How fortune-telling took hold in Australia - with women as clients and criminals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312766/original/file-20200130-41527-bi1jn4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C10%2C1001%2C727&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Though illegal, fortune telling was only sporadically prosecuted. Here, two women set up tents at the 1913 Adelaide Children's Hospital fete.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/PRG+280/1/40/118">State Library of SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first decade of the 20th century, Australians were focused on the future. It was the dawn of a new century, and of a newly formed nation. </p>
<p>Perhaps this forward outlook was part of why fortune-telling was being heralded as the latest “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/108319762">craze</a>” in local newspapers. Fortunetellers populated market stalls, shop arcades, travelling sideshows, private homes, society parties and even church fetes as they used teacups, crystal balls, cards or spirit guides to peer into people’s futures. </p>
<p>Yet fortune-telling was <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9770719/_A_Menace_and_an_Evil_Fortune-telling_in_Australia_1900-1918_History_Australia_11_no._3_2014_53-73._Highly_commended_Mary_Bennett_prize_">illegal</a> under laws inherited from England. Some feisty futurists <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1907/66.html?context=1;query=scales;mask_path=au/cases/cth/HCA">challenged</a> the legality of these anti fortune-telling provisions. In response, during the early decades of the 20th century legislators around Australia affirmed fortune-telling’s criminal status in statutory law. </p>
<p>It was only in the 21st century that most Australian jurisdictions repealed these laws. Even today, telling fortunes for payment <a href="https://www.findlaw.com.au/articles/5163/is-fortune-telling-a-criminal-offence-.aspx">remains</a> a crime in South Australia and the Northern Territory.</p>
<iframe src="https://webplayer.whooshkaa.com/episode/568840?theme=light&visual=true&enable-volume=true" height="190" width="100%" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<h2>Clientele</h2>
<p>Fortune-telling for financial gain was criminalised because such activity was viewed as fraud. Occasionally attempts were made to defend against fortune-telling charges on the grounds that a psychic had genuine abilities – or genuinely believed they did – and so their actions were not fraud. However, the wording of legislation against fortune-telling was so definitive that judges ruled such matters irrelevant; at law, fortune-telling was automatically a form of <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1930/16.html">pretence</a>.</p>
<p>According to Australian newspapers in the 1900s, the main “victims” of this pretence were women. Paternalistic editorials argued for police crackdowns on fortune-telling in order to protect “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/35547443">members of the weaker sex</a>” from themselves.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bm0EGvX-ljw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An extract from ‘Making a Fortune’, an episode of the podcast History Lab, from Impact Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney.</span></figcaption>
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<p>While men also visited fortunetellers, they were portrayed as doing so less often, and usually to seek answers to practical inquiries about investment opportunities or locating lost property. Women’s reasons for visiting fortunetellers were represented to be more frivolous, and rooted in innate female character defects. </p>
<p>Women apparently became hooked on visiting fortunetellers due to <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/208737252">preoccupations</a> with romance and gossip, or because their “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83085257">neurotic impulses</a>” left them credulous.</p>
<p>Newspapers warned of the dangerous repercussions fortune-telling might have for “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/242595886">weak-minded women</a>”. Suburban matrons were accused of frittering away household funds on charlatanism. </p>
<p>It was <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/21805447">joked</a> that housemaids would quit their jobs on the basis of prophecies of rich husbands soon to come. <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/228868049">Marriages</a> were said to be breaking down as clairvoyants confirmed wives’ suspicions about their husbands’ infidelity, or counselled them that separation would bring brighter prospects. </p>
<p>It was also feared that fortunetellers provided a conduit to <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/211598758">abortionists and contraceptive information</a> for women worried that their future would bring children conceived outside wedlock or that they could not afford. </p>
<p>Yet, for many, a visit to a psychic was probably simply an affordable entertainment in an era before the “talkies”, much less Netflix, arrived. For others, fortune-telling consultations perhaps provided a positive outlet where they could talk through emotional life events; a kind of informal counselling long before such services became available. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312752/original/file-20200130-41490-1q6pa76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Long before ‘talkies’, fortune-telling was an affordable entertainment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-posing-91899797">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Practitioners</h2>
<p>The typical cost of a psychic reading during the Federation period was two shillings sixpence (equivalent to the price of a film ticket now). A clairvoyant with a few dozen regular clients could expect to earn around four pounds each week, twice the average pay of a domestic servant. </p>
<p>Some celebrated seers earned considerably more. By the time of her 1928 death, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9770735/The_Scales_of_Justice_Criminal_Law_Journal_38_no._6_2014_384-386">Mary Scales</a>, an illiterate laundress turned fortuneteller, had amassed a fortune that would be the equivalent of several million dollars today.</p>
<p>The practitioners of fortune-telling, like the clientele, consisted mostly of women. It was an <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12625276/Womens_Work_The_Professionalisation_and_Policing_of_Fortune-Telling_in_Australia_Labour_History_no._108_2015_1-16">occupation</a> that women could embark upon with few business costs while working from home. </p>
<p>Deserted wives and widows with children to <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/208737252">support</a> featured disproportionately in those prosecuted for fortune-telling. So did older women, particularly those with ailments that meant they could no longer undertake more physically taxing work in factories or domestic service.</p>
<p>Newspapers voiced resentment that women – particularly working-class women – should be earning good money at a trade that was technically illegal but openly practised, and even advertised in the papers themselves. </p>
<p>It was ridiculous, one paper <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59590417">stated</a>, that “the fact that she was a washerwoman yesterday will not debar the fool crowd from believing she is a sorceress to-day”. </p>
<p>Another journalist <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65651210">urged</a> women to confine themselves to domestic duties or, if forced to earn their own living, seek more genteel occupations. Dog-walking was considered a step up. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many women with a love for dogs, but dislike for the necessary care and exercise of them, are glad to turn those duties over to someone else, and it seems as if
any one of the humble ways of earning a livelihood were preferable to the palmistry, fortune-telling, mediums and phrenological lines of business.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of 247 reported prosecutions of fortune-telling in Australia between 1900 and 1918, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9770719/_A_Menace_and_an_Evil_Fortune-telling_in_Australia_1900-1918_History_Australia_11_no._3_2014_53-73._Highly_commended_Mary_Bennett_prize_">82%</a> were against women. </p>
<p>Several of the men prosecuted were charged as accomplices, minding the shopfront of wives or female relatives who were doing a thriving business in fortune-telling. Most of the others came from non Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, the association of divination with “foreign” superstition another factor in the prevailing prejudices against it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312754/original/file-20200130-41507-1x1h1mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An association with ‘foreigners’ bolstered opposition to fortune-telling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/seance-227270593">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Police</h2>
<p>Despite public criticism of fortune-telling, it was only intermittently policed. This was because it was not enough that an individual was known to be or even advertising themselves as a fortune-teller; prosecution required a witness to money being exchanged for a reading. </p>
<p>Collecting this evidence involved officers going undercover to pose as clients, with police in major cities undertaking such sting operations every few years during the 1900s. </p>
<p>However, as police at the time were all men, fortunetellers were increasingly suspicious of male customers. Some started taking the precaution of only seeing female clients.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311078/original/file-20200121-117917-nwzppv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a cartoon by Ben Strange (1868-1930) an undercover policeman visits a clairvoyant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37394770">National Library of Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To overcome this, police began hiring women to pose as <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1617290">clients</a> during the periodic fortune-telling raids. When women were later introduced into police forces across Australia during World War One, they were quickly set to prosecuting clairvoyants. </p>
<p>There was increased pressure to crack down on fortune-tellers due to fears that they were preying on soldiers’ loved ones, or that predictions of dire futures might undermine recruiting efforts and national morale.</p>
<p>Ultimately, fortune-telling’s declining popularity by the 1920s was not the result of policing, but the rise of other entertainments. Both fortune-telling and legislation against it continued to exist, sparking occasional prosecutions across the 20th century. It is only in the last 20 years that most states have decriminalised it, having recognised that cases that involve the defrauding of actual victims can be adequately dealt with under existing fraud legislation.</p>
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<p><em>Making a Fortune was made by <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/impact-studios/about-us">Impact Studios</a> at the University of Technology, Sydney - a new audio production house combining academic research and audio storytelling. This podcast is available for download through the award winning <a href="https://historylab.net/">History Lab</a> podcast. It is the second episode in the four-part series, The Law’s Way of Knowing.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alana Piper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the early 1900s, fortune-telling provided entertainment, social connection and a job for some Australians. Its legal status made criminals of women, yet allowed others entry to the police force.Alana Piper, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1018152018-08-21T20:00:42Z2018-08-21T20:00:42ZPoliticised science on the Great Barrier Reef? It’s been that way for more than a century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232829/original/file-20180821-30599-8psjky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Successive governments have seen the Great Barrier Reef not just as a scientific wonder, but as a channel to further economic development.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Superjoseph/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/no-justice-huge-reef-foundation-grant-stuns-charity-sector-20180818-p4zy8i.html">controversy</a> surrounding the A$444 million given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation by the federal government shows how politicised science has become on the Great Barrier Reef.</p>
<p>One reef scientist, who declined to be named, was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/like-winning-lotto-reef-foundation-minnow-braces-for-444m-windfall-20180511-p4zeud.html">quoted</a> saying that the grant was “obviously” political, and accused the federal government of seeking to deny the opposition the chance to make the Great Barrier Reef an election issue.</p>
<p>But the politicisation of reef science, and particularly the Great Barrier Reef itself, is not new. It has a long history, stretching back to the time when the British empire was at its most powerful.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-too-cheap-to-visit-the-priceless-great-barrier-reef-83717">Is it too cheap to visit the 'priceless' Great Barrier Reef?</a>
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<p>In the nineteenth century, scientists studying the Great Barrier Reef were driven by the political winds and whims of British colonialists. For the most part, these scientists aided the mission of exploration and settlement. With every exploratory voyage, the value of the Great Barrier Reef as an arm of the empire grew, as scientists began to weave their insights into the reef’s biology and geology with evocations of its potential resources and suitability for settlement. Scientists such as <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jukes-joseph-beete-2284">Joseph Beete Jukes</a> were particularly important in illuminating the Great Barrier Reef’s scientific mysteries and economic possibilities.</p>
<p>Around the time of federation in 1901, however, the politics of reef science took on a heightened nationalistic and provincial tone. Scientists asserted that the Great Barrier Reef’s value to Queensland and the nation lay specifically in its exploitable resources, and argued that it was the government’s responsibility to develop them. </p>
<p>As the science was in its infancy, reef scientists imagined that their field would inevitably develop in concert with the establishment of reef-based industries such as fishing and <a href="https://theconversation.com/death-on-the-great-barrier-reef-how-dead-coral-went-from-economic-resource-to-conservation-symbol-67157">coral rubble mining</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/death-on-the-great-barrier-reef-how-dead-coral-went-from-economic-resource-to-conservation-symbol-67157">Death on the Great Barrier Reef: how dead coral went from economic resource to conservation symbol</a>
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<p>In the early twentieth century, scientists suggested that a research station needed to be established along the Queensland coast. The idea was championed by natural historian Edmund Banfield, who <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60072747?searchTerm=Rural%20Homilies%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20&searchLimits=l-decade=191%7C%7C%7Cl-year=1915%7C%7C%7Cl-month=1">wrote</a> that it would “demonstrate how best the riches of the Great Barrier Reef might be exploited”. </p>
<p>Many scientists of the day believed that the government had failed to sufficiently develop the Great Barrier Reef, and feared that its dormant resources were at risk of plunder by our northern Asian neighbours. Reef science became caught up in the prevailing discourse of an empty and undeveloped northern Australia.</p>
<p>In response, Queensland-based scientists established the <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/478331">Great Barrier Reef Committee</a> in 1922. The committee saw itself as having two roles: “pure” scientific research on the reef’s biology and geology; and the identification of commercial products that the reef could provide. </p>
<p>In 1928 the committee, backed by the British, Australian and Queensland governments, organised a research expedition to <a href="http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/visit-the-reef/site-specific-management/low-isles">Low Isles</a>, off the coast of Port Douglas. </p>
<p>The year-long expedition, led by British-born marine scientist <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/1019244?c=people">Charles Maurice Yonge</a>, aimed to find evidence of the reef’s economic potential. But the research, while significant to coral-reef science, offered little advice for the Queensland government despite its significant financial investment. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the Great Barrier Reef Committee continued to leverage the state government’s interest in developing northern Queensland, and in 1950 it secured a lease on <a href="https://www.uq.edu.au/heron-island-research-station/about-us">Heron Island</a>. The committee was also given funding to build a research station on the island, after promising that it would reveal commercial products and boost tourism.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232830/original/file-20180821-30581-6ar75k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Heron Island, where the research station is still operating, now run by the University of Queensland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UQ/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The Heron Island research station was built at a time when only a few Australian universities offered full courses in marine biology. Reef science had always been dominated by geology, as researchers sought to understand how coral reefs were formed.</p>
<p>After the second world war, aided by more sophisticated drilling equipment, and governments eager to locate local oil reserves, scientists such as the Queensland geologist Dorothy Hill began studying the Great Barrier Reef’s mineral and petroleum reserves, and recommended several sites for further exploration. </p>
<p>Between 1959 and 1967 three exploration wells were drilled along the reef, but none showed signs of oil or gas. In the same period, the Queensland government granted 37 prospecting and exploration permits, <a href="https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/49776/">23 of them in the vicinity of the Great Barrier Reef</a>.</p>
<p>Geologists’ role in this exploration meant that they were viewed with suspicion by their marine biologist colleagues when the “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-14/save-the-barrier-reef-campaign-stickers/9050228">Save the Reef</a>” campaign began in 1967. </p>
<p>Geologists were largely seen as sympathetic to the oil industry’s interests, whereas marine biologists typically aligned themselves with the views of conservationists. At the same time, scientists found themselves taking sides in response to the first outbreak of Crown of Thorns starfish in the 1960s. </p>
<p><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48085465/5339865">Robert Endean</a>, the scientist who campaigned for government intervention in the outbreak, found himself marginalised by the scientific community, faced backlash from tourist operators concerned by his claims of dying reefs, and eventually lost government support for his research. </p>
<p>During both the Save the Reef campaign and the Crown of Thorns outbreak, scientists were publicly scrutinised for how their research, and their public comments, impacted the debate. A similar pattern has played out over the mass coral bleaching that <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/2016-coral-bleaching-event-26991">hit the Great Barrier Reef in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Today, it seems governments are seeking to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/27/australia-scrubbed-from-un-climate-change-report-after-government-intervention">make the Great Barrier Reef appear to be protected</a> while scientists themselves leverage the political and public fascination, with the result that the Great Barrier Reef accounts for a significant proportion of Australia’s entire marine research output.</p>
<p>The issues of <a href="https://theconversation.com/cloudy-issue-we-need-to-fix-the-barrier-reefs-murky-waters-39380">sediment and nutrient run-off</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/2016-coral-bleaching-event-26991">coral bleaching</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ocean-acidification-is-already-harming-the-great-barrier-reefs-growth-55226">ocean acidification</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-scaring-starfish-could-help-to-save-the-great-barrier-reef-36759">Crown of Thorns starfish</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/carmichael-coal-mine-14433">coal mines</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/shipping-in-the-great-barrier-reef-the-miners-highway-39251">port developments</a> have all complicated the politics of reef science. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-out-of-hot-water-yet-what-the-world-thinks-about-the-great-barrier-reef-42945">Not out of hot water yet: what the world thinks about the Great Barrier Reef</a>
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<p>For half a century, the science has been overlaid with a wider discourse about the need to preserve the Great Barrier Reef. This idea, championed by scientists, politicians and civil society, shows no sign of subsiding.</p>
<p>Today, the amounts of money involved may well be unprecedented. But the idea of reef science coming with political strings attached is nothing new.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rohan James Lloyd received an Australian Postgraduate Award and a National Library of Australia Summer Scholarship while understanding research for this project. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party.</span></em></p>The $444 million awarded to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has been criticised as a politically calculated move. But governments have been asking what the reef can do for them ever since colonial times.Rohan James Lloyd, Adjunct Lecturer, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/842142017-09-18T08:18:24Z2017-09-18T08:18:24ZPolitics podcast: Judith Brett on The Enigmatic Mr Deakin<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186356/original/file-20170918-5099-172uvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C298%2C3024%2C2127&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eliza Berlage</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is popular to look at today’s political challenges through the prism of prime ministers past. But when it comes to former liberal leaders it’s usually Robert Menzies, not Alfred Deakin, who comes to mind.</p>
<p>However, Judith Brett, emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University and author, says we have much to learn from Australia’s second prime minister. Her new biography, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, reveals the intense inner world of one of the most important fathers of Australian federation, who led the fledgling nation for three separate stints. </p>
<p>Brett says Deakin was something of a puzzle – even to himself. As prime minister he had an unusual double life, anonymously penning political columns for The Morning Post in London – a well-kept secret at the time.</p>
<p>He was a gifted orator, but above all he harnessed his optimism to operate a government of compromise at a challenging time. “He saw himself as between the ultras – the ultra tory obstructionists and the part of the Labor Party that was firming up as more ideological in his terms.”</p>
<p>Brett argues that despite Deakin’s undeniable charisma and skills in persuasion, his tendency towards great introspection and solitude means he would find the intensity of contemporary politics and media overwhelming. </p>
<p>For today’s two major parties “brand differentiation has become more important than actually solving problems”, Brett says, while Deakin advocated “policy before the needs of the party”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Judith Brett's biography, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, reveals the intense inner world of one of the most important fathers of Australian federation.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800732017-06-29T03:38:08Z2017-06-29T03:38:08ZSouth Australia’s bank levy might be legal, but it may also be politically unviable<p>South Australia’s new bank levy, projected to earn <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-22/sa-budget-focuses-on-jobs-banks-foreign-investors-targeted/8637738">A$370 million over four years</a>, seems to be constitutionally valid but it remains hostage to political machinations. </p>
<p>While precise details are sparse, the <a href="https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/taxes-and-duties/major-bank-levy">Major Banks Levy</a> will target those institutions liable for the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2017/June/The_Major_Bank_Levy_explained">Commonwealth bank levy</a> (Commonwealth Bank, ANZ Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and Macquarie Bank). It will impose a state levy of 0.015% per quarter of South Australia’s share (about 6%) of the total value of bank liabilities subject to the federal government levy. </p>
<p>By making Commonwealth grant payments conditional on the removal of a levy, the federal government could force South Australia to abandon its bank levy. </p>
<p>It’s here that South Australia can benefit from the cover provided by the federal government’s bank levy. The federal government would be forced to tread a very tight line if they try to argue that it is fine for them to tap the banks’ honeypot but not for the states to do it too.</p>
<p>With new sources of state funding rare, South Australian treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has exploited this political opportunity, potentially signalling a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-26/sa-bank-levy-could-alter-the-federation-after-wa-trouble/8650710">shift of power back to the states</a>. Unsurprisingly, the banks have reacted with fury, mounting their own attack campaign and threatening reprisals. </p>
<h2>Taxation powers in Australia</h2>
<p>The constitutional validity of South Australia’s bank levy rests on the distribution of taxation powers in the Australian federation. The power of the states has been eroded over time as the Commonwealth gradually came to dominate the federation. </p>
<p>The Constitution assigns almost equal power over taxation to the states and the federal government. Under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html">Section 51(ii)</a> the federal government is granted a power to enact laws with respect to taxation, but “not so as to discriminate between states or parts of states”.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s90.html">Section 90</a> grants the federal government the exclusive power to impose “duties of customs and of excise”. So a state tax will generally only be constitutionally invalid if it’s characterised as a duty of custom or excise, or if it is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s109.html">incompatible</a> with a Commonwealth Act. </p>
<p>Back in 1942, the federal government used its power under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s96.html">Section 96</a> to gain an effective monopoly on income tax. Under the scheme, the federal government levied a uniform tax on income, then gave a grant to the states equal to the income tax they had collected on the condition they cease collecting income tax. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1942/14.html">South Australia v Commonwealth</a> (1942), the High Court upheld this effective takeover of income tax. While states retain the right to levy income tax, the risk of losing Commonwealth grants (together with administrative cost and competitive pressures) has made the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coag-premiers-reject-malcolm-turnbulls-push-to-allow-states-to-levy-income-tax-20160401-gnw4pc.html">proposition unattractive</a>. </p>
<p>The federal government has consolidated more power through the expansive definition given by the High Court to the meaning of “duties of excise” in Section 90. For example, in the court case <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1997/34.html">Ha v New South Wales</a> (1997) a majority of the court held that duties of excise are taxes on the production, manufacture, sale or distribution of goods. As this is an exclusive federal government power, the states are effectively prohibited from taxing goods – such as sales tax. </p>
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<p>The states have instead been forced to rely on a range of relatively inefficient transaction taxes (that is, stamp duties on certain written documents), on land taxes, and on payroll tax (levied on the wages paid by employers). The narrow base of these taxes has seen the federal government come to dominate taxation revenue – collecting more than <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5506.0">80% of tax revenue</a> in 2015-16. </p>
<p>This “vertical fiscal imbalance” leaves the states dependent on federal government grants, together with any conditions attached to such grants. As Professor Alan Fenna has <a href="https://theconversation.com/taxation-the-states-and-redrawing-our-fiscal-constitution-31361">observed</a>, the states are left:</p>
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<p>…scrounging for revenue in economically inefficient or socially undesirable ways and going cap in hand to the Commonwealth.</p>
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<p>With opportunities for the states to introduce new forms of taxation being so limited, the proposed South Australian bank levy is something of a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-26/sa-bank-levy-could-alter-the-federation-after-wa-trouble/8650710">game-changer</a>. </p>
<h2>The legality of South Australia’s bank levy</h2>
<p>The levy’s structure doesn’t appear to involve the taxation of goods in a way that would go against Section 90 of the Constitution. The banks are being taxed on the basis of the value of an asset class they hold – in a way that is comparable to land tax. </p>
<p>Given the small percentages involved, this levy does not seem to interfere with the federal government’s levy, and would arguably not be incompatible with it. While relatively novel, the tax appears on its face to be constitutionally valid. </p>
<p>However, the politics of the issue is far more vexed, as the dark shadows of the federal government tied-grants scheme loom over all matters involving state tax. As Western Australia has learned, raising state taxes <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-true-story-of-western-australia-and-the-gst">can have catastrophic unintended consequences</a>. After that State raised mining royalties during the mining boom, the Commonwealth Grants Commission drastically reduced its share of GST payments - down to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-24/wa-gst-share-falls-to-lower-than-forecast-budget-in-trouble/8384344">34 cents in the dollar</a>.</p>
<p>The fate of the state levy remains uncertain, with the politics very much <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/sa-libs-rethink-bank-tax-support-amid-lobbying-blitz/8657210">in flux</a>. What is clear is that the other states are <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-23/sa-style-bank-tax-attractive-says-wa-treasurer-ben-wyatt/8646420">taking notice</a>.</p>
<p>With growing frustration over fiscal dependence on the federal government, it seems we may be entering a new phase of innovation in state taxation. Perhaps the federation is not yet dead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80073/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joe McIntyre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Given the small percentages involved, South Australia’s bank levy won’t interfere with the federal government’s levy, and would arguably be compatible with it.Joe McIntyre, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/745182017-04-06T19:25:06Z2017-04-06T19:25:06ZAustralian politics explainer: the writing of our Constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163032/original/image-20170329-1637-jttpxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The British parliament passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act in 1900.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Australian Democracy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation is running a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/australian-politics-explainer-37192">series of explainers</a> on key moments in Australian political history, looking at what happened, its impact then, and its relevance to politics today.</em></p>
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<p>Since coming into effect <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-82.html">in 1901</a>, Australia’s Constitution has shaped – and been shaped by – our political history.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Browse/ByTitle/Constitution/InForce#top">The Constitution</a> is the highest law in Australia. It shapes the laws the federal parliament may pass, how it administers those laws, the way our courts work, and how the federal government interacts with the state and territory governments.</p>
<h2>What happened?</h2>
<p>In the late 1800s, there were six British colonies on the Australian continent. These stand-alone colonies had <a href="https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/members/former/first-parliament">their own parliaments and governments</a>, <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-49.html">their</a> <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-42.html">own</a> <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-34.html">colonial constitutions</a>, and even their <a href="https://www.navyhistory.org.au/origins-of-the-queensland-navy/">own militaries</a>. </p>
<p>When travelling from one colony to another, people had to pass through <a href="http://www.murrayriver.com.au/customs-house/">a customs check</a> before crossing the border. And they had to <a href="http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1889502/2018PeterLloydColonialTariffs.pdf">pay taxes on goods they were carrying</a>.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/timeline-b-1837-t-1899.html">1880s and 1890s</a>, representatives of the colonies began the discussions that would lead to federation. They wanted to join together to create a national government while maintaining political power for each colony’s own government. </p>
<p>These <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Records_of_the_Australasian_Federal_Conventions_of_the_1890s">discussions</a>, which culminated in the Constitution we have today, were <a href="http://www.peo.gov.au/learning/closer-look/federation-cl.html">driven by many factors</a>. Among these were the need to make trade easier within Australia, a desire to <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-87.html">control immigration</a>, and to improve defence arrangements for the continent. </p>
<p>In part, the Australian Constitution’s drafters were inspired by the United States and its Constitution; the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/">structure</a> of our Constitution looks quite similar to <a href="https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst.html">the Americans’</a>. </p>
<p>But, crucially, Australian Federation <a href="https://parkesfoundation.org.au/resources/sir-henry-parkes-2/in-his-own-words/">did not</a> involve a revolution against Britain. Instead, at Federation, Australia would maintain <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-96.html#significance">close</a> links to the parliament in London, <a href="http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/former-justices/gleesoncj/cj_18jun08.pdf">the British courts</a> and the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s61.html">British monarchy</a>. </p>
<p>Aside from some <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/amendment-amid-21.html">discriminatory</a> <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s25.html">provisions</a>, the Constitution would not include acknowledgement or recognition of Indigenous Australians. Our system of government became a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00323268008401755?journalCode=cajp19">mixture</a> of British-inspired elements, American-inspired elements and uniquely Australian elements. </p>
<p>Voters were asked to approve the draft Constitution at <a href="http://www.peo.gov.au/learning/closer-look/federation-cl/referendums.html">referendums</a> held in all the colonies. All the colonies <a href="http://www.peo.gov.au/learning/closer-look/federation-cl/western-australia-joins-the-federation.html">eventually</a> voted in favour – though some only narrowly, and with most women and Indigenous Australians <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781862871960">excluded</a> from voting. </p>
<p>After being passed into law by parliament in London, the Constitution came into effect on January 1, 1901.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162618/original/image-20170327-3298-10xbnvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin are considered founding fathers of Australia’s federation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136598758/view?searchTerm=edmund+barton#search/edmund%20barton">National Library of Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What was its impact?</h2>
<p>All this history has shaped our Constitution, and continues to shape our political history. Our Constitution establishes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/federalism/">federal</a> system of government – <a href="https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/government-in-new-zealand/">not every national government</a> is a federal government;</p></li>
<li><p>a system of <a href="https://jade.io/article/67991?url.hash=_ftnref30">representative government</a>: we vote for those who govern us, and hold them accountable;</p></li>
<li><p>a system of <a href="https://jade.io/article/267004?at.hl=williams+v+commonwealth&url.hash=_ftnref120">responsible government</a>: our prime minister and ministers <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s64.html">are members of parliament</a>, chosen by the parliament and accountable to the parliament; and</p></li>
<li><p>a constitutional monarchy: Queen Elizabeth II is the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s61.html">constitutional head of our executive government</a>, and our <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-government/how-government-works">head of state</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>But it’s also important to remember that much goes unmentioned in our Constitution. Many key elements of our system of government <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unwritten-rules-shape-ministerial-accountability-50515">don’t appear in the text of the Constitution</a>. The prime minister, for instance, doesn’t rate a mention. </p>
<p>To help make up for the omissions, our political and legal history has been guided by rules known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unwritten-rules-shape-ministerial-accountability-50515">constitutional conventions</a>. These conventions are shaped by British history and by Australian history, and have occasionally proven <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-might-the-dismissals-legacy-mean-for-an-australian-republic-push-50299">very controversial</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights">many</a> <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights">constitutional</a> <a href="http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/Historical_Information/The_Constitution/February_2015_-_Constitution_of_Ireland_.pdf">systems</a>, Australia lacks any form of comprehensive bill of rights protections. Instead, Australia’s constitutional system was <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/publications/papers-and-podcasts/australian-constitution/keane.aspx">built on the principle</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the rights of individuals are sufficiently secured by ensuring, as far as possible, to each a share, and an equal share, in political power.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nonetheless, the text of our Constitution shapes what our governments can do, and the way in which they can do it. The Constitution affects how governments <a href="https://jade.io/article/267004">spend money</a>, the position of <a href="http://www.aspg.org.au/conferences/darwin2012/Session%201%20-%20Williams.pdf">Indigenous Australians</a>, and policy in areas ranging from <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2006/52.html">industrial relations</a> and <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/downloadPdf/2013/HCA/55">marriage</a> to the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/158clr1.html">environment</a> and <a href="https://jade.io/article/67728">asylum seekers</a>. </p>
<p>Significantly, the Constitution also protects our role as citizens in <a href="https://jade.io/article/15319">choosing our representatives</a> and in <a href="https://jade.io/article/67991">holding them accountable</a>.</p>
<h2>What are its contemporary implications?</h2>
<p>The Constitution is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s128.html">hard to change</a>. The federal parliament first must approve any proposed amendment. The amendment must then pass a referendum by a “<a href="http://education.aec.gov.au/teacher-resources/files/referendum-2-double-majority.pdf">double majority</a>”: approved by a majority of voters as well as a majority of voters in a majority of states.</p>
<p>In 116 years, <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22handbook%2Fnewhandbook%2F2014-10-31%2F0049%22">44 attempts</a> have been made to change the Constitution. Only eight have succeeded. </p>
<p>The failed <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp0203/03rp11">attempts</a> have included efforts to switch parliamentary terms from three years to four years, multiple efforts to protect basic civil rights, and the unsuccessful republic referendum to replace the monarch with an Australian. The last time the Constitution was successfully amended was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1977">in 1977</a>.</p>
<p>Some may see this inflexibility as a strength: the Constitution is stable and enduring. But it also makes the Constitution very hard to update in response to changing times and changing values. </p>
<p>As a result, the Constitution is a document that reflects the priorities of the late 19th century <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/our-nations-rulebook-is-showing-its-age-we-desperately-need-a-review-of-the-constitution-20161229-gtjf7l.html">more than the early 21st century</a>.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, after 116 years of federation, there are many contemporary debates about the Constitution. Some are about how we should interpret the Constitution we have. Others are about finding ways to update our system of government <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/FedJSchol/2003/3.html">without</a> having to amend the Constitution. </p>
<p>But there are also debates about changing the Constitution, such as whether Indigenous Australians should be recognised in <a href="https://referendumcouncil.org.au">symbolic or substantive ways</a>, whether the role of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-are-we-having-a-referendum-on-local-government-14112">local government</a> should be enshrined, or whether to <a href="http://www.republic.org.au">replace the monarchy</a> with an Australian head of state. </p>
<p>Or should we undertake a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/our-nations-rulebook-is-showing-its-age-we-desperately-need-a-review-of-the-constitution-20161229-gtjf7l.html">much more serious overhaul</a>? </p>
<p>These questions reflect our history, and the answers to them will shape our future. But they also raise broader questions for all Australians: what do we expect from our politics? And what do we expect from our Constitution?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Goss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s Constitution is a product of foreign and domestic political influences. It has become one of the enduring aspects of Australian politics and law, for better and worse.Ryan Goss, Senior Lecturer in Law, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/714622017-01-18T19:06:02Z2017-01-18T19:06:02ZIf we scrapped the states, increasing Canberra’s clout would be a backward step<blockquote>
<p>If you were starting Australia all over again, you would have a national government and 20 regional governments. That was one of the things I agreed with Gough Whitlam on. … Anything that can reduce or end the duplication between Commonwealth, state and local governments is a good idea. <strong>– John Winston Howard</strong> (quoted in The Weekend Australian, November 9, 1991)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the hardy perennials of Australian politics is the claim that the states are obsolete and <a href="https://theconversation.com/heed-hawkes-call-australian-federalism-is-an-idea-whose-time-has-ended-71001">should be done away with</a>. This view has adherents on all sides of politics, particularly those in the Commonwealth government with long and frustrating experience of dealing with the states. The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bob-hawke-says-abolish-state-governments-and-think-big-to-fix-the-nation-20161228-gtiwgv.html">latest call</a> has come, not for the first time, from former prime minister Bob Hawke.</p>
<p>On the face of it, abolition of the states would imply a highly centralised system in which the powers of the states were transferred to the Commonwealth. However, few proponents of state abolition accept this implication. Instead, it is argued, the three-tier system of federal, state and local governments could be replaced by a two-tier system with 20 or so regional governments, with a resulting reduction in the number of politicians and bureaucrats.</p>
<p>This idea sounds appealing enough in the abstract, which is how it is normally presented. In practice, however, it is necessary to define regions with natural boundaries. </p>
<h2>How would the political map be redrawn?</h2>
<p>It is obvious, at a minimum, that each existing state and territory capital must have its own region. Also, Geelong clearly belongs with Melbourne, Wollongong, Newcastle and Gosford with Sydney, and the Southeast Queensland region (Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba) with Brisbane.</p>
<p>At this point, only a few <a href="http://blog.id.com.au/2016/population/australian-population/latest-population-figures-top-50-largest-cities-and-towns-in-australia/">urban centres with populations</a> in the vicinity of 100,000 are left — Townsville and Cairns in Queensland, and Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria. </p>
<p>Geographically speaking, Townsville and Cairns could form the core of a natural northern region, including Mackay, Charters Towers and Rockhampton. Unfortunately, the two cities are such <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_regional_rivalries#Cairns_vs_Townsville">bitter rivals</a> that even the name of the putative region (North Queensland versus Far North Queensland) would be a <a href="http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/cairns-uses-rubbery-figures-to-claim-capital-of-nq/news-story/3283f1a7bec4112c75097ddaee60e9ee">source</a> of <a href="http://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/cairns-versus-townsville-rivalry-reaches-fever-pitch-over-new-figures/news-story/6e20c6a9ec3f9cd4ae9308ec21661a90">civil strife</a>. Rather than be governed by the other, either city would prefer to be ruled from Brisbane or Canberra.</p>
<p>The problem with Tasmania is the opposite. In practice, Tasmania is already <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_regional_rivalries#Tasmania:_North_vs_South">divided into two parts</a>. These have separate newspapers, breweries and educational institutions, not to mention attitudes. </p>
<p>Although Hobart is the seat of government, the northern coast, including Launceston, Burnie and Devonport, has half the population and most of the growth prospects. Far from strengthening regional diversity, the formal division of the state into two regions would simply strengthen the north at the expense of the south.</p>
<p>Suppose, however, that we allow North Queensland and Northern Tasmania as regions. The ten regions described so far include urban centres <a href="http://blog.id.com.au/2016/population/australian-population/latest-population-figures-top-50-largest-cities-and-towns-in-australia/">accounting for more than 75%</a> of Australia’s population. When their immediate hinterland is taken into account, the figure is probably between 85% and 90%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153155/original/image-20170118-21179-fia9mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The concentration of Australians in the big urban centres – font sizes of place names are scaled here in line with populations – presents problems for creating representative regional governments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/australia-map-largest-cities-carefully-scaled-218368165">shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about the rest of Australia?</h2>
<p>It is simply nonsense to suggest that the remaining 2-3 million people could be divided up into ten sustainable regions, as the 20-region idea would suggest. </p>
<p>The whole of Western Australia outside Perth has barely <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/1306.5main+features32014#Estimated%20Resident%20Population">half a million people</a>. South Australia outside Adelaide has <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Main%20Features352014-15?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2014-15&num=&view=">fewer than 400,000</a>. Road, rail and air transport networks all radiate from Adelaide and Perth. Any regional government formed in these states would have little option but to base its operations in the existing state capital.</p>
<p>Superficially, the prospects for regionalism look better in the eastern states. <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Main%20Features202014-15?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2014-15&num=&view=">New South Wales</a>, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Main%20Features252014-15?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2014-15&num=&view=">Victoria</a> and <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Main%20Features302014-15?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2014-15&num=&view=">Queensland</a> each have well over a million people living outside the metropolitan conurbations. But the prospects are superficial indeed. </p>
<p>The biggest provincial centres in the Melbourne sphere of influence are Ballarat, Bendigo, the Latrobe Valley and Wodonga (usually lumped with its NSW twin, Albury). Ballarat and Bendigo are close neighbours, but the other centres have little in common except that they are not Melbourne. The same is true of Bathurst-Orange, Coffs Harbour and Wagga in NSW.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153157/original/image-20170118-21153-1dlt6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jeff Kennett lost office in Victoria to a revolt by non-metropolitan voters, who might not be better off if the current states are abolished.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rural and regional Australians feel neglected by governments based in faraway coastal cities, and often with good reason. But under the current system, country voters frequently exercise the balance of power and can punish governments that are too focused on the interests of the metropolis. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/elections/vic/2006/guide/summary.htm">Jeff Kennett found this out</a> to his cost as Victorian premier in 1999.</p>
<p>In a system of regional governments, this influence would be lost. The regions would still depend on the former capitals for transport hubs, teaching hospitals, major universities and a host of other services, but would no longer have any political leverage over them. </p>
<p>In dealings between say, a government of Northwestern New South Wales and a government of Greater Sydney, it is not hard to imagine who would lose out.</p>
<h2>Beware the unitary state</h2>
<p>The only way the system could be made to work is if the federal government stepped in to level the playing field. In practice, the Commonwealth would assume all the powers of the former states and the regional governments would be glorified shire councils.</p>
<p>The result would be a unitary state, easily the largest in the world by area and almost certainly one of the most fractious. Decisions on matters like bus services and housing developments in say, Brisbane, would be made by bureaucrats in Canberra and ministers whose electorates might be in Perth.</p>
<p>Voters who already view Canberra as remote and distant would become even more even more hostile when every rail breakdown and hospital mishap could be blamed on that faraway city.</p>
<p>And, although the states would be gone, the geographical realities they represent would not. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/another-day-another-hospital-funding-dispute-how-to-make-sense-of-todays-coag-talks-57058">fights we now see</a> at meetings of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) would be played out within the national government. </p>
<p>The allocation of ministries such as health and education between the former states would be a matter of vital concern. State-based factions would become even more important than they are now.</p>
<p>The desire for uniformity, which is central to the argument for unitary government, would run into the reality that conditions in a country as large as Australia are incredibly diverse. </p>
<p>To take a trivial example, nearly all existing unitary governments are confined to a single time zone. The need to co-ordinate every aspect of public policy with a government in a different time zone would increase the alienation already felt in places like Adelaide and Perth.</p>
<p>The push for regional government may be unsuited to Australian conditions, but it is at least consistent with the general tendency around the world towards <a href="https://theconversation.com/rebalancing-government-in-australia-to-save-our-federation-33365">subsidiarity</a> – that is, allowing decisions specific to a particular group of people to be made, as far as possible, by those people. </p>
<p>Previously unitary states like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-attention-turns-to-uk-wide-devolution-who-will-stand-up-for-the-lesser-english-regions-31931">UK</a> and even <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/devolution-government-and-politics">France</a> have devolved much of their formerly centralised power. A shift by Australia towards a unitary government, motivated by such trivial concerns as the desire for uniformity and administrative cost savings, would be a retrograde step.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Quiggin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Federal politicians and the public like the idea of abolishing the states. But consider the likely result: a more powerful Canberra, with regional governments amounting to glorified shire councils.John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/560812016-04-25T20:15:07Z2016-04-25T20:15:07ZIdeas for Australia: To really reform the federation, you must build strong bipartisan support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117918/original/image-20160408-23938-1iljinr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recent debates over federation reform confirm that the Turnbull government must map out a path and a plan.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation has asked 20 academics to examine the big ideas facing Australia for the 2016 federal election and beyond. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ideas-for-australia">20-piece series</a> will examine, among others, the state of democracy, health, education, environment, equality, freedom of speech, federation and economic reform.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Every Australian prime minister since at least Robert Menzies has committed to an improved federal system. The Whitlam, Hawke, Howard and even Keating governments grappled with it, sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by the 50 or so premiers and chief ministers who have served over the last 30 years.</p>
<p>Kevin Rudd made the most noise about ending the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-pledges-to-end-health-blame-game-20071001-11v4.html">“blame game”</a>. But his attempt at streamlining federal finances largely failed. Nothing was done to change the culture of federal and state governments pursuing a myriad of ad-hoc funding deals in major policy areas, often based on unsustainable income projections.</p>
<p>The scramble of responsibilities, finances, inefficiencies and buck-passing remained.</p>
<h2>The recent moves</h2>
<p>The first Rudd prime ministership also attempted to make the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) a true <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/rudd-harnesses-coag-workhorse/story-e6frg6nf-1111115166921">“workhorse of the nation”</a>. That too was unsustainable without more permanent institutions to support the collaborative frenzy.</p>
<p>Enter Tony Abbott’s historic commitment, in 2013, to developing a long-term policy strategy for a <a href="http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2014/06/28/prime-minister-white-paper-reform-federation">reformed federation</a>. But it also suffered major setbacks, mostly of his own making.</p>
<p>Abbott undermined his own initiative by failing to consult the states when his first budget <a href="https://theconversation.com/premiers-demand-abbott-meet-them-insisting-he-has-got-his-budget-facts-wrong-26854">pulled back</a> on income and funding projections. He <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-12/dozens-of-agencies-to-fall-under-federal-budget-axe/5445354">abolished the COAG Reform Council</a>, one of the few institutions helping to drive high-level co-operation.</p>
<p>The Abbott approach also suffered two other flaws. <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/national-affairs/prime-minister-tony-abbott-tells-states-its-time-to-do-more/story-fnmbxr2t-1226918424973">Its objective</a> of making each level “sovereign in its own sphere”, or creating clean lines of policy responsibility, was never realistic for major shared policy areas such as health, education and infrastructure. What was needed was clearer thinking on how the different roles within these fields should be shared and funded, rather than divvied up.</p>
<p>And while Abbott did succeed in starting a new reform conversation with both Labor and Coalition states in 2015, he never lifted a finger in pursuit of bipartisanship on federal reform at the federal level itself.</p>
<p>Enter Malcolm Turnbull, and the apparent debacle over reforms to give the states <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coag-premiers-reject-malcolm-turnbulls-push-to-allow-states-to-levy-income-tax-20160401-gnw4pc.html">more control</a> over income tax. An apparent debacle, because the outcome was logical and historic.</p>
<p>And enter too the latest data on how federal reform <a href="https://www.griffith.edu.au/business-government/centre-governance-public-policy/research-programs/federalism,-regionalism-and-devolution">is seen</a> across the political parties, and federal and state parliaments.</p>
<p>This snapshot of the views of 201 MPs, across all parliaments and parties, was collected from September 2015 to January 2016. The results show why federation reform will not go away. Like the community, most federal and state MPs agree federation reform is important, irrespective of their political persuasion. </p>
<p>Fortunately, the recent debates confirm that the Turnbull government knows it must map out a path forward, however difficult this may be.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118071/original/image-20160411-23638-1uqwsrg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<h2>How to do reform?</h2>
<p>Views diverge dramatically on both party lines and federal-versus-state lines on where to focus for solutions, or what the eventual outcomes should be.</p>
<p>When asked about the importance of different areas of reform, Coalition MPs at both levels are more likely than Labor MPs to nominate reform of the roles and responsibilities of the different levels. This helps explain the Abbott “clean lines” instinct.</p>
<p>By contrast, Labor MPs – especially federal ones – are more likely than their Coalition counterparts to prioritise intergovernmental co-operation. This is consistent with Labor’s history of trying to make the whole scramble deliver, rather than trying to make it less of a mess.</p>
<p>Federal Labor MPs are also less likely to want to back out of state affairs, and remain more likely to support abolishing or replacing the states.</p>
<p>But, importantly, abolishing or replacing the states is not just a Labor dream. It is supported by 28% of federal Coalition respondents and 17% of state and territory respondents. As recorded by successive <a href="https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/news/2014/10/10/latest-constitutional-values-survey-released/">Australian Constitutional Values surveys</a>, 25% of the wider community agree.</p>
<p>Perceptions differ massively as to how the federation should be reformed. However, more than 70% of Australians and at least 60% of every group of MPs would prefer to have something other than what we have now, irrespective of party or level.</p>
<p>These longer-term aspirations confirm that we can’t simply throw up our hands and leave federation reform alive and kicking – but unresolved – in the too-hard basket.</p>
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<h2>What can be done now?</h2>
<p>Even if federal Labor and the Coalition have fundamental differences on how the federation should work and be reformed – and it seems they do – we can, and must, move on the areas of common ground.</p>
<p>The survey shows the best common ground is to reform financial relationships so the inefficiencies, gaming and uncertainties are reduced. In the present system, the federal government collects almost all the money, but the Federation depends on massive proportions being laundered back to the states.</p>
<p>When it comes to financial reform, there are a range of possible answers. One is getting the states to raise more of their own revenue. The support for this among Coalition members, federal and state, explains why Turnbull’s recent proposal was not just a mere thought bubble, but a genuine option.</p>
<p>That option is <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/malcolm-turnbull-ends-big-week-of-ideas-boom-with-coag-fizzer/news-story/bc038ae6cdadcfb3077b45e313447175">now dead</a>, and for good reason. Australian citizens, business and government like having a system that is flexible but also simple; which supports the community and economy by helping those who need it, but in which everyone is fundamentally equal.</p>
<p>This can be seen in strong support for fiscal equalisation. Taxes on individuals and business should be uniform, but the revenue generated should be distributed so that those who genuinely need it less are helping those who need it more.</p>
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<p>But where the most recent COAG meeting ended up, and the next phase of the Turnbull and/or Bill Shorten reform process needs to go, is in making the system clearer and more sustainable by redistributing federally collected funds in a more fixed, guaranteed, accountable way.</p>
<p>This is the principle with the most consistent support across all types of parliaments and parties. It may not be the reform that everyone sees as most important, but it provides the strong common ground which is vital in making other reforms possible.</p>
<p>There is much to be done. All the other issues – clearer roles and responsibilities, better accountability to the community, more effective support for intergovernmental collaboration, more clarity and resources for local and regional levels of governance – still have to be tackled.</p>
<p>But the crucial thing is that we keep going, even if the odd stumble is inevitable. This is why commitment to a stronger, ongoing and more bipartisan federal reform process – one that not only continues but upgrades the effort to shape a better Federation – remains one of the true tests of modern-day Australian political leadership.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ideas-for-australia">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Find out more about the way forward at the upcoming national conference <a href="http://www.griffith.edu.au/sir-samuel-griffith-legacy-series">A People’s Federation for the 21st Century?</a> in Brisbane on June 16-17.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A J Brown receives funding from the Australian Research Council, as well as other partner organisations under Australian Research Council Linkage Projects. He is also a member of the board of directors (non-remunerated) of Transparency International Australia. </span></em></p>Commitment to a stronger, ongoing and more bipartisan federal reform process is one of the true tests of modern political leadership.A J Brown, Professor of Public Policy & Law, Centre for Governance & Public Policy, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/565132016-04-25T20:15:05Z2016-04-25T20:15:05ZIdeas for Australia: Can our federalism feuds be fixed with a look to overseas?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117802/original/image-20160407-9990-2zokfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A dysfunctional unilateralism characterises intergovernmental relations in Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation has asked 20 academics to examine the big ideas facing Australia for the 2016 federal election and beyond. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ideas-for-australia">20-piece series</a> will examine, among others, the state of democracy, health, education, environment, equality, freedom of speech, federation and economic reform.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s recent radical plan to return a limited income-tax power to Australia’s states – which he <a href="http://malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/doorstop-penrith">trumpeted as</a> “the most fundamental reform to the federation in generations” – <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/malcolm-turnbulls-state-based-income-tax-idea-is-dead-2016-4">died as an idea</a> within a week.</p>
<p>At one level, this was just another example of thought-bubble politics, policy on the run, pre-election positioning. At a deeper level, it was indicative of much of what is wrong in Australia’s federation. A dysfunctional unilateralism characterises intergovernmental relations.</p>
<h2>What’s the problem?</h2>
<p>Australia’s Constitution created two levels of government that were intended, in the largest part, to function independently of one another. It is therefore understandable that no mechanism was included for intergovernmental relations. </p>
<p>The Senate was envisaged as providing some sort of representation for the states in national decision-making. However, being popularly elected rather than appointed by the state governments, it was never going to function in that way – and never has.</p>
<p>This was not a real problem until the Commonwealth <a href="http://www.peo.gov.au/learning/closer-look/governing-australia/uniform-tax-case-1942.html">seized control</a> of the main tax sources in 1942 and then went on to use its surplus revenue to expand further and further into areas of state jurisdiction. </p>
<p>The resulting extreme <a href="https://theconversation.com/renewing-federalism-what-are-the-solutions-to-vertical-fiscal-imbalance-31422">vertical fiscal imbalance</a> (VFI) is a system where, far from operating autonomously, the two levels of government are deeply entangled. In particular, the Commonwealth tends to use its fiscal power to lay down the rules in various policy areas. Yet it still relies on the states for the actual implementation and administration of policies and programs, and the delivery of public services. </p>
<p>If there’s any justification for accusing the states of treating the Commonwealth <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/the-pros-and-cons-of-withdrawing-federal-funding-from-state-schools/news-story/91cb58b68e4a158e0b0e55bfb3da9289">like an ATM</a>, this is it.</p>
<p>In response to this entanglement, the Commonwealth and the states agreed in the early 1990s to formalise their working relationship by establishing the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). </p>
<p>COAG, however, is only a meeting. It is perhaps not <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/254050.html">“nasty, brutish and short”</a>, but it is certainly short, occasional and Commonwealth-dominated.</p>
<p>A painful lack of cohesion and co-operation among the states has greatly facilitated Commonwealth unilateralism. If the states cannot agree to a common position on fixing vertical fiscal imbalance, then there is no surprise the Commonwealth continues to provide no realistic solution.</p>
<p>Recognising this problem, the states came together in 2005 to create their own collegial body: the <a href="http://www.caf.gov.au/">Council for the Australian Federation</a>. For a brief moment it functioned well. However, the collective spirit soon waned and it lost momentum and relevance.</p>
<h2>Can we learn from overseas?</h2>
<p>Could things work better? Perhaps. The reality, though, is that intergovernmental relations are not the strong point of federal systems generally.</p>
<p>Germany is the most obvious exception. Its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesrat_of_Germany">Bundesrat</a>, or Federal Council, really is a states’ house since it is made up of emissaries from the state governments. As a consequence, the federal government must negotiate in good faith with the states since they have veto power over any federal legislation that concerns them. </p>
<p>This is reinforced by a principle of constitutional interpretation that requires Germany’s governments to be faithful to federalism’s principles. Not surprisingly, Germany has solved the fiscal problem besetting Australian federalism by establishing a system of <a href="http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/fachbereich/vwl/corneo/Forschung/Fiscal-Federalism-and-Tax-Administration.pdf">joint taxation</a>. Constitutionally defined shares of the main taxes go to the respective levels of government.</p>
<p>In Switzerland, intergovernmental relations also function reasonably well. This is not because of similar institutional advantages to those of Germany, but because the states co-operate and co-ordinate much better between themselves.</p>
<p>In some areas this means jointly solving problems in a way that obviates the need for central government intervention. In others, this means presenting a united front to the central government.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Germany and Switzerland are the two federations where the states have taken steps to ensure strong representation in the capital. Each of the German states has its mission or representative office in Berlin. Some could be mistaken for foreign embassies. </p>
<p>Each of the Swiss states is represented in the national capital via the Conference of Cantonal Governments’ House of the Cantons.</p>
<p>No such established framework of co-operative relations exists in Canada. But its provinces tend to take a stronger position in relation to the federal government, led in particular by Quebec and Alberta. </p>
<p>The provinces also have a reasonably successful intergovernmental body of their own, the <a href="http://canadaspremiers.ca/en/">Council of the Federation</a>. It greatly helps the situation in Canada that the federal government was only able to co-opt the income tax system for the duration of the second world war. It was not able to take over the tax system permanently. </p>
<p>Additionally, the provinces are free to levy their own sales taxes. Over the years a system of tax-base sharing has evolved to minimise administrative complexities while providing each province with substantial own-source revenues and scope to differentiate itself from others.</p>
<p>There is much in these overseas practices that would be of benefit to Australian federalism. Better outcomes would result from better processes. The states wouldn’t be in the position of chronic disadvantage where they are regularly scorned for refusing to accept offers that are neither advantageous nor workable, or even necessarily offered in good faith. </p>
<p>The prerequisite for such reforms is much more determined and effective collective action by the states.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ideas-for-australia">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Fenna receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The reality is that intergovernmental relations are not the strong point of federal systems generally. But some do it better than others.Alan Fenna, Professor of Politics, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/558722016-04-04T01:09:56Z2016-04-04T01:09:56ZMetropolitan governance is the missing link in Australia’s reform agenda<p>Perhaps all Western countries with which Australia might choose to compare itself have, since the early 1990s, engaged in intergovernmental decentralisation. They have done so as part of a metropolitan “renaissance” that includes <a href="http://eur.sagepub.com/content/10/4/297.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc">“experiments” with metropolitan government</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, Australia’s state governments are responsible for metropolitan governance. The state responsibility exists in a context of increasing intergovernmental centralisation that favours the federal government, as well as finance and treasury in federal and state governments.</p>
<p>New forms of metropolitan governance and a claimed worldwide decentralisation of roles and responsibilities have been a response to neoliberalism and the competitive forces arising from globalisation. How might Australia’s “<a href="http://www.acelg.org.au/sites/default/files/MetroWorkingPaper2012.pdf">unique model of metropolitan governance</a>” be explained? Does it enhance economic competitiveness and the building of fair cities?</p>
<p>At first blush an answer lies in Australia’s Constitution. Federalism in Australia is <a href="https://theconversation.com/rebalancing-government-in-australia-to-save-our-federation-33365">premised on subsidiarity</a> between the federal and state levels of government. No provision is made for the possibility that metropolitan governments might best undertake metro-scale roles and responsibilities.</p>
<p>Metropolitan governments can be created through constitutional change, but this is improbable. Instead, the governance of Australia’s urban regions is premised on local government being a “creature” of state government. This notion, a product of the 19th century, empowers state governments to legislate metropolitan governments. </p>
<p>A precedent exists for a state government creating a metropolitan government. Created in 1925, Brisbane City Council incorporated all the urban region’s local authorities with an eye to financial viability and metro-scale efficiencies in the delivery of water, sanitation, roads and so on. The council now serves about half of the effective metropolitan population.</p>
<h2>‘Rescaling’ is missing element of reform</h2>
<p>Neoliberalism, from an urban perspective, comprises reducing government spending and the role of government in the economy and in delivering infrastructure and services. The responsibility of government does not change – that is, to ensure the delivery of hitherto public goods and services. Its role changes substantially: government is not itself responsible for delivery.</p>
<p>Both the Labor and the Coalition, at all levels of government, have embraced public sector reform. This has involved increased competition, deregulation and privatisation and the outsourcing of infrastructure and service delivery. Where this cannot be done profitably, civil society is promoted – an example is NGOs’ involvement in social housing. </p>
<p>But government still bears responsibility for ensuring services are delivered. For example, failures in the private delivery of public transport services contributed to the <a href="http://electionwatch.edu.au/victoria-2014/welcome-election-watch-victoria">fall of the Brumby government</a> in Victoria in 2010.</p>
<p>Setting Australia apart, institutional restructuring has not been accompanied by intergovernmental decentralisation. In comparison, throughout the European Union the metropolitan “rescaling” of urban regions <a href="https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415274494">was undertaken</a> to enhance their global competitiveness. </p>
<p>This is especially relevant to global city strategies and, one might think, to Australia. Every state, except Tasmania, and the Northern Territory claim their capital cities are, or should become, <a href="http://www.saskiasassen.com/pdfs/publications/the-global-city-brown.pdf">global cities</a> (“world city” in the case of Queensland).</p>
<p>The metropolitan impetus arising elsewhere from globalisation is not felt in Australia. Australia has not created metropolitan governments. Consequently, there has been no debate by a metropolitan constituency about the desirability of a global city strategy. </p>
<p>Such strategies are closely associated with enhancing <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-lockouts-sydney-needs-to-become-a-more-inclusive-city-55821">inner-city economies and lifestyles</a>. A common outcome is <a href="https://theconversation.com/sydneys-global-vision-bad-news-for-local-housing-affordability-22761">increased social and spatial divides</a>. The global city machismo of state governments is not matched by a concern for fairness.</p>
<h2>The missing link: metropolitan governance</h2>
<p>In effect, while Australia has embraced neoliberal institutional restructuring and state governments pursue global competitiveness as the foundation for urban policies, decentralisation is not on the agenda. While metropolitan governance is discussed, metropolitan government seldom is. </p>
<p>For example, after pointing to metropolitan governance, planning and democratic “deficits”, urban commentators refer to the need for “<a href="https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/199299/urp-ip12-gleeson-et-al-2010.pdf">metropolitan-scale institutions</a>” and for a “<a href="http://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/taking-metropolitan-planning-authority-next-level">metropolitan governance forum</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sgsep.com.au/people/marcus-spiller">Marcus Spiller</a>, a prominent urban economist and planner, has written that state governance of Australia’s urban regions is leading to ineffectual metropolitan planning and infrastructure investment. The result is less productive and more socially divided cities. Spiller’s views should be read in the light of an OECD report that “<a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/urban-rural-and-regional-development/what-makes-cities-more-productive-evidence-on-the-role-of-urban-governance-from-five-oecd-countries_5jz432cf2d8p-en;jsessionid=5pkf2nfdr9soh.x-oecd-live-03">cities with fragmented governance structures have lower levels of productivity</a>”.</p>
<p>Transport and planning ministerial silos also compromise effective state leadership in the development of urban regions. Big-budget transport ministries show scant regard for planning ministries. </p>
<p>A consequence is that despite a professed commitment to compact cities in state-prepared metropolitan strategic plans, infrastructure investment has contributed to urban sprawl. This diminishes access to jobs and education opportunities, and negatively affects household incomes. The city loses the full productive potential of its labour force.</p>
<h2>Cities pay high price for funding imbalance</h2>
<p>Ineffectual planning and investment and compromised productivity also reflect Australia’s extreme vertical fiscal imbalance. In the <a href="http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1448853">words of Paul Keating</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The national perspective dominates Australian political life because the national government dominates revenue raising and only because the national government dominates revenue raising.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116559/original/image-20160329-17862-1s11b76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Keating: ‘The national perspective dominates Australian political life because the national government dominates revenue raising.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/keating/before-office.aspx">NAA: A6135, K15/9/89/28</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Without a constitutional remit to do so, vertical fiscal imbalance has created a “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2010.00687.x/abstract">perverse incentive</a>” for the federal government to get involved in transport funding, housing and other matters about which metropolitan residents might presume to know best.</p>
<p>Thus strategic plans that last the term of a state government and metro-scale infrastructure projects and services that depend on an alignment of state and federal priorities have proven fraught. This is epitomised by the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/east-west-link-could-be-revived-by-infrastructure-victoria-20160226-gn54bp.html">East West Link</a> road project in Victoria. </p>
<p>Melbourne’s residents (75% of the state’s population) <a href="http://www.danielbowen.com/2013/07/17/transport-priorities/">favour public transport</a>, but this was irrelevant to the federal and state Coalition. Victorians now <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-09/auditor-general-reports-on-east-west-link-costs/7012618">have to pay the A$642 million termination fee</a> for the East West Link. </p>
<p>Federal priorities have changed between public transport, the “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/abbott-road-plan-criticised">roads of the 21st century</a>” and “agnosticism”. State priorities have fluctuated between public and private transport, and have been much influenced by federal priorities – that is, following the money. No wonder Infrastructure Australia complains about <a href="http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/policy-publications/publications/Australian-Infrastructure-Plan.aspx">“infrastructure gaps”</a>.</p>
<p>Dysfunctional infrastructure planning and funding, ineffectual metropolitan governance and endless blame-shifting poorly serve the creation of competitive and fair cities. It is no surprise that Jane-Frances Kelly and Paul Donegan of the Grattan Institute <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/154135">held that Australia’s cities “are broken”</a> and “are no longer keeping up with changes in how we live and how our economy works”. </p>
<p>It is at the scale of metropolitan areas where issues pertaining to globalisation, economic competitiveness, social diversity and inequality are embedded.</p>
<p>Labor and the Coalition, at federal and state level, serve metropolitan constituencies with an eye on the next election. Politicians parade trophy projects, services and plans with power, not a metropolitan perspective, in mind.</p>
<p>There is a wealth of comparative experience to guide us. Effective metropolitan governance requires intergovernmental decentralisation. Metro-scale planning, infrastructure investment and services, and partnerships with the private sector and civil society are best led by a representative and accountable metropolitan government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Tomlinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Representative and accountable metropolitan government is needed to lead metro-scale planning, infrastructure investment and services, and partnerships with the private sector and civil society.Richard Tomlinson, Professor of Urban Planning, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/570432016-03-31T23:44:44Z2016-03-31T23:44:44ZAustralia doesn’t need eight different income tax rates<p>Defending the idea that states should be permitted to raise their own income tax, Prime Minister Turnbull <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/malcolm-turnbull/7286850">said</a> that if we were “starting from scratch” designing our taxation arrangements, “we would have a system where each government – each parliament – raised all the money that it spent”.</p>
<p>To mangle a phrase from another federation, we may call that principle “no representation without taxation”. At first sight it appears to be a reasonable guide to the allocation of taxes between the Commonwealth and state (and territory) governments.</p>
<p>That is, until we consider the risk of a “race to the bottom”, as pointed out by Helen Hodgson in her <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-tax-competition-could-lead-to-a-race-to-the-bottom-56998">Conversation article</a>. It’s more than a theoretical outcome: she reminds us, for example, that interstate tax competition in the 1970s resulted in the abolition of inheritance taxes.</p>
<p>In the United States we see the consequence of tax competition writ large, as poor states with weak tax bases become even poorer because they’re unable to fund the public services needed in a modern competitive economy. The problem is particularly manifest in school education, where schools are funded by local government taxes. Poor cities have poor schools, meaning education gaps and therefore income gaps go on widening.</p>
<p>Among prosperous developed federations Australia stands out for its <a href="http://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-levels-of-government.htm">strong centralisation</a> of taxes. The Commonwealth collects around 80% – a point noted in the 2015 Reform of Federation <a href="https://federation.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/reform_of_the_federation_discussion_paper.pdf">discussion paper</a>, with the hint that it should be lower.</p>
<h2>Fortunes can change quickly</h2>
<p>But perhaps what we should ask is, if we were starting from scratch, would we have a federal or a unitary government? There aren’t many federations in the world. Some, such as Germany and Switzerland, were cobbled together from long-established states with a high degree of autonomy and distinct cultural differences. Ours was cobbled together from a set of distant colonies.</p>
<p>Shortly after federation, in the 1920s, there was political pressure for revenue sharing among the states. This resulted in the establishment in 1933 of the <a href="https://cgc.gov.au/attachments/article/54/CGC_and_horizontal_fiscal_equalisation_paper.pdf">Commonwealth Grants Commission</a>, guided by the fiscal equalisation <a href="https://cgc.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35&Itemid=151">principle</a>. The principle involved “the transfer of payments or grants across jurisdictions with the aim of offsetting differences between a jurisdiction’s revenue raising capacity and expenditure needs”. That has generally resulted in a transfer from NSW and Victoria (and in the recent mining boom years from Western Australia) to other states and territories.</p>
<p>A Senate with equal state representation has been one factor supporting fiscal equalisation. It also recognises that in a nation so dependent on commodity exports regional fortunes can change quickly. And there is a general belief that in a country with interstate mobility there should be some uniformity of government services. When people are mobile between regions, centralisation of taxation makes good sense.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth has never been legally required to follow the Commission’s recommendations, but it has done so with untied grants or “general revenue assistance”, specifically funds collected by the GST.</p>
<p>When it was introduced in 2001, premiers greeted the GST enthusiastically because it was seen as a “growth tax”, but it has not entirely lived up to that promise. In 2001-02 GST was 3.73% of GDP; by 2014-15 it had fallen to 3.35%.</p>
<p>That may appear to be a small difference, but had it stayed at its original percentage, states would now be collecting an extra A$6 billion a year. Not only has the growth of private consumption fallen as the mining boom has wound down, but also items exempt from GST, health and education in particular, have been taking more of consumers’ expenditure.</p>
<h2>State services are labour-intensive</h2>
<p>Compounding the problem for states is the fact that state governments are responsible for labour-intensive human services. Hospitals, school education and policing absorb about 60% of stat</p>
<p>es’ recurrent expenditure, and while there are undoubtedly opportunities for productivity improvements, the cost of delivering such services is bound to rise in line with incomes for skilled and professional workers (a phenomenon known as the <a href="http://www.dictionarycentral.com/definition/baumol-effect.html">Baumol Effect</a>.)</p>
<p>So it is hardly surprising that premiers have called for a better revenue base. Naturally, the poorer states want to retain the principle of fiscal equalisation. As policy makers think through the problems of a race to the bottom and the entrenchment of regional disadvantage, proposals to allow states to set their own income tax rates will probably slide off the table.</p>
<p>The problem remains that states need more revenue, and their own revenue bases depend on administratively costly and economically inefficient taxes. They need more revenue from nationally collected taxes – a higher GST, higher income tax, the removal of superannuation and capital gains concessions or some other tax. While South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill and NSW Premier Michael Baird <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4398412.htm">have led the push</a> for a better deal for the states, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews has raised the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4434283.htm">bigger issue</a>: we need more public revenue. </p>
<p>Turnbull has a point in wanting states to take more ownership of taxation, but there is no need to abandon fiscal equalisation. This tradition has helped protect us from the regional disparities that have afflicted the United States. While, for administrative reasons, the Commonwealth should collect taxes on behalf of the states, such taxes should be earmarked (as is the case with the GST), and publicly identified as state taxes. If they were seen as “their” taxes premiers would be saved the indignity of a mendicant relation with the Commonwealth.</p>
<p>Our arrangements pragmatically combine aspects of centralisation and federalism. We don’t need to abandon them. Rather we should ensure that the voting public understand where their taxes are going.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian McAuley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no need to abandon the current tax collection system. Instead we should ensure the voting public understand where their taxes are going.Ian McAuley, Lecturer, Public Sector Finance, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/516632015-12-09T02:13:11Z2015-12-09T02:13:11ZTurnbull faces his most taxing test yet: wooing the states to overhaul the GST<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s first Council of Australian Governments (<a href="https://www.coag.gov.au/">COAG</a>) meeting this Friday will be a test of whether his vaunted commitment to a new “style of leadership … that recognises there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and of course further afield” extends to the state and territory leaders.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/everything-is-on-the-table-leaked-coag-agenda-reveals-gst-changes-being-considered-20151208-gli766.html">Tax reform</a> is dominating the media’s coverage ahead of Friday, as well as Thursday’s treasurers’ meeting. The two days of discussions will pick up from the work done at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/leaders-debate-the-gst-what-you-need-to-know-44958">special COAG retreat</a> in July, and since, including new federal Treasury analysis of different tax options. </p>
<p>But don’t expect any clear decisions on tax reform on Friday – these discussions still have a long way to go. Instead, we can expect to see more progress on other national issues including domestic violence, new strategies against violent extremism, and tackling COAG’s structural flaws.</p>
<h2>Some signs that this COAG might prove more co-operative</h2>
<p>At the first Premiers Conference held in 1901, Prime Minister Edmund Barton had the courtesy to thank the premiers for attending and giving him “the advantage of your experience and wisdom”.</p>
<p>On Friday, premiers and chief ministers will fly into Canberra with different expectations. Such gentle civility has long since been replaced by the rituals of summitry, which focuses on the theatre of personalities and politics, winners and losers, and deals made or rebuffed.</p>
<p>For Turnbull, the signs so far have been positive. Many premiers – not just from his own side of politics – were quick to phone after Tony Abbott was deposed, and seemed happy with the response they met with. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104019/original/image-20151202-14450-13astyu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soon after becoming prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull travelled to the Gold Coast to announce new light rail funding with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszcuk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/8rYs7vMqF7/?taken-by=turnbullmalcolm">@TurnbullMalcolm/Instagram</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk spoke of the “constructive” conversations she enjoyed on transport infrastructure and her support of his innovation agenda.</p>
<p>Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also spoke of his “productive” relationship with Turnbull and the opportunity to move on from the impasse experienced with Abbott on redirecting federal funding from the scrapped East West Link project.</p>
<p>But will this positivity flow into Turnbull’s first COAG meeting?</p>
<p>COAG is a <a href="https://www.coag.gov.au/about_coag">meeting of leaders</a>, each with a high profile within their home jurisdiction. They bring their own priorities and leadership style to the meeting.</p>
<p>Within such a dynamic, collective agreement is never easy – especially on politically sensitive topics like raising the GST to 12.5% or 15%, as well as possibly increasing the Medicare levy, among the options reportedly outlined in an official document <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/everything-is-on-the-table-leaked-coag-agenda-reveals-gst-changes-being-considered-20151208-gli766.html">leaked to Fairfax</a> ahead of Friday’s meeting.</p>
<p>But there are a couple of issues on the December agenda that transcend party lines.</p>
<h2>From violence in our homes to violent extremism</h2>
<p>The last two COAG meetings saw the issue of domestic violence high on the agenda, with the discussion guided by advice from the COAG Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence against Women and their Children. </p>
<p>This December meeting will focus on signing off on a campaign to change young people’s attitude to violence and to consider the Model Law Framework for Domestic Violence Orders and National Perpetrator Standards. All states and territories have committed to funding the campaign on changing young people’s attitudes.</p>
<p>There has been a strong bipartisan commitment to counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism measures from COAG ever since the Howard government.</p>
<p>This Friday’s meeting will acknowledge the transition from a police-based response to broaden the focus to one of working with the community to promote prevention and early intervention with individuals. </p>
<p>States have been investigating innovative strategies to engage with youth at risk, community engagement and resilience. This meeting will identify a number of national strategies to promote social cohesion.</p>
<h2>The most taxing debate</h2>
<p>The issue where partisan tensions will emerge is tax reform. This is particularly challenging for Labor states that must walk the divide between their jurisdictional needs for new funding streams while not undermining <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2015/nov/26/bill-shorten-if-you-think-australians-want-a-15-gst-you-live-on-another-planet-video">federal Labor’s opposition</a> to any increase to the GST.</p>
<p>Labor premiers Palaszczuk and Andrews have both rejected any GST rise from 10%. </p>
<p>But South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill broke party ranks by putting forward a plan to overhaul federal-state tax arrangements. The plan included <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-27/weatherill-wants-gst-hike-for-the-sake-of-health-care/6978974">increasing the rate to 15%</a> with the increased revenue being retained by the Commonwealth, and in exchange the states would receive a fixed share of personal income tax. Weatherill will outline this plan at Friday’s meeting.</p>
<p>The prickliest premier that Turnbull will deal with during this discussion is likely to be a fellow Liberal – WA Premier Colin Barnett. </p>
<p>Barnett is now Australia’s longest-serving premier and is opposed to discussing raising the GST rate unless the distribution model is also reconsidered. After the April COAG meeting, Barnett threatened to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/wa-move-over-gst-shortfall-could-clog-up-federalism-expert-20150413-1mk7yi.html">“disengage”</a> from the federation unless the GST system was changed. His stance has not softened in the interim.</p>
<p>It is unlikely a major announcement on tax reform will come from Friday’s COAG meeting, given the federal government’s options or <a href="http://bettertax.gov.au/have-your-say/process/">“green” paper</a> on tax reform won’t be released until next year. But the states’ views will flow into the options outlined in that upcoming paper.</p>
<h2>Tackling COAG’s structural flaws</h2>
<p>Beyond the formal agenda, there are a number of structural issues around the strategic role of COAG; dominance by the Commonwealth of the agenda; and cultural issues about lack of collaboration and coercive decision-making that continue to irritate the premiers. It will not take them long to make the prime minister aware that their desire still remains strong to see reform of the COAG model.</p>
<p>With the prime minister controlling the agenda and setting the meeting times, the state and territory leaders have a range of reforms to pursue through the <a href="https://federation.dpmc.gov.au/">Reform of the Federation White Paper</a>. The change of prime minister will not have diminished their enthusiasm for reform, so expect to see the state and territory leaders continuing to push for a joint Commonwealth/state secretariat and collaborative agenda setting.</p>
<p>As we have already seen, Turnbull’s charm can help him avoid some of the pitfalls of partisan and personality politics, which always lurk beneath the surface of COAG.</p>
<p>However, the transactional nature of intergovernmental relations in Australia has led to a system based on negotiation and well-developed bargaining skills. More than his charm, Turnbull will need to bring raw political deal-making skills to the COAG table this Friday, particularly if he wishes to win national consensus for any of the new proposals for tax reform.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Menzies is a Member of the Commonwealth Grants Commission. She occasionally undertakes consulting work for state government.</span></em></p>Despite all the media coverage, don’t expect any clear decisions on national tax reform on Friday. But we should see more progress on other issues, including domestic violence and violent extremism.Jennifer Menzies, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/333652014-10-26T19:09:03Z2014-10-26T19:09:03ZRebalancing government in Australia to save our federation<p>Federation in 1901 is now the middle point between 2014 and the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. Despite this, most views of federation, if Australians have one at all, are probably shaped by its 19th-century imagery – dusty, whiskery elderly men in overly formal dress – rather than its 20th-century outcomes.</p>
<p>This is a shame. Behind the federation process in the 19th century was the political courage to undertake radical reform in pursuit of the opportunities created by new political and economic structures, as well as broader strategic concerns about Australia’s place in the world. </p>
<p>Despite being conceived in the 19th century, federation was a child of the 20th century. In a new report released today by the <a href="http://www.ceda.com.au/">Committee for Economic Development of Australia</a> (CEDA), I argue our challenge is to think of the next stage in its development and the opportunities that a new wave of reforms could create.</p>
<h2>The historic benefits of reform</h2>
<p>Federation has delivered enormous economic benefits. In an <a href="http://www.caf.gov.au/Documents/AustraliasFederalFuture.pdf">insightful analysis</a>, professors Anne Twomey and Glenn Withers usefully summarised the benefits as the “six Cs”:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Checks on power: an effective federation protects the individual from an overly powerful government and ensures greater scrutiny of government action.</p></li>
<li><p>Choice in voting options: this ranges from the time-honoured tradition of people voting for one party at the national level and another at the state level to the choice to move between states.</p></li>
<li><p>Customisation of policies: federations allow policy customisation to meet the needs of people and communities across a large and increasingly diverse nation.</p></li>
<li><p>Co-operation: a joint approach to reform is encouraged. This means that proposals tend to be more measured and better scrutinised, which ultimately gives reform proposals greater legitimacy and potential for bipartisan support.</p></li>
<li><p>Competition: federations create incentives between states and territories to improve performance, increase efficiency and prevent complacency. Withers and Twomey showed that despite having an extra layer of government, federations have proportionately fewer public servants and lower public spending than unitary states. The total workforce employed in the entire public sector <a href="http://www.actu.org.au/Images/Dynamic/attachments/7837/Jobs%20Report%20-%20February%202013.pdf">has declined</a> over 30 years from 25% per cent to 16%.</p></li>
<li><p>Creativity: successful innovations in one state can be picked up by other states and policy failures avoided. For example, casemix funding, which has revolutionised the funding of hospitals, began in Victoria in the early 1990s and gradually extended to almost every other state and to the Commonwealth. In 2011, the savings were estimated at A$4 billion a year for an <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/22399F9147ACEF5DCA257BF0001D3A52/$File/Final_Report_November_2009.pdf">estimated annual expenditure</a> of about $10 million in maintaining the casemix system.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>To that list, you could also add Withers and Twomey’s assessments that:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Federalism increased Australia’s prosperity by $4507 per head in 2006 dollars. This amount could be almost doubled if Australia’s federal system was more financially decentralised.</p></li>
<li><p>Countries with federal systems have tended to outperform unitary states over the last 50 years, even allowing for the intrinsic difficulties of comparison.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It bears reiterating that the cost of government, measured as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932389873">lower in Australia</a> than in almost all comparable countries. It is reasonable to suppose that federation is at least partially responsible for successive Australian governments being able to offer relatively high levels of services to citizens at an internationally competitive cost.</p>
<p>Significantly, this cost is lower than in many unitary states, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand, giving the lie to the idea that state-level government is an intrinsic drag on an economy.</p>
<h2>The current state of progress</h2>
<p>My proposals are not based on the failure of Australia’s Federation. On the contrary, they are based on the opportunities that a new practice of government, within current political structures, could create.</p>
<p>In my career, I have seen this new practice of government emerge in both theory and practice. </p>
<p>One of the most striking aspects of the major economic and public sector reforms of the 1980s and 1990s was the degree to which they were driven through federation processes. Under Liberal and Labor premiers, Victoria advocated for, and helped drive, successive waves of the National Reform Agenda (NRA). The NRA established broad, measurable, strategic outcomes for state governments. </p>
<p>This was the basis for massively simplifying specific purpose payments from Commonwealth governments. These dropped from more than 90 to just six, with states having responsibility and a financial incentive for improving their performance. Australia owes Victorian premiers Jeff Kennett and Steve Bracks and NSW premier Nick Greiner a great debt for their work in pushing the Commonwealth into adopting the NRA. </p>
<p>The recent decision to <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2014/06/12/on-the-demise-of-the-coag-reform-council-who-will-hold-governments-accountable-for-health-outcomes/">abolish</a> the Council of Australian Governments Reform Council, which monitors states’ progress towards NRA goals, is a very retrograde step. The states will legitimately feel that they cannot rely on the Commonwealth to keep its word.</p>
<p>Central to this new practice of government is the idea of subsidiarity or devolution. Central governments should perform only those tasks that cannot be more effectively performed at an intermediate or more local level.</p>
<p>In operation, subsidiarity suggests that we should operate systems with associated political accountability through levels of government where the expertise lies. If state governments operate schools, for example, they should have the revenue to do that, without confusing the public through multiple levels of accountability. It also suggests that in the human capital area, the Commonwealth should confine itself to high-level regulation, the payment of benefits (such as pensions) and the publication of data on performance (such as My School).</p>
<p>In essence, we need to shatter the illusion that the Commonwealth is the “Swiss army pocketknife” of government in Australia. The state of aged-care services is a graphic example of the dangers of believing in that illusion. Conversely, the benefits of a subsidiarity approach are increasingly clear.</p>
<p>As already noted, casemix funding has substantially reduced growth in the cost of hospital services. Even the most cursory glance at the United States, which uses a market approach to providing health care, shows that Australia’s outcomes are achieved at considerably lower cost and with arguably greater social equity. The vast disparity in cost in the US between the same procedures done in different hospitals is <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/11/5798558/four-maps-that-show-the-insanity-of-american-health-care-prices">well-documented</a>. This is hard to reconcile with the evangelical view of market efficiency advanced by some in Australia.</p>
<p>In education, states like Victoria have made a concerted effort to provide school councils and principals with greater autonomy. Debate continues about the exact role of increased autonomy in improving school outcomes, but a recent Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission <a href="http://clearinghouse.aitsl.edu.au/Citations/bb6e1eb2-970c-4121-b3b4-a27300c1b5c4">report</a> found that what was crucial was the extent to which:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… local decision making can activate the known drivers of educational improvement, including the quality of teaching and leadership.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a former director general of education, I can endorse assertion. It is also hard to believe that increased centralisation is the answer to meeting the diversity of needs of 880,000 students across 2200 schools.</p>
<p>Many of the reforms in Victoria were closely linked to international thinking from researchers like <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Reinventing_Government.html?id=7qyp_EcJuZoC">Osborne and Gaebler</a>. Their work was deeply influential on the Clinton administration in the US.</p>
<p>Three further observations support the benefits of subsidiarity:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The Productivity Commission’s Blue Book, which compares the cost of service delivery across state jurisdictions, has shown that in Victoria, where devolution has been a long-term, bipartisan objective, per capita cost of <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/132339/rogs-2014-volumee-chapter10.pdf">hospitals</a> and <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/132306/rogs-2014-volumeb-chapter4.pdf">schools</a> has been lower than in most other states.</p></li>
<li><p>In aiming to improve outcomes for Indigenous Australians, which is one of Australia’s greatest systemic public policy failures, the greatest opportunities lie in the devolution of decision-making and accountability to local communities. They are best-placed to plan and shape service delivery in their local area.</p></li>
<li><p>Commonwealth departments have lost all capacity for effective interventions in large-scale service-delivery systems, such as schools and hospitals. </p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Opportunities to crack hardest policy nuts</h2>
<p>It is possible to see the stars aligning to use the subsidiarity principle to crack more of the hardest public policy nuts, including the long-term funding of transport infrastructure, schools and health care.</p>
<p>The Grattan Institute’s <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/home/australian-perspectives">recent reports</a> on the long-term budget challenges facing all levels of government describe the increasingly unfavourable economic headwinds that the Australian economy will face. In particular, they present two unpalatable truths that are evidence of a burning platform requiring a leap towards subsidiarity.</p>
<p>First, though not uncontested, increases in Australian government spending are being driven above all by health spending. This stems not from an ageing population but from the fact that people are seeing doctors more often, having more tests and operations, and taking more prescription drugs. </p>
<p>Second, claims of a “massive infrastructure gap” are not borne out by analysis of state and territory budgets. These have spent more on infrastructure in each of the past five years than in any comparable year since the Australian Bureau of Statistics first measured infrastructure spending in the 1980s.</p>
<p>We now have a conservative national government that is rooted in a philosophy that has traditionally been sceptical of centralisation. New information technology systems and analysis can now give political leaders greater confidence in local-level accountability. Internal government research shows that citizens intrinsically prefer, and rate more favourably, services that are planned and delivered at the local level.</p>
<p>Recent decisions of the High Court suggest that the judicial branch of government is also increasingly sceptical of centralisation. The decision in Williams No. 116 hints that the remedies for judicial dissatisfaction with the Commonwealth using executive authority to fund programs may go beyond a simple requirement for debate in parliament. Twomey <a href="http://www.vic.ipaa.org.au/news/january-2013/what-now-after-williams">has suggested</a> that one of the broader ramifications may be that the Commonwealth is forced to take a less “coercive” approach to negotiating with the states in areas such as education funding.</p>
<p>As I have <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8500.12005/abstract">noted elsewhere</a>, it is also the case that our centralised system is becoming increasingly sclerotic. In part this is because of excessive ministerial office interference in service delivery and rapidly oscillating extremes in views about ministerial accountability. </p>
<p>One remedy is to be far more explicit about the division in accountability between ministers and public servants. That should include making ministerial advisers accountable in the same ways as public servants. Putting subsidiarity into practice also puts the “cookie jar” of service delivery further out of reach of advisers who often have no expertise in service delivery.</p>
<p>But the fundamental obstacle to change in our federation has been one of the world’s most severe cases of <a href="https://theconversation.com/renewing-federalism-what-are-the-solutions-to-vertical-fiscal-imbalance-31422">vertical fiscal imbalance</a>. Since the Second World War this has been our federation’s Achilles’ heel. Among other side-effects, it has encouraged state governments to develop what might be called a <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/category/willie-sutton/">“Willie Sutton”</a> mentality in which the Commonwealth is seen as the only source of revenue.</p>
<p>The truth is that the states prefer to go to the Commonwealth, rather than handle the more challenging task of gaining community support for generating the revenues needed to support the services they provide. This is really a matter of choice, not constitutional necessity. As the recent Commission of Audit highlighted, it is possible to imagine alternative funding systems that would shift this mindset.</p>
<h2>How might subsidiarity work in practice?</h2>
<p>The following examples are predicated on subsidiarity. In implementation, they would meet our growing demands for infrastructure and services, and reinvigorate our federation for the 21st century.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pPuSheTv3TI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Terry Moran discusses the proposals raised in this article at the CEDA launch.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/commission-of-audit-report-released-experts-respond-26177">Commission of Audit</a> has suggested, the Commonwealth should walk its own talk on schools by assigning responsibility for schooling to the states and transferring an agreed share of income tax revenues to them for that purpose. This would also clean out the programmatic confetti that Commonwealth ministers have traditionally sprinkled across the education sector, to its great detriment. </p>
<p>There is also considerable merit in the broadly mooted proposal to increase the rate and coverage of the GST and transfer the extra revenue to the states to support growing demands on public hospitals.</p>
<p>Second, states should be encouraged to develop a land tax, or property charge, with a broader base of applicability but much lower rate than currently applies. Substantial portions of this new revenue stream should be hypothecated to transport improvements, particularly public transport.</p>
<p>Third, as the Productivity Commission <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/137280/infrastructure-volume1.pdf">cautiously suggested</a>, state governments could extend road-use charging to existing freeways, highways and major arterial roads within cities. This revenue would be hypothecated towards building and maintaining these classes of roads and availability-based payments to PPP consortia where needed for new roads. Fuel taxes collected by the Commonwealth could augment this road funding.</p>
<p>The community is legitimately angry about the idea of paying more for roads, when the original intention was that fuel tax would go towards this function. Transferring most of these tax revenues to the states could be part of a historic settlement to partition government roles in transport in favour of state and local governments. It would roll back the current process of the Commonwealth second-guessing other governments.</p>
<p>Having each major city pay this combination of property and road charges into its own funding pool would be a substantial step towards providing the infrastructure our cities need. These cities generate an enormous percentage of national wealth but their taxes effectively disappear into consolidated revenue at the Commonwealth level. </p>
<p>This approach would also provide the resources and legitimacy to fill one of Australia’s most pressing gaps in governance: city-wide planning of the sort that statutory bodies like the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works once provided.</p>
<h2>Premiers can make history again</h2>
<p>None of this would be an easy political sell. It would need leadership capable of building a comprehensive political strategy, and a realistic communication plan that would help ordinary citizens understand that strategy. It would, however, play to what should be the strength of politicians: their ability to build alliances towards strategic objectives, rather than as micro-managing CEOs.</p>
<p>Devolution is a strategy that, in theory at least, has the capacity to create bipartisan consensus. As the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s show, this is a prerequisite for political acceptance and avoiding rollback by subsequent governments. As former prime minister John Howard remarked recently, successful reform requires the community to accept that it is fair and in the national interest.</p>
<p>This would be a major change in Australia’s practice of government. It would mean, among other things, a dramatically different role for the public service at the Commonwealth level. In modern terminology it would probably even be called “disruptive” or “transformational”. </p>
<p>It is striking that some of the core players in this transformation would be the state premiers, the same group who were central to the process that culminated 114 years ago. What we need now is a group of premiers who are interested in “saving” the Federation that their political predecessors helped create. They would do this by being the conduit through which more power and accountability flows into the local governance structures that states and local government are best suited to build and support.</p>
<p>For many years, the tide of funding and authorisation has flowed towards Canberra. As economic headwinds shift, this tide is turning and business as usual will increasingly struggle to make headway. </p>
<p>As Shakespeare reminds us in Julius Caesar, his play about political leaders contemplating change, a tide “taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries”.</p>
<p>We need political leadership prepared to ride with that tide.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The CEDA report _<a href="http://www.ceda.com.au/research-and-policy/policy-priorities/federalism">A Federation for the 21st Century</a></em> will be launched by the Hon Nick Greiner AC, The Hon Justice Duncan Kerr Chev LH and Professor Terry Moran AC today in Sydney._</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Moran has worked in the senior levels of the Victorian, Queensland and Commonwealth public services.</span></em></p>Federation in 1901 is now the middle point between 2014 and the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. Despite this, most views of federation, if Australians have one at all, are probably shaped by its…Terry Moran, Vice-Chancellor's Professorial Fellow, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/280402014-07-06T20:14:52Z2014-07-06T20:14:52ZHow we can reinvigorate the Australian Federation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52992/original/t6gzk279-1404439537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There have been instances of successful federalism - how do we return to these?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyc/102307345">Flickr/monkeyc.net</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When our two major levels of government work in partnership, our Federation can function well. The standout period for cooperative federalism was the Hawke/Keating term of government, producing the National Competition Policy, the east coast power grid, a national rail agreement, harmonised regulation and consumer standards, and mutual recognition of many policies and occupations. </p>
<p>More recent examples are the Intergovernmental Agreement on <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/1999-00/bp3/bp3-Chapter.html">Reform of Commonwealth–State Financial Relations</a> (1999), the <a href="https://www.coagreformcouncil.gov.au/agenda">National Reform Agenda</a> (2008), the <a href="http://www.federalfinancialrelations.gov.au/content/intergovernmental_agreements.aspx">Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations</a> (2011), and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding those successes, the post-World War II drive to centralise power in Canberra has made the Federation increasingly unbalanced. The division of roles and responsibilities has blurred and much overlap and duplication has been created. Political and administrative accountability has become unclear and significant inefficiency and shortcomings in service delivery have resulted.</p>
<h2>Pushing from both sides</h2>
<p>Despite its far greater command over revenues, the Commonwealth tends to push its financial problems onto the States – as it seeks to do in the recent budget. And the States, too, are not above a little cost-shifting to the Commonwealth. </p>
<p>The direct consequence has been proliferation of Commonwealth payments and involvement in areas of State responsibility. Ten years ago, there were fewer than 100 of these partnership agreements (as they are now known) – still too many - but since then (as noted by the Commission of Audit) the number has grown to 144. Each ties payments to priorities and conditions set by the Commonwealth, and most involve excessive red tape and reporting requirements.</p>
<p>While there are some legitimate grounds for a (limited) Commonwealth role in ensuring nationally consistent services, politics - not just policy - is a driver. There is an increasing desire by Commonwealth politicians to “tag” benefits to particular groups in the community as federally provided.</p>
<p>In the best cases, national partnership agreements delivering extra dollars to core service areas like health and education can lead policy without imposing uniform delivery mechanisms, spurring enough competition among the States to provide innovation in service delivery. </p>
<p>But the Commonwealth, particularly the Commonwealth bureaucracies involved, have increasingly sought to control, prescribe and micro-manage, often down to very detailed operational levels. </p>
<p>These burdensome compliance demands often create tension between levels of government rather than promoting cooperation, bloating bureaucracy at both levels. They typically lack incentives or frameworks for pursuing efficiency, and they blur political and administrative accountability.</p>
<h2>Ingredients for successful reform</h2>
<p>Yet there have been periods of successful cooperative federalism in the past - as noted earlier, during Hawke/Keating term of government. So what can we learn?</p>
<p>Firstly, we should forget the occasionally heard proposals that we should get rid of the States and adopt a unitary form of government (with some kind of regional underlay). It won’t happen.</p>
<p>Hence, the starting point for negotiating roles and responsibilities is that the states must be treated as the sovereigns that they are, with clearly defined sovereign areas of jurisdiction. </p>
<p>Other ingredients required for successful reform are: </p>
<ul>
<li>commitment to rational, evidence-based policy in the national interest, with purely political considerations marginalised; </li>
<li>leadership and demonstration of trust; </li>
<li>open communication, and </li>
<li>commitment to sharing of resources, including revenues, responsibilities and expertise, to achieve efficient outcomes.</li>
</ul>
<p>Reforms to the Federation (presumably via a new Intergovernmental Agreement rather than constitutional amendment) must be based on:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mutual recognition of sovereignty</li>
<li>National interest</li>
<li>Subsidiarity</li>
<li>Efficiency</li>
<li>Accountability.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Working together</h2>
<p>There is substantial scope to reduce overlap and duplication, identify the areas where both major levels of government do need to be involved and to cooperate, and clearly define respective roles and responsibilities.</p>
<p>There are a number of areas where joint involvement of both levels of government appears inevitable, and desirable. The most obvious are: health; transport and transport infrastructure (at least on inter-state or national routes); other major infrastructure (e.g. power grids, rail networks, broadband), and the environment, including climate related issues, major river systems.</p>
<p>There are instructive models overseas for determining respective roles in these areas, in the US, Canada, post-war Germany and in the suggestions in the report of the Australian Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations.</p>
<p>How should agreement on roles in shared areas be approached? A reformed Federation would incorporate a new model of partnership agreements embodying agreed outcome objectives and arrangements designed as a true partnership model, with mutually balanced obligations and contributions. There should be sharp clarity around which each role is exercised, who is responsible and accountable for what. </p>
<p>There should be an emphasis on efficiency, flexibility, and minimising administrative burdens, a major focus on dynamic improvement, stimulated by diversity and a degree of competition across states in policy design and in delivery solutions.</p>
<p>Ideally, the Commonwealth should provide leadership on broad national policy directions, minimum national standards, national consistency where important (especially in business regulation) and the provision of funding.</p>
<p>States should tailor services to local needs, coordinate delivery and drive policy and delivery innovation. Local government should also concentrate on delivery of services and delivery innovation.</p>
<h2>Have the tax debate</h2>
<p>But no reform will last without tackling the cause of the march to centralism: the vertical fiscal imbalance (VFI). The 2014 Commonwealth Budget’s squeeze on future Commonwealth contributions to health (especially hospital) and education funding via the states is apparently designed to encourage the states to press for an increase in the GST. </p>
<p>I think that is inevitable, whether it comes from the states or, more likely, the Commonwealth and whether it involves broadening the GST base or increasing the rate, or ideally both. (Compensation to those most affected such as pensioners and low income working families is critical.)</p>
<p>The National Commission of Audit’s proposal for the States to again share the personal income tax base is not new, but it is in my view a very good one. It is the only constitutionally (relatively) secure way to reduce the VFI substantially and to protect the new balance for the future. </p>
<p>It should be in the GST debate. Either extending or raising the rate of the GST will help resource the States (if the additional proceeds go to them), although it will again increase the VFI ‒ whose adverse effects are exacerbated by the distortions of our extreme horizontal fiscal equalisation (HFE) system (but that is a topic for another day).</p>
<p>There are various ways for the States to share the income tax base so total income tax doesn’t rise, and that the ATO still administers a single income tax return and collection system. Each State or Territory would receive:</p>
<ul>
<li>a flat percentage (say 10%) of each resident’s above-threshold income, or </li>
<li>simply a given percentage of total income tax paid by each resident,</li>
<li>plus scope for the State or Territory to surcharge/discount on its own responsibility.</li>
</ul>
<p>State politicians would thus have to take responsibility and political accountability for raising their own revenue (at the margin). And States should also agree to better manage and improve yield from their own existing tax bases, notably the best one they still control alone: payrolls. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth would reduce grants (and the extent of its involvement in many areas) ‒ and even take back some (or perhaps even all?) of the GST proceeds, to the extent of net additional funds that States and Territories achieve from the income tax (ignoring surcharges or discounts).</p>
<p>It is to be hoped that the present Commonwealth Government’s White Paper review of the Federation approaches its task on the basis of key reform principles implied by those lessons from past successes. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract of a paper presented at the <a href="https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/Outlook_2014/program.html">Melbourne Institute’s 2014 Economic and Social Outlook Conference</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vince FitzGerald is a member of The Conversation's board of directors.</span></em></p>When our two major levels of government work in partnership, our Federation can function well. The standout period for cooperative federalism was the Hawke/Keating term of government, producing the National…Vince FitzGerald, Member of the Board of Governors, ANU Foundation for Excellence, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/269272014-05-19T09:30:19Z2014-05-19T09:30:19ZJohn Brumby: an Australian federation for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48874/original/cm3sgfd3-1400487192.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Victorian premier John Brumby, pictured at a COAG meeting in 2008, wants an Australian federation with a better balance between roles, responsibilities and revenue.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>More than 100 years after Federation, the government’s White Paper on Reform of the Federation presents a historic opportunity to reconsider federal-state relations and responsibilities. How can state and federal governments work effectively to deal with the increasing demographic, social and global economic challenges facing Australia?</em></p>
<p><em>As a former Premier of Victoria and current chair of the COAG Reform Council, John Brumby offered his insights into the future of Australian federalism when he delivered the 2014 Hamer Oration at the University of Melbourne on Monday night. Below is an abridged version of that address.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>This evening I would like to talk about the nation – or rather, the particular political structure and system of government that has guided us as a nation since 1901. I’m talking about federalism, and the Australian federation.</p>
<h2>The Australian federation</h2>
<p>The issue of federalism is particularly topical at the moment. I expect that the government will very shortly release its terms of reference for the White Paper on Reform of the Federation.</p>
<p>Discussion of our federation also featured heavily in the recent <a href="http://www.ncoa.gov.au/">Commission of Audit report</a>, which stated that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the current operation of the federation poses a fundamental challenge to the delivery of good, responsible government in Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As might be expected, this sparked a flurry of commentary in the media on how the Australian federation is broken and dysfunctional. Commentators referred to it as “wasteful”, “multifaceted” and an “ineffective shambles”.</p>
<p>As someone who has spent more than 25 years in public life – in the federal parliament, state parliament, as opposition leader, treasurer, premier, and more recently Chair of the COAG Reform Council – I don’t accept this analysis at all. What my experience has shown me, despite the colour, movement, and occasional shrillness of media and political commentary is that Australia’s federation has actually served us rather well.</p>
<p>Despite our small population, we are now the world’s 12th largest economy, with our median wealth amongst the highest in the world. And unlike many countries, we enjoy a stable democracy and a vibrant multicultural society.</p>
<p>When much of the rest of the world struggled through the global financial crisis, Australia maintained an economy with low inflation, low interest rates, low unemployment and solid growth.</p>
<p>And our achievements are not just economic. In the latest report from the OECD Better Life Initiative, <a href="http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/australia/">Australia</a> is rated as above average in ten of the 11 life dimensions examined.</p>
<p>Australia is rated as at the top when it comes to governance and civic engagement, and close to the top when it comes to environmental quality and health status. We rate in the top 20% when it comes to housing, personal security, jobs and earnings.</p>
<p>These fantastic results didn’t all just happen by chance or accident. Among other things, it is a result of our system of government – a federation – that is uniquely well-suited to responding quickly and creatively to global events and trends, while also meeting the diverse and changing needs of our local communities.</p>
<p>I don’t say for a moment that our federation is perfect – but I do say that it has served us well, and serves us well today.</p>
<h2>Benefits of our federation</h2>
<p>Certainly, much has changed since six independent colonies became one nation in 1901. In an 1897 pamphlet advocating the federalist cause, South Australian politician Richard Baker listed one of the probable benefits of federalism as creating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…greater economy and efficiency in the management of the postal and telegraph departments, no doubt ultimately resulting in a penny postage and a six penny telegram.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And now today, more than 14 million Australians have internet access in their own homes. There are more than 31 million personal mobile services in use in a population of 22 million.</p>
<p>The point is, the world is more connected than ever before. We are subject to more competition than ever before. And change occurs more quickly than ever before.</p>
<p>Many of you may ask if a system of government drawn up at the end of the 19th century and activated at the dawn of the twentieth century can still have currency in the 21st century? Absolutely it does. Federalism works.</p>
<p>In 2007, the states commissioned professors Anne Twomey and Glenn Withers to prepare a report for the Council for the Australian Federation on what federalism has to offer Australia today. In their <a href="http://www.caf.gov.au/Documents/AustraliasFederalFuture.pdf">report</a> they identified six major benefits:</p>
<p>1) Federalism provides a check on power – it divides power and limits the amount of it that any one government can enjoy.</p>
<p>2) It offers choice and diversity – people can vote for one party at a federal level, and another at a state level.</p>
<p>3) Federalism offers customisation of policies – the various Australian states and territories differ in climate, geography, demography, culture, resources and industries. A policy that works well in Tasmania may not work as well in Alice Springs.</p>
<p>4) It allows for creativity and innovation. As US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandell famously put it, a:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>States are forced to innovate to meet their distinctive challenges, and to compete with other states. Successful innovations can then be picked up by other states or the Commonwealth, while the damage caused by failed policies is limited.</p>
<p>There are numerous examples of this innovation strength in our federation. Many new approaches to social and environmental policy were trialled by Dick Hamer’s government and are now the law of the land nationally. Public sector reform was introduced by the Cain government and adopted Australia-wide.</p>
<p>Case-mix funding for public hospitals was introduced by the Kennett government and is now applied Australia-wide. South Australia pioneered anti-discrimination legislation. Western Australia set up the first health care call centres. These innovations are much harder to strike with a centrally managed unitary form of government.</p>
<p>5) Federalism has the potential for healthy competition between the states. In the economy, healthy competition means that the consumer benefits from lower cost, more effective and more innovative products.</p>
<p>It’s the same in a federation where constituents can, if they wish, vote with their feet and move to a jurisdiction with better infrastructure, schools and regulatory environments.</p>
<p>6) The final benefit of federalism is co-operation. Our federal model means that many of the most important national reforms require the agreement of one or more of the states and territories – often all of them.</p>
<p>The mechanism for this in Australia is the Council of Australian Governments process. Admittedly, what happens around the COAG table is not always pretty, but many of the decisions taken there have transformed Australia. And the truth is that most of the big decisions that have transformed Australia couldn’t have happened without Commonwealth-state co-operation and agreement.</p>
<p>For example, the gun buy-back scheme introduced after the Port Arthur massacre; the National Competition Policy which has contributed to 23 years of economic growth; the GST which was both a major taxation and economic reform; the 2008 National Reform Agenda; the agreement to introduce a National Disability Scheme.</p>
<p>All of these transformative policies couldn’t have happened without Commonwealth-state co-operation and agreement.</p>
<p>And so these six benefits of federation combine to form a type of governance system that is flexible and responsive to both the needs of its individual citizens, and the needs of the nation as a whole. That’s why it works.</p>
<h2>Competitive federalism</h2>
<p>But this is not to say that there isn’t room for improvement in our Federation. Some argue for more co-operation and collaboration; others for a much more competitive model. The recent Commission of Audit report advocated for a focus on “competitive federalism”.</p>
<p>As I have outlined, a level of healthy competition between states is certainly one of the many benefits of our federation. However, when it comes to competitive federalism we should be careful that we don’t end up with destructive competition between states, displayed as chest-beating and parochialism, combined with a disdain for collaboration in the national interest.</p>
<p>We should also be careful that we do not get into a situation where we are “competing” with each other in a “race to the bottom” of lower taxes, but also lower services.</p>
<p>And we should be careful that we don’t end up with a fragmented patchwork of different rules and regulations that stifle domestic and international trade, where it might once again be easier, for example, to sell gas across the borders of Europe than across the state borders of Australia.</p>
<p>Treasury secretary Ken Henry, speaking at the Productivity Commission’s 2005 Productive Reform in a Federal System roundtable, questioned whether the excess of inconsistent state-based regulatory requirements in areas such as occupational licensing, occupational health and safety, road transport and water trading – could be attributed to federalism.</p>
<p>One of the examples Henry provided was an operator of an interstate train having to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…deal with six access regulators, seven rail safety regulators with nine different pieces of legislation, three transport accident investigators, 15 pieces of legislation covering occupational health and safety of rail operations, and 75 pieces of legislation with powers over environmental management.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Henry also noted that Australia had seven rail safety regulators for a population of around 20 million people whereas the United States, with a population of 285 million, has only one. This example demonstrates the inefficiencies and duplication that can arise between governments without appropriate central coordination.</p>
<p>Thankfully, a great many of those problems were fixed as part of the COAG Seamless National Economy reforms introduced in 2008. However, others have remained and there is danger that the gains that were made will be undone with the passing of time.</p>
<p>The truth is we need a sophisticated combination of both co-operation and competition. This is because we need to remember that we are not just competing between states – we’re also competing with the world. And our region has some of the best competitors around.</p>
<p>In China, we are neighbours to a country that has taken over even the US in terms of manufactured output, energy use and car sales. According to the IMF, China will <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/oecd-report-says-chinas-economy-will-overtake-us-economy-2016-1146333">overtake America</a> as the world’s largest economy, at purchasing-power parity, in 2017.</p>
<p>According to the OECD’s latest assessments, four of the five highest performing school systems in the world are Hong Kong, Korea, Shanghai and Singapore. The Grattan Institute recently <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/static/files/assets/23afab6b/129_report_learning_from_the_best_main.pdf">pointed to the fact</a> that the average 15-year old in Shanghai is two to three years ahead of his or her counterpart in Australia.</p>
<p>But in contrast to these impressive gains, Australian educational performance has been more mixed in the past ten years. It is vital that we think, discuss and debate how best to harness the key strengths of our federation in order to compete in a world, and a region, that is in profound and lasting transition.</p>
<p>And it is also vital that we think, discuss, and debate how best to improve our current federation. I’m thinking more specifically about how to solve the vexed issue in our federation of “roles and responsibilities”.</p>
<h2>Roles and responsibilities</h2>
<p>As a fellow ex-Premier, Nick Greiner, said in an op-ed earlier this month:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The question of who does what to whom and why in Australian governments is not theoretical or artificial: it is fundamental to the quality of life of Australian citizens.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I couldn’t agree more. Our federal system was based on the idea that the greater body of power would remain with the state governments. Indeed, it was intended by most of the framers that, in the new nation, the states would be the dominant partner.</p>
<p>This is reflected in how power is divided by the Constitution. There were certain defined powers for the federal government that made logical sense for a national government to provide and all other powers outside of the list remained with the states.</p>
<p>The topics granted to the Commonwealth by the Constitution range from areas like marriage to defence and the regulation of corporations. The states retained control over major areas like health and education.</p>
<p>And yet, in 2014, we have vast federal departments of health and education. The reasons for this are complex, but mainly relate to the bane of many federations – Vertical Fiscal Imbalance.</p>
<p>Vertical Fiscal Imbalance refers to the mismatch between what the various levels of government in Australia are required to do, and the amount of revenue they are able to raise in order to do it.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth took over the states’ main source of revenue – income tax – around the time of World War Two. However, the states retained responsibility for two of the largest costs in our country – health and education – and nowhere near the ability to pay for it from their own revenue base.</p>
<p>To offset this, the Commonwealth government pays the states grants to cover their responsibilities. For every dollar the Victorian government spends on police, public transport, education or health, around 50 cents comes directly from the federal government.</p>
<p>But this can leave the public unsure of who is really accountable for their services. It can encourage blame shifting and buck passing between the state and federal governments. The federal government also has a natural tendency to micromanage exactly how the money it gives the states is spent, and this kills the ability of state governments to innovate in their delivery of services, or make services more appropriate for specific local needs.</p>
<p>Finally, the federal government is often tempted to just take over areas of state responsibility – for whatever reason they wish – so that they can effect a particular policy outcome. They are able to do this due to broad readings by the High Court of Commonwealth power under the Constitution, as well as the Commonwealth’s ability to raise so much revenue.</p>
<p>Thus we have the often heavy-handed influence by the Commonwealth over great swathes of policy areas that they were never intended to have. What all this means is that our federation has become increasingly out of balance. To remedy its faults, and get it back into balance, we need to better align roles, responsibilities and revenues.</p>
<h2>Dealing with ‘roles and responsibilities’ – the GST</h2>
<p>Clearly the roles and responsibilities in our federation have changed from what was intended by the framers of our Constitution. But does that mean that we should go back to how everything was back in 1901?</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily think so. I think that we should assess the nature of the issue and then determine the level of government best suited to dealing with it in 2014, and the future.</p>
<p>We need to work to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the states and federal government. When deciding who should do what, the principle of subsidiarity should be central.</p>
<p>That is, specific roles and responsibilities should go to the level of government closest to the people affected, who is capable of effectively delivering them. It makes sense for the states to have responsibility for things like health and education, just like it makes sense for the Commonwealth to be in charge of Defence and Foreign Affairs.</p>
<p>We then need to compare these agreed responsibilities with the current revenue-raising capacity of each state and the states generally. If they don’t have the revenue raising capacity, then we need to examine ways to fund their service responsibilities. In essence, this can be done in one of four ways:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>give the states a share of income tax;</p></li>
<li><p>increase the GST and give the proceeds to the states;</p></li>
<li><p>increase transfers from the Commonwealth to the states, or</p></li>
<li><p>leave the states to increase their own taxes.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The recent Commission of Audit report advocated providing states with an ability to raise their own income tax. This would allow the federal government to lower the amount that they collect by the same proportion.</p>
<p>A number of current state premiers were very interested in this idea, and it has a certain elegance. However, prime minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/federal-relations-on-coag-agenda/story-e6frfku9-1226903005320">said</a> at the post-COAG meeting press conference on Friday, May 2, that he was against the idea of “double taxation”.</p>
<p>Of course, what he didn’t mention at the time was that the Commonwealth was about to withdraw A$80 billion in Commonwealth funding to the states for education and health over the next decade. Abbott said that as the states have responsibility for education and health under the Constitution, then they should be as far as possible “sovereign in their own sphere.”</p>
<p>I agree with his view about the role of the states. But it follows that if the states have these responsibilities, they also require the revenue to properly discharge them.</p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, at the beginning of World War Two, the states were reasonably financially self-sufficient due to their sharing with the Commonwealth of the income tax base.</p>
<p>However, since then, there has been an increasing “monopolisation” of the most lucrative taxes by the Commonwealth, particularly with the Commonwealth’s take over of income taxation in 1942 and the High Court’s rulings on taxation of goods and services.</p>
<p>At the same time as the states’ own sources of revenue have decreased, the costs of their liabilities – the essential services required for their populations – have increased. And they will continue to do so. A key driver of increasing costs is our rapidly ageing population.</p>
<p>As opposition leader Bill Shorten pointed out in his budget response last week, when he was at school there were 7.5 taxpayers to support each Australian aged 65 or over, but “by 2050, it will be only 2.7 to one”.</p>
<p>Population growth and ageing will affect labour supply, economic output, infrastructure requirements and governments’ budgets. Collectively, it is projected that Australian governments will face additional pressures on their budgets equivalent to around 6% of national GDP by 2060, principally reflecting the growth of expenditure on health, aged care and the age pension.</p>
<p>And the current GST is certainly not going to fill the hole in state finances. </p>
<p>Many commentators seem to have forgotten that in the <a href="http://www.treasury.wa.gov.au/cms/uploadedFiles/IGA.pdf">Intergovernmental Agreement</a> (IGA) agreed in 1999, the states were required to abolish up to ten existing state taxes in order to get access to GST revenues.</p>
<p>This was the right move at the time. Many of these taxes were inefficient, and impacted specific areas of the economy such as stamp duty on mortgages, duty on quoted marketable securities, duty on leases and Financial Institution Duty. Getting rid of those taxes was a good idea and the result was a better tax system and a more efficient economy.</p>
<p>However, revenues have fallen well short of the “rivers of golds” that were promised. GST collections are barely above the minimum level that the Commonwealth agreed to underwrite back in the 1999 IGA.</p>
<p>In fact, from a purely selfish point of view, some of the states would probably be in a better fiscal position today if they just retained the state taxes they gave up as part of GST. Much of the reason for this is that there are large and growing structural weaknesses in the GST revenue base. Fresh food, health and education expenses are exempt, and banking services are comparatively lightly taxed.</p>
<p>GST revenue has been growing more slowly than the economy as a whole, because the untaxed components make up a larger share of consumption. The truth of the matter is that even before the budget announcement of the withdrawal of $80 billion of Commonwealth funding, the issue of how to fund education and health care – and how to get the federation back into better balance – was a conversation we were going to have to have anyway.</p>
<p>And it’s not just about Commonwealth-state responsibilities and who does what. The reality is that post-GFC, Australian governments – state and federal – have a major revenue problem. Our existing taxes and charges are simply not adequate to provide the responsible and reasonable services in health and education the community expects us to provide.</p>
<p>As a young backbencher who in 1985 publicly supported Paul Keating’s option C – that famously included a consumption tax – I’ve been around long enough to know how difficult it is to get a consensus on tax issues. But when we look at the possible other outcomes of either crushing deficits, or failing to care for our most vulnerable people, GST reform looks more and more like the best option we’ve got.</p>
<p>In my view, the real debate about the GST is not about whether it needs to increase. I think that’s inevitable. The real debate is about the nature of the increase (base versus rate, or both), the compensation provided to low-income earners and pensioners, and the distribution of the proceeds (the states versus the rest).</p>
<p>And by the way, we should immediately move to reduce the erosion of GST collections from overseas internet purchases. Not only does the current situation place Australian suppliers at a competitive disadvantage, it is costing the states hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.</p>
<p>COAG was the vehicle of reform for the original GST conversation in the late 1990s, and it should be again. The original GST could have been introduced with or without the co-operation of the states. And without the involvement of COAG and the agreement of the states, the GST would still have been a useful tax reform – but of no major note.</p>
<p>By involving the states and linking the proceeds of the GST to the abolition of inefficient state taxes, the introduction of the GST was both a major taxation and economic reform for all Australians.</p>
<p>This time around, the circumstances are quite different. We have a federation that over time has become increasingly out of balance, exacerbated by the recent federal budget which shifts $80 billion of spending to the states and which makes their medium and long term budget position completely untenable and unsustainable.</p>
<h2>Conclusions</h2>
<p>In these circumstances, I believe we have a unique opportunity to rebalance the federation and provide an enduring and better match between roles, responsibilities and revenue.</p>
<p>Throughout this process, it’s vital that the public and opinion leaders are able to participate in this debate. I therefore strongly support a Federation Convention to be held later this year or early 2015. I also believe it’s vital to properly monitor the performance of the federation and the progress of reforms.</p>
<p>Shifting federal-state relations to reflect greater subsidiarity and reduce duplication is a significant reform ambition. As with any major reform, it requires a plan with identified steps and activities with associated milestones, targets and timelines. It also requires a way to hold governments to account for the outcomes sought by the federation.</p>
<p>I therefore support the early establishment of a Federation Reform Council to independently monitor the timetable, milestones, and progress of any new arrangements.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, Australia is doing very well in comparison to the rest of the world – and this is due partly to our structure of government – to our federation.</p>
<p>But we should realise that there are many important junctures coming up for our nation that we must deal with. It will be up to the media, interest groups, business and our political leaders to ensure this opportunity to improve our federation is not wasted – because we cannot run away from the discussion.</p>
<p>I’d like to leave you tonight with an anecdote from David Hamer’s book, Can Responsible Government Survive in Australia? In it, he <a href="http://aphnew.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/pubs/hamer/book.pdf">describes</a> the ancient Goth’s approach to deciding matters of importance, in the context of our own Senate:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ancient Goths of Germany had all of them a wise custom of debating everything of importance to their state, twice; this is, once drunk—that their councils might not want vigour; and once sober—that they might not want discretion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Discretion meaning, of course, sober consideration of the facts.</p>
<p>I hope the upcoming debate on our federation is certainly vigorous, but will be grounded in sober consideration of the facts. And if we get it right, this debate will lead to a federation built on co-operation, focused on driving clear outcomes to advance our national interest, and with a better balance between roles, responsibilities and revenue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26927/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Brumby is chairman of the COAG Reform Council. He was Premier of Victoria from 2007 to 2010 and a former federal Labor MP.</span></em></p>More than 100 years after Federation, the government’s White Paper on Reform of the Federation presents a historic opportunity to reconsider federal-state relations and responsibilities. How can state…John Brumby, Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University and, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.