Historically, the notion made a lot of sense. The colonies/states were fiercely independent and struggling to find a balance of power that would allow for a federation at all. It almost didn't happen. Over 100 years later, Australia is a very different place, much more aware of the things that both unite and divide us. Why should we be constrained by the priorities and concerns of long ago? Why can't we have a discussion about the type of government that will suit modern Australia.
I'm certainly not proposing to throw the whole constitution out the window. It has served us well. That doesn't mean that it can't be improved.
Consider this alternative model:
- A Federal government responsible for matters of national importance, including taxation, fiscal management, defence, national infrastructure, telecommunications, environmental matters, etc.
- Regional governments responsible for service delivery in areas such as health, education, housing, community facilities and services, etc.
Obviously local governments are currently necessary - it would be impossible for a centralised state government to provide local services like garbage collection and town planning across the entire state, but regional governments on the other hand could provide the same services as local governments currently do. This restructure could also serve to improve our democracy as each Region would elect representatives for the Federal government and it would be clear that the job of those representatives was to represent the interests of their regions on a national level.
Again, this idea is hardly radical, it's pretty much what we've got at present. A problem with the current system is that people don't identify as members of their electorates - they identify as members of their state, socio-economic group, generation, etc. They should elect members of parliament who represent their electorates, but they don't because their electorate is not an entity they can identify with, it is merely a geographical boundary which defines them once every 3-4 years. By changing this focus, we could have the opportunity to develop real communities, of local people, working together for a common goal.
Without that sense of community, we struggle. In order to engender that sense of community, we need to empower the Regional governments with a large degree of control over their own destinies. To my mind, we do so by allowing each Region to have charge of their hospitals, schools, aged care facilities, transport, etc. so that decisions about how those communities are run are made by the communities themselves. This addresses some of the problems with current State governments making centralised decisions for widely disparate regional areas.
How would this work in practice? Take, for example, education. The Federal government could produce a national curriculum, but it would be up to the Regional governments to implement that. Each Region would decide where the schools were placed, how to allocate resources, what teachers to hire, what funding priority to attach to sports, arts, technical education, etc. Regular meetings of interested parties could be held to allow the community to participate fully in the education of their children. This is hardly possible on a national or state level, because the interested participants simply either live too far apart, or have so little in common to make consensus next to impossible.
We need to eliminate the multiple strands of taxation and replace them instead with one single tax. The Federal government should administer and collection this tax, which is distributed to the Regions by head of population. There should still be some provision for additional funds to be provided on the basis of need, hence why Regions should elect strong representatives who can put their case to the Federal parliament. Safeguards should be put in place to protect minority groups and to ensure against stronger Regions 'ganging-up' on weaker ones (though that is also the role of the Senate).
At present, our federal government collects the great majority of taxation revenue, and then decides when and how to divide that up amongst the states, who are left with the difficult task of trying to maintain hospitals, schools, etc. with ever slimmer pieces of the financial pie. Reviewing the taxation system and revising the constitution to provide a clear statement of responsibilities should be a priority.
Then again, after having another look myself at s.51 of the Constitution, it seems to me that the areas of responsibility are already well established, but the priority we attach to each area is not. Maybe this is the real problem? There is no apparent link between taxation, federal and state governments and the services they are meant to provide - they aren't working together for a common goal, they are competing.
It all then comes back to the fact that our federal representatives aren't representing the needs or desires of their constituents, they are representing an ideology, voting along party lines. In that case then, rethinking our electoral laws and our levels of government is essential. Maybe we don't actually vote for our federal government separately, each Region elects representative(s) who can best promote that region's priorities. That was always the way that it was meant to work - so what went wrong?
Obviously this is a very broad outline of a very complex discussion - and I've raised more questions in my own mind that I have been able to answer. At the heart of it though I am advocating improving our democracy by improving our sense of community, improving participation in our democracy, removing multiple layers of taxation and reviewing/streamlining the areas of priority/responsibility of each level of government.
At the heart of it, I suppose what I'm really saying is that our democracy could be improved by:
- Combining State and Local governments and replacing them with Regional governments; and
- Improving cooperation between the various levels of government so that they are working together, instead of competing against each other.
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