13 Jan 2017
The Australian, Australia
Author: John Pesutto • Section: General News • Article type : News Item
Audience : 97,419 • Page: 12 • Printed Size: 318.00cm² • Market: National
Country: Australia • ASR: AUD 6,426 • Words: 826 • Item ID: 712403729
Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.
Page 1 of 2
REFORMS ARE NEEDED, BUT THE STATES ARE HERE TO STAY
Bob Hawke is wrong — the second tier of
government performs a vital role
JOHN PESUTTO
O! let us have him; for his
silver hairs
Will purchase us a good
opinion
And buy men’s voices to
commend our deeds.
So, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,
Metellus says of Cicero, a famous
Roman.
It’s easy to see why Bob Hawke
is a Labor icon. He is a distinguished Australian. Growing
up in the 1980s, I remember
Hawke dominating not only politics but much of our culture.
The manner of his prime ministership ending in 1991 can too
easily cast a shadow over four
election victories, matched or exceeded only by two other very distinguished Australians in John
Howard and Robert Menzies, two
greatly admired Liberal icons.
One therefore would not reject
lightly Hawke’s assertions on any
matter. But it is important to contest his most recent call for the
states to be abolished.
In fairness to Hawke, abolition
of the states has been a position he
has long countenanced with
strong convictions. Since his 1979
Boyer Lectures, if not earlier,
Hawke frequently has addressed
whether we should keep the states
and suggested that their functions
should be reposed in the commonwealth and larger local or regional governments.
Hawke’s latest comments on
the subject were made recently at
the Woodford Folk Festival, during which he said: “What we have
today — as I have said before —
basically represents the meander-
ings of British explorers across the
Australian continent more than
200 years ago. They wandered
around, and lines were drawn on a
map, and jurisdiction and governance followed. So you have 13 parliaments (including senates)
dealing with much the same issues
and I believe that the simple fact is
the states should be abolished.”
At the same festival a year before, Hawke contended that state
boundaries were “bloody absurd”
and that having only a national
government and local governments would improve Australian
democracy: “I made this proposition once that the states were
quite artificial creations that were
just represented by lines on a map,
there was no intrinsic merit in that
at all.”
It’s time, however, that adherents of the “abolish the states”
school come to accept that such
calls miss the point and dodge the
vexed issue of what constitutes
good government by the states.
Public apathy, and in many parts
of our country significant disaffection with political leadership, has
nothing to do with whether we retain the three levels of government we have or replace them
with two much larger tiers of government.
It should all depend on whether each level of government —
federal, state and local — is delivering sound political leadership,
responsible management of public money and effective service delivery to those in need.
Apart from the formidable
constitutional obstacles, abolishing the states would not relieve the
remaining tiers of government of
the burden of managing our various law enforcement, public trans-
port, health and education
systems.
Do we really think that in abolishing the states we would realise
any net benefits when the same
volume of activity would need to
be funded, with service delivery
and quality being maintained?
Would we have national health
and education systems, including
federal management and operational control of our hospitals and
schools, for example, or hundreds
of local health and education systems across the nation?
To be sure, federal-state relations need reform and removing
duplication remains a priority. But
the historic architecture of our
federation matters less than
whether states are governing effectively.
All that said, I can fully appreciate why calls for the abolition of
the states tend to attract some
popular support. Sadly, my own
state of Victoria hasn’t assisted.
In Victoria under Daniel Andrews’s government, there is a litany of scandals and controversies
the state has seldom seen and that
is seriously undermining public
confidence in the governance Victorians are experiencing.
In the middle of our fire season
we are witnessing a scandalous
firefighters’ enterprise bargaining
agreement dispute, with a militant
union, the United Firefighters, on
the cusp of usurping complete
control of the fire services, including over volunteers, and a compliant Premier.
We have a justice system that’s
so chaotic, public confidence is
collapsing and prison riots, carjackings, home invasions and
other violent crimes are domina-
13 Jan 2017
The Australian, Australia
Author: John Pesutto • Section: General News • Article type : News Item
Audience : 97,419 • Page: 12 • Printed Size: 318.00cm² • Market: National
Country: Australia • ASR: AUD 6,426 • Words: 826 • Item ID: 712403729
Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.
ting our news coverage every day.
We have a state government
with such warped priorities it has
launched its third attempt, this
time in the High Court, to block
our Ombudsman from investigating serious criminal allegations
by ALP members that parliamentary staff entitlements were rorted
by the Labor Party before the last
state election. All costing taxpayers millions.
Meanwhile, household power
bills in Victoria are about to rise by
10 per cent and our transport network is choking.
With at least one state government performing this badly, I can
understand why Hawke’s calls
should be opposed but also respected. It’s only bad government
that will keep calls for the abolition of state governments alive.
John Pesutto is Victoria’s
opposition legal affairs
spokesman.
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