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A nation stepping over the boundaries

 
The 22nd of September 2007

The rights of the states are being weakened by a diluted federal system, writes Tony Stephens.

It is now clear that Australia would not have come into being as a nation in 1901 if the people who voted for the new constitution had been told that the federal system would be so changed in little more than a century.

The notion of federalism as a sharing of power and responsibilities between the Commonwealth and states has been tested and distorted for some time. John Howard's speech to the Millennium Forum in Sydney last month, in which he spoke of "aspirational nationalism" and played down the role of the states, revealed just how distorted federalism has become.

The benefits of hindsight give history a certain inevitability, but Federation was a close-run campaign. It is hard today to imagine Australia as a collection of nation states with checkpoints on the borders and separate defence policies but for some time in the 1890s moves towards Federation appeared doomed.

John Robertson, who believed NSW would become a nation in its own right, said in 1891: "Federation is as dead as Julius Caesar." Alfred Deakin, the leader of the Victorian push for Federation, wrote in 1900: "The fortunes of federalism have visibly trembled in the balance during the past 10 years … To those who watched its inner workings … its actual accomplishment must always appear to have been secured by a series of miracles."

Although Victorians voted for Federation in 1898, NSW failed to pass the first referendum. Those in Queensland and Western Australia did not vote at all. A second referendum in 1899 won the day, although Western Australia did not vote until July 31, 1900, and Federation was inaugurated on January 1, 1901.

The notion of federalism, with its limitations on power, was dear to Deakin, and to others of similar political persuasions to the present Prime Minister, such as Edmund Barton, the first prime minister of the federated nation, and Robert Menzies, still a Liberal Party hero.

Peter Coleman, a former leader of the NSW Liberals, has expressed a fear that "federalism may have become a non-core Liberal belief".

Goodness knows what Menzies would think of the state of federal power in 2007. Perhaps he would understand that, like life, little in politics lasts.

The manner in which Menzies conducted his prime ministership, for example, could not last into the 21st century.

David Solomon recalls in his new book, Pillars of Power, that it went largely unremarked in the 1950s when Menzies took a ship to England with the Australian cricket team, stayed for a month or so, then made the six-week return trip.

Evolutionary federalism and the increasingly presidential behaviour of the prime minister are two of the more remarkable changes that Solomon has noted in Australia in the past 30 years. He believes that no Australian prime minister has been as dismissive of federalism and the rights of the states as John Howard.

The constitution gave the Commonwealth power to make laws in a relatively limited number of fields and left the remainder to the states. Now the states find themselves increasingly providing services mandated by the Commonwealth. Federal governments have achieved this transformation using their control of the tax system and the states' dependence on federal money to deliver essential services.

Before "aspirational nationalism", the Work Choices legislation confirmed that the Commonwealth could use the corporations power in the constitution to control a large number of areas where the states had previously held sway. Then Howard moved to take control of the rivers, to manage water in the Murray-Darling basin, saying: "You will only solve this problem if you effectively obliterate state borders." Now he is taking over selected hospitals - and the Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, not to be outdone, suggests that Labor might take over all hospitals.

Solomon says the prime minister - and, for that matter, each premier - increasingly functions like an American president, but without most of the checks and balances. In 1980 Dr Elaine Thompson coined the word "Washminster" to help describe the Australian system as a blending of the Westminster system of parliamentary, cabinet government, with an important contribution from the American system, a formal separation of the powers of the executive, legislature and judiciary that was written into the Australian constitution.

Solomon argues that Australia has moved beyond Washminster. Parliament has been downgraded in importance. The prime minister and his ministers are no longer "responsible" to parliament. When the Howard Government gained a majority in the Senate, that chamber ceased to exercise any independent review of the Government's activities.

Another change in the pillars of power has been that the public service has become increasingly responsive to the demands of the government of the day. The "permanent heads" who formerly ran departments have been replaced by men and women on relatively short-term contracts, directly responsible to the prime minister. They can be dismissed with relative ease. Solomon doubts whether the service is as good at offering ministers independent, frank and fearless advice as it was when supposedly less "responsive" to the political agenda of government.

Pillars of Power, by David Solomon, is published by Federation Press ($39.95).


SMH 22-9-7

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-nation-stepping-over-the-boundaries/2007/09/21/1189881777255.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

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' I would like to quote my right hand man in answering this question: Max Moore-Wilton said "I have no recollection of being aware that there was no evidence. I was certainly aware that a report had been provided to the Task Force that children had been thrown overboard. I have no recollection of being told that there was no evidence of children being thrown overboard, although I note in the reports that some of the defence personnel had raised that issue, and as I think the task force report indicated or the chronology, which I have never seen, indicated that this did not necessarily mean that children had not been thrown overboard." -John Howard 15/2/2002 '


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