Bulletin No. 3

Hi All ! Here's our contents :

1. Welcome to new people
2. Administration
3. Web references
4. Recent & near future happenings and events
5. Some potted history. Movements. Constitutional Referenda.
6. The opposition
7. Academics, the environment
8. Litmus tests, and consensus statements
9. Academics, and the opposition
10. Discussion of advocacy
11. Discussion of centralisation and funding
12. Nuts and bolts of the path to change 
13. Responsibilities of the different units of government
14. A collection of posts
15. Article 1
16. Article 2

1. Welcome !

Welcome to Jim Snow, Pat Cagel, Brett Evill, Gavin Putland and Ross
Garrad. Sorry if I've missed anyone.

2. Administration

If you want to leave the list (or much better, tell someone how to 
put themselves on the list), the four relevant web addresses are :

http://goliath.apana.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/asc-discuss
http://goliath.apana.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/asc-chat
http://goliath.apana.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/asc-dinner
http://goliath.apana.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sat-congress

These lists relate (respectively) to discussion of topic related to
the abolition of state government, discussion of issues related to
government generally, arranging our occassional dinners, and discussion
of Australia-wide advocacy of the abolition of the states and in particular
an up-coming "Shed a Tier" congress.

You can access the archives of the group, though you have to keep
typing in your password (at least on my computer, you have to). Also,
you may have to edit the http reference if it cannot find the page;
there are duplicates and you need to remove them. But if you're web
literate enough, you'll sort it out.  Anyway, I hope to sort it out in
time.

The web pages give a bit more detail on the lists, but the main thing is
that you are polite, concise and trim extraneous material.

A few people have been getting lax in this last area. I've noticed Klaas 
and AJ doing this a bit lately, leaving the entire email and putting
some comments at the top. You notice these things when you spend many
hours editing this sort of bulletin.

And before you think I'm targeting Klaas too much, I'll put up my hand !
I got Klaas' name wrong ! I'll try not to do that again.

Lastly, keep in mind this is an edited version of original text. In many
cases I've removed hedges and extraneous material, so the person's 
original position may not be as strong as it seems here. This bulletin
provides an informational overview, but if you really want to know what
someone thinks, you'd better check with them.

3. Web and other references

The most important web reference recently was to a list of links which
Mark Drummond compiled, which was posted at the Foundation for National
Renewal's Web site, at :

http://www.national-renewal.org.au/Links/states.html

Klaas comments :

"Mark this is excellent source material, congratulations. Suddenly we
realise there is actually a lot of support out there! And more and more
people begin to make statements about it."

"There is a plethora of support and it clearly goes back a while."

Klaas' "Republic Now!" website :

http://www.republicnow.org

Mark comments on this website :

"It is superb. I see excellent reference to abolishing state governments
etc. on your "Policy Platform" and "What's Wrong" pages."

There's the "New Federalist Journal".

According to Charles :

> Correspondents may find much of interest in an article in the latest edition
> of the New Federalist journal.
> 
> The article is titled, 'Vision of Unification: John Boyd Steel's
> Constitution' and is contributed by Anne Winckel, until recently a Lecturer
> at the University of Melbourne.
> 
> A quote to wet your appetite; 'In 1909 a Petition supported by over 58,000
> signatories for the 'Unification of Australia' was presented to the House of
> Reps.  The petitioners were requesting a referendum to abolish State
> Governments and Parliaments and for the transference of all State property
> and powers to the Commonwealth.  Furthermore, the Commonwealth was to be
> permitted to establish new States and allocate powers as it deemed fit to
> confer on them.'

According to Mark :
 
> I yesterday heard about the article from a man named Adam Johnston who
> went to the 1999 constitutional convention, so news of it is obviously
> getting around.  The journal started in 1998 and costs about $30 per year to
> subscribe to (I haven't yet confirmed - it might be $20 or $40).  I've just
> started a subscription and have ordered back copies to the start in 1998.
> If you wish to subscribe, the person you'd contact is Nicole Stones at
> Adelaide University on phone 08 8303 6340 and email
> nicole.stones@adelaide.edu.au

Geoffrey Blainey 

http://www.gu.edu.au/centre/kceljag/eljag/07_otherevents/other.htm

is talking up in Brisbane on 3 September on 'Why every region of
Australia should be its own state'

The "Big Pulse" website :

http://www.bigpulse.com/

(more on this website in discussion of advocacy later on)

The "Online Opinion" website at :

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au

Gavin Putland posted an article here, "Why Australia's States are Doomed".

According to AJB : " There are about 80 or so recognised [biogeographic]
regions being used by all levels of government in things like
biodiversity and natural resource planning."

There's info on biogeographic regions on Environment Australia's website:

http://www.environment.gov.au/bg/nrs/ibraimcr/ibra_spatial/ibra.html

Chris Hurford's 50 region model :

http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/geog/regionalstates

A document on local government

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ABS%40.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/f
b86d2b5c6a6b48fca2569de001fb2d2!OpenDocument

Amongst other things, the following site has a listing of local
government activities.

http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/comp.htm

The Corowa Conference :

http://www.corowaconference.com.au/

Richard Mc Garvie, a site which promotes something pretty much opposing
what we're about :

http://www.chilli.net.au/~mcgarvie

4. Recent & near future happenings & events 

On April 20, the NSW Government released "An enquiry into the Structure
of Local Government in Eight Council Areas in the Inner City and Eastern
Suburbs of Sydney" written by Kevin Sproats.  This report recommended
amalgamating the eight councils into four.  I made a report on this
document to the list.

For list members :

http://goliath.apana.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/private/asc-discuss/2001-May/0
00023.html

On 14th May, The ABC radio program interviewed Max Bradley, apparently
after Lindsay Raine phoned to invite him to participate.

I caught the last quarter hour of this, and heard Greg Craven closing
off the discussion.  It seemed like his argument, if it made any sense,
was that if we must put up with the states, they are something that
we must endure - though he tried to back off from this quite natural
interpretation.  I wonder if he considered the adverse effects states
have.

There was a Fabian Society Conference on the 15th June in Melbourne,
covering :

"The Constitutional Centenary provides a unique occasion for
Australians to consider current constitutional issues as well as the
future development of our system of government. The aim of this
conference is to discuss constitutional renewal and associated
legislative reform. This important conference will focus on
contemporary political challenges to and opportunities for
constitutional change."

There have not been any reports on this event, or what took place.
Lev, by any chance, were you there ?

On Friday 22 June, we met at room 2R1 of Parliament House for the 
"Shed a Tier Congress". This had Mark, David, AJ, Anthony Brown and
Jim Snow amongst others. Mark videotaped the meeting. It was quite
enjoyable.

Following the meeting, there was a discussion of appropriate names for
the group, which I'll leave for Mark to comment on separately.

 From the 27th June, I was in Adelaide for a week.  I contacted Dean
Jaench, who should now be on our list.  I also caught up with Chris
Hurford, who is working on his book, and was not inclined to participate
in email lists. But he is interested in receiving the bulletins I've
prepared so far and some limited participation.

There's three data points from my SA trip.

First : who's interested and willing to communicate to at least some
degree ? Dean Jaench and Chris Hurford. Are there others ? Possibly.
But, if the push for state abolition is not to be seen as an
"Eastern States" thing, then we need to build on the connections we
have with Dean and Chris, and hopefully develop a network of a few
people in SA, with Dean and Chris being the start of this.

Second : Chris perceives that there is something to be said for
preparing a detailed position on regional government. His position
seems at least valid to me, I won't comment on whether it is
_correct_. Point is, a view exists that a detailed plan is a good
thing to have, and provides opportunity for developing debate and
discussion. Further, the detail in his position will, I think,
satisfy Max's desire for a well - defined description of the regional
model.

Third : Chris acknowledges that the Senate does not represent the
states in any meaningful fashion, but does believe that many people
in the Western States do perceive Senate representation as an 
important thing stopping them being swamped by Canberra.

Around July 3, 2001, a press release was put out :

 ACT chief supports Democrats' proposed government restructure

 Australian Capital Territory chief minister Gary Humphries says the 
 structure of Australian politics could be significantly improved by the 
 abolition of state governments.

 The Australian Democrats have called for state governments to be 
 abolished and replaced by regional governments, which would be 
 controlled by a national body.

 Mr Humphries says the system is essentially already in place in the ACT 
 and is working well.

"The ACT actually provides a model for the sort of thing they are 
talking about, a regional government that covers a larger area than a 
usual municipality for example, but which has state and local government 
style operations combined in the one structure," he said.

Lev Lafayette's comment was :

"IMO, they have made a pragmatic _and_ progressive decision. They are aware
that there is votes to be gained by adopting such a decision and there are
very valid reasons to do so. In contrast the major parties fell more
constrained by pre-existing vested interests.

The good thing is if the Democrats really run with this, they'll be able
to put the issue on the national agenda and force the major parties to
come to the conference table, as it were. Good luck to them."

On 4th July, Mark spoke on ABC radio Adelaide along with Senator Murray
and Mayor Brian Hurn, the president of the South Australian local
government association.

It seems the ABC were responding to the interest generated by the Democrats,
and found Mark's material on the "online opinion" website and contacted
him based on that.

They discussed :

The range of models available, from the Democrat and Hurford approach,
Hurfords' being more two tier with the Democrat having three tiers, to
the Max/Klaas models focusing on better resourced local governments with
regional governance carried out through voluntary associations of
localities and administrative regions for health, education and other
functional areas.

Mark states : 'neat "one size fits all" regional/local divisions are
unlikely to do justice to the diversity of communities that make up our
country.'

On the 14th and 15th July, the "Now We the People" conference was held
in Sydney. Klaas attended, and reports :

"I ... chaired a workshop on Parliaments and presented a paper of the need
for a Strategic Approach to a (Maximalist) Republic.  Various luminaries
and semi-luminaries were in attendance like Jim Terry and Greg Barns of
the ARM to put in their two bob's worth - it wasn't really more than
that - they were on the defensive all the time.  There were more than
400 delegates and the PLP was one the (many) sponsors.  It was an
excellent conference largely attended by Broad Left people - some came
from quite far away with a large number of key speakers.  Essentially,
the conference sought ways for a better Australia, away from economic
rationalism and privatisation - and subservience to the WTO/GATS agenda.
The idea came originally from the Search Foundation and was largely
organised by them and a Committee of sponsor delegates.  I think it was
a money spinner even.  The break even point was probably around 200
delegates."

Max did an interview with the ABC which was broadcast on 29th July.
According to Mark :

"I think you came across really well.  The journalists (Christine
Wallace and Andrew Bolt) who were dismissive of the idea of abolishing
state governments obviously don't know what we're up to!

The website for the insiders program (at http://abc.net.au/insiders/)
states:

Berrigan Shire Councillor Max Bradley says Australians are over-governed and
state governments should be abolished. Max believes Australia needs a
simpler form of government and fewer, more meaningful elections."

Future Events :

21 September, 2nd Shed a Tier Congress, Parliament House (Canberra),
Committee Room 2R1 from 8am to 4pm.

Both Brian Howe and Gary Humphries (the ACT Chief Minister) have
accepted invitations to present keynote speeches at our 21 September
event.

Rodney Hall has also agreed to speak at the event, and Senator Andrew 
Murray has also responded positively.  So it is going to be an exciting 
day for sure!

I (Mark) will have a written record of the first 22 June event and several 4 
hour video tape records of our first Congress ready to give out on 21 
September (I'll cover costs - I'll copy the tapes myself).  We can build 
up and archive our collection in this sort of way - will help with 
consultation, education, media and advocacy initiatives.

Regarding an agenda for the 21 September day, Jim suggests as follows: 

10am Opening Garry Humphries 15 mins. Questions 10 mins
10.30am Keynote speaker: Brian Howe - the advantages of the regional 
approach 20 mins. Questions 10 mins
11 am morning tea
11.20 am Keynote speaker Natasha Stott Despoja - the Democrat policy 20 
mins. Questions 10 mins
12 noon Keynote speaker Peter Woods - a point of view from local 
government 20 mins, questions 10 mins
12.30 pm lunch
1.30 pm Where to from here - campaign linking in with local
       congresses and/or extending the reach of electronic discussion.
             Discussions and resolutions arising from the day.
3.30pm close.
 
The plan is to have political leaders speak at this 21 September event - 
ideally from multiple party backgrounds.  Gary Humphries is the Liberal 
ACT Government Chief Minister - his Liberal predecessor Kate Carnell 
might be asked to speak if Mr Humphries can't make it this time.  
Senator Andrew Murray is the person who inspired the recent ABC radio 
news on Democrat plans. 

Mr Howe was a senior ALP Minister (including minister for Housing and 
Regional Development and Deputy Prime Minister). 

1-2 December 2001, The Corowa Conference

The Corowa conference is rather more contentious. According to the
web page :

"Mr McGarvie emphasised that the Conference will not consider whether
Australia should separate from the monarchy, nor the preferred head of
state model if it does. Those questions will be decided later.
Instead, it is proposed that the two day Conference will set up a
high-level, non-partisan drafting committee to prepare legislation to
establish all-party committees within each of the parliaments. Those
committees will cooperate in investigating and reporting on two
questions:
* which head of state model would be preserve or improve our
democracy if it replaced the monarch?
* which method of deciding the head of state issue would place least
strain on our federation?"

The ASC is not a group which pursues Republicanism as such. However, in
my view, we certainly have an interest in promoting discussion of larger
changes to the constitution, and it seems it would unsatisfactory for
a political forum to be limited. It might be better to consider this
section as part of "asc-chat".

Charles Mollison and Klaas Woldring have put forward letters commenting
on the lack of representativeness at the present incarnation of the
conference. After some problems, Klass' letter is now on their website.

FOUNDATION FOR NATIONAL RENEWAL

Cr Gary J Poidevin, Mayor, Corowa Shire Council

Dear Sir

We [in the FNR] are horrified to find that the greatest fraud in
Australia's constitutional history is in the process of being inflicted
on the Australian People and it would seem the Corowa Council has been
tricked into being a significant party to that fraud.

So, what are the grounds for this allegation?

The People of Australia are disenchanted with our system - our so-called
'stable democracy'.  The People totally feel disenfranchised by the
party political nature of our governance in which the only power they
have is to remove one Party and replace it with more of the same.  The
People want change.

The question of the Head of State is seen by many as an opportunity to
make a change.  However, the People have made it abundantly clear that
they will not accept any change that increases the power of politicians
at the expense of the People.  In fact, a majority of the People want to
elect their President to provide a check on the excesses of the
politicians.

The agenda and the resolutions proposed are designed to ensure the
outcome of the Corowa Convention is yet another 'Politicians'
Republic'.

Richard McGarvie is proposing that the primary reason the '99 referendum
failed was because the process was 'outsourced' and Parliaments were not
involved.  He uses the part played by the 1893 Corowa Conference in
putting the Federation issue back on the agenda as evidence to support
his argument.  Unfortunately, his proposal reverses the bias and almost
totally excludes the People from any involvement in the process until
referendum time when the People get to decide Yes or No to one
proposition.  

I expect many procedural manipulations at the convention in pursuit of
this outcome.

The Corowa Conference will be a success because most politicians do not
want any change to the system over which they preside.  They do not want
any referenda that will change the rules just when they have clawed
their way to the top of the pile. 

The tragedy is that, if the McGarvie Mob is successful in having their
'Politicians' Republic' put to referendum, the People will reject it and
the debate (and resolution) of this problem will be put back another ten
or twenty years.

What is the alternative?

Indiividuals and groups with a demonstrated interest in Constitutional
affairs should be asked to participate fully in the conference and time
should allow for healthy debate.

The majority of invited delegates to the Convention should be private
Citizens with an interest in constitutional issues together with enough
politicians to ensure that any resolution has the momentum to become a
reality.  

It is imperative that the Corowa Conference be conducted in a fair and
open manner to examine the alternatives and to determine a process by
which our Head of State could be selected/appointed/elected.  A
conference that it is not just a cover for predetermined, 'minimalist'
outcomes.

Charles Mollison

Chairman

--

 From : Klaas Woldring

Cr. Gary Poidevin, Mayor, Corowa Shire Council

17th June, 2001
Re: Draft Program and Proposals from any interested Australian.

Dear Mr. Poidevin,

Congratulations on your Council's decision to organise such a
potentially important event. 

I support the idea of a Peoples' Conference primarily convened to adopt
a process - rather than to discuss models - and I also agree with the
view expressed recently by Sir Zelman Cowen and others that the momentum
for change towards a Republic should not be lost.

Your initiatiative has no doubt great potential and I take it that the
term PEOPLES' CONFERENCE means what it says: A conference primarily for
and by the Australian people.  As you have room for only 450 delegates
it needs to be a Conference where direct representatives of the people,
interested in this particular aspect of life of the nation, the
Republic, come together.  It appears the emphasis of this exercise is on
politicians and political parties.

Increasingly politicians, although supposedly representatives of the
people, often turn out to be representatives of organisations who are
able to fund their expensive election campaigns.  In addition, both the
electoral system and the two-party system that results from this,
detract immensely from politicians being true representatives of the
people.

I have serious concerns with several aspects of the proposals to date :

1.  I have an indication that the Organising Committee, in the words of
Mr.  McGarvie, 'intends to draw about half of its members from men and
women with experience relevant to recommending practical constitutional
process'.  Mr.  McGarvie was the author of one of the four models
discussed at ConCon and is a prolific writer on the subject.  However,
his was the most Minimalist model of the four.  Input from Mr.  Garvie
and others of the same colour would be expected to mean people of the
same colour were over-represented.

I would suggest that you should ensure that (a) the selection committee
for appointed delegates should be very broad-based (b) that appointed
delegates should be limited to 20%.

2.  A large section of the Proposal is taken up by already pre-organised
agenda items and recommendations which revolve around politicians rather
than members of the public. 

3.  In item 3 there is mention of a Federal All Party Parliamentary
Committee to be establised to report on (1) ONE Head of State Model (2)
the method of deciding the Head of State issue that would least strain
the federation. Nearly all of these people are politicians - and
not the same type of people as in the late 1890s, who were pretty
independent characters.  The politicians' bias that can be expected here
will be even more pronounced as in ConCon.

4.  Only the Head of Issue State is to be the subject of an All Party
Parliamentary Committee.  While we agree that that should be the first
step of a much wider examination of the constitution - there is no
indication that there ought to be in agreement on a plan for further
constitutional review - including a time table.  For that reason I would
say that the proposal looks like being a re-run of the ConCon disaster.

5.  Amazingly, the Drafting Committee is to end up with only ONE MODEL.
If Australians have learned anything from ConCon surely it is that there
has to be a choice of models in a preferential referendum. 

6.  The aim also seems to be to hold plebiscites first, a costly and
unnecessary approach.  Republic Now!  takes the view that we already
know that Australians have a strong preference for Direct election of a
President. This should be the starting point for a referenda 
involving several questions both on whether a republic is wanted and how
the President would be decided on.

7.  The elaborate involvement of the states suggested in the proposal is
probably technically correct but it should be avoided.  In our federation
where the role of the states is diminishing rapidly, and the questions
are primarily national ones.

Dr. Klaas Woldring,
Convenor,
Republic Now!

5. Some history 

At the Shed a Tier Congress in Canberra, AJ gave a talk on how the boundaries
of the states within Australia developed. One of the most amazing parts
was the origin of the the two approximate vertical lines separating Western
Australia from the Northern Territory/South Australia, and the line 
separating the NT/SA from Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Apparently, this was the result of the Treaty of Tordesillias between
the Spanish and Portugese mediated by the Pope, where the world was
divided between them, and divider was roughly the Azore Islands.  Taking
the boundary around the world, we end up at Australia.

AJ also told us about the different movements towards more states and also
towards a more national government.

AJ filled us in on just who "Samuel Griffith" was, the person his 
University is named after and the name of a pro-current federalism group :

> Samuel Griffith was a Premier of Queensland 1883-1888, 1891-93, then Chief
> Justice of Queensland and from 1903, the first Chief Justice of the High
> Court of Australia.  He was the senior drafter of the draft federal
> constitution to emerge from the 1891 Australasian Federation Convention in
> Sydney, regarded as the backbone in almost every respects of the eventual
> 1901 document.  Griffith University (my institution) and the suburb of
> Griffith in Canberra are named after him.
> 
> Despite the reputation as a conservative judge (and most of the views of
> the SGS), Griffith the politician was in fact a very progressive liberal in
> his day, with strong socialist influences and a strong commitment to a fair
> go for working people, one vote one value etc.  A fascinating man, a long
> way ahead of his time.  One of his great legacies from the 1880s was
> fighting the ongoing importation of coloured (slave) labour into north
> Queensland at a time when to do so was politically very unpopular, and
> quite a bit before Labor arose as a political force to throw its weight
> behind a white Australia policy.  He can largely be credited with laying
> the groundwork for preventing slave states a la the US south popping up
> right across northern Australia. 

But now, to "movements". According to AJ :

> Major royal commissions on major federal constitution change occurred in
> the late 1920s (Peden), the close of the second world war (particularly re:
> transfer of many powers to federal government, all failed), and through the
> 1980s leading to the failed referendum of 1988.  All had serious public
> interest, many organisations attached etc... yes, as with the republic ref
> of 1999 (putting aside the direct electionist problem), there was serious
> underestimation of the work required to genuinely engage the community on
> the issues, sufficiently to provide sufficiently broad support to bring
> about even quite basic changes.
> 
> A notable example in the other direction was the 1967 Aboriginal powers
> referendum, which scored a resounding 'yes' because the concept was simple,
> extremely well articulated by sophisticated Aboriginal and allied campaign,
> and not made into a partisan issue.
> 
> Cheryl Saunders has an interesting paper generally on const reform
> dilemmas, a Senate federation lecture called 'The Parliament as Partner',
> try aph.gov.au (can't give you exact link as my internet's down).  See also
> Helen Irving's Barton lecture which you can get from the Australian's website.
> 
> Re: state abolition: a good start (whether you agree or not) is a book by
> Brian Galligan, A Federal Republic (Cambridge, 1995), which has a chapter
> 'Labor and the Constitution', which deals with the longstanding ALP state
> abolition platform 1920s-1970s, and its abandonment... rest of book also
> very influential.
> 
> There has not been huge advocacy over last 20 years largely because the
> sort of thinking outlined by Brian G has been widely accepted through
> much of academia, government, media etc.  If you're implying this means
> there is currently a new window of opportunity for new more flexible
> debate, provided it is genuinely new and more flexible and not just an
> uninformed rehash of old dead and gone policies.  One problem here is
> that 20 years is not a long time in constitutional and political
> culture.  Ideological concerns of the 1960s and 1970s are still well and
> truly alive today in the minds of many, including senior opinion
> leaders...  hence what to you or I might seem obvious is not necessarily
> so to many.
> 
> Brian is indicative (and a leader) of the body of 'accepted wisdom' of the
> last 20, and particularly last 10 years, built up around 'collaborative' or
> 'cooperative federalism'... there are various books on this title, it is
> the backbone of most current university teaching in politics, public policy
> and public administration.  Our centre has been involved in two recent
> books which are pretty good digests of current thinking:
> 
> Glyn Davis & Michael Keating (eds), The Future of Governance: Policy
> Choices (Allen & Unwin, 2000);
> Michael Keating, John Wanna, Patrick Weller (eds), Institutions on the
> Edge?  Capacity for Governance (Allen & Unwin, 2000).

For me, the the most interesting point is the underestimation of the work
required to genuinely engage the community on the issues. 

But, as Mark has pointed out, there's lots of people with an interest in
this sort of change. Perhaps we will get things happening, but this is an
important lesson - there's a lot involved in "engaging the community".

Jim Snow echoes this thought :

> It is true that many say to us 'You've got the answer. Get rid of the
> states'. Politicians from most parties have said it to me and many people in
> the electorate have said it.  The problem is those people have not been
> subjected to all the negative arguments.  Before the Australia Card was
> proposed a poll showed 70% of electors wanted an ID card. 'Every one at the
> footy says they want it and they're usually right' one Senator said.When a
> government proposed the idea the support dropped to about 57%. When some
> religious groups and some 'civil libertarians' of the right opposed the
> Card, support dropped to below 50% and the idea was dropped.  
> 
> There has been no real public debate on the issue of state abolition. It is
> true that communities must be engaged on the issue. It is true that it will
> be hard. 
> 
> Anyway if we have something ready and have the facts ready - on cost,
> reduced efficiency, confusion and diminished say by electors - we will be
> ready with some real solutions in times of crisis and it is hard to believe
> they will not come. 

In 1997 there was the "Australia Consults" initiative.  Mark reports :

> Australia Consults 1997 was a joint initiative of the National Australia
> Day Council and the Australian Local Government Association, with the
> support of Telstra, Principal Sponsor of the National Australia Day
> Council.  Howard Glenn was National Director of this event.
> 
> The event is reported in the publication titled:
> The Big Conversation - Australian Communities' views on:
> * The Centenary of Federation
> * Possible changes to the Head of State
> * Reconciliation between indigenous and other Australians
> (published by the National Australia Day Council, Haymarket, NSW, 1997)
> 
> Australia Consults 1997 involved 126 community forums held on or around
> Australia Day 1997, involving 138 local councils.  Forums were generally
> advertised to the whole community and one had over three hundred
> participants, with average attendances being around 25 to 30 citizens.
> 
> Virtually all Forums as recorded in 'The big Conversation ...' supported a
> strengthened role for local government and constitutional recognition of
> local government.  And approximately half of the 126 Forums explicitly
> supported, or at least explored, possible improvements to our system of
> government though the abolition of state governments and/or moving to a two
> sphere system comprising just national/federal and local/regional
> governments, or at least some significant improvement to our present three
> tier system.  This is very significant when you remember the objective
> of the forums.
> 
> Below are extracts from 63 of the 126 Australia Consults 1997
> Forums, most of which show direct support for the abolition of state
> governments or some similar reform of our three sphere system of government.
> Some extracts are included here because they appear to provide significant
> lessons to those who support the idea of abolishing state governments and
> moving to an improved system of government.
> The 63 forums quoted were from states and territories as follows:
> 
> SA        10 of 12 reported (83%)
> NT         4 of 5 reported (80%)
> WA       7 of 11 reported (64%)
> TAS      4 of 7 reported (57%)
> VIC       6 of 13 reported (46%)
> NSW     28 of 62 reported (45%)
> QLD      4 of 15 reported (27%)
> ACT      0 of 1 reported (0%)
> TOTAL: 63 of 126 reported (50%)
> 
> So much for the theory that abolishing state governments is just a
> Sydney-Melbourne-Canberra thing!

Indeed. This is interesting information, particularly given reports I've
heard from Brian Hurford about how people outside of the Eastern states
view the "distant" Canberra Government, and how the Senate is perceived to
be the one thing which constrains that distant Government (even though
Senators have almost always voted along party, not state, lines.)

6. The opposition

I asked :

> What activities are you aware of that the pro-federalists have been up to ?
> Ones which are visible publicly ?
> 
> I'm aware that the Samuel Griffith Society have annual meetings, and have a
> web page. Have they made any public pronouncements, participated in debate;
> are academic papers written by people who identify with the society ? How
> about more general articles in magazines and newspapers ?  Do they feed
> opinion leaders in mainstream society ?
> 
> We know that Greg Craven has appeared on radio and has had articles appear
> in major newspapers. 

AJ commented on the Samuel Griffith Society :

> Samuel Griffith Society was established as an influential but generally
> conservative group trying to rekindle Griffith's approach to constitutional
> interpretation while on the High Court, which consistently with the 1890
> conventions was very pro- states' rights and 'read down' federal
> constitutional power to a minimum.  This was all undone in the 1920s when
> Griffith left the court, and two Victorian liberals gained the ascendancy
> (Isaac Issacs and Henry Bourne Higgins), both of whom had supported
> stronger federal power in the 1897-98 convention (where Griffith was no
> longer present) but had been rolled.

Mark answered :

"I've found, among other things, Stephen Souter's page on the
Constitution, which at
http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/constitution/#issues has a
section on Federalism which will go quite a way toward answering your
questions as above John.

Federalism definitely attracts an almost religious faith-type following.
Among academics I am aware of, Professor Brian Galligan is one who
appears to believe that federalism is a fundamentally superior form of
government.  Following is a direct quote from my Masters thesis [edited
- JA ]:

At least four principle viewpoints can be identified in relation to this
ongoing debate.

Firstly, there have been those who have favoured the status quo - not
just a federal system of Australian government, but the federal
arrangement which is presently in place.  such views have generally
aligned with the Australian Liberal party.

Secondly, there have been those whose support for the federal status quo
is based on the view that federalism is an inherently superior form of
government, at least for a nation of Australia's area.  The advocacy of
the Samuel Griffiths Society spans both of these first two categories as
do the writings of academics such as Galligan and Walsh :

 Essentially the debate over 'Australian Federalism Yes or No' has been a
 twentieth century one that should now be considered closed.  ...
 Australian federalism is not seriously in question.

A third camp has rejected federalism altogether in favour of a unitary
system - generally one hosting 30 or so regional or provincial
governments with delegated powers.

The Australian Labor Party explicitly supported the move to such a
system in their Federal Platform until the late 1970s And more recently,
the Australian Greens have set out their "support [for] the eventual
abolition of the States".  Canaway had no doubt that a unitary system
was best for Australia:

 The best constitutional system for Australia means the best one for the
 Australian nation ...[we] must take the nation as a starting-point and
 thence go on to determine what form of polity will offer the nation the
 best facilities for fulfilling the duty it owes to itself ...  The right
 principle upon which to constitute the Australian nation is beyond all
 controversy the unitary one.

Finally, a fourth camp can be identified who have supported federal
principles at least to some extent but who have nevertheless sought
significant changes in Australia's federal arrangements.

New States movements, such as that which narrowly failed to achieve the
new state of New England in the April 1967 referendum, are an example;
these have been dominated by rural interests generally, and the Country
(now National) party in particular.  More recently, Thomas (1994)
proposed a system of 37 regional states founded upon federal principles.
The Australian Democrats also support a move to a system of regional
governments.

The first two camps (those favouring the status quo and federalism) have
attracted support among those who consider the pursuit of significant
changes to our system of government pointless in view of constitutional
barriers , but their position can be criticised as conservative,
defeatist and unimaginative.

The third camp has attracted followers among those who perceive the
present federal arrangements as wasteful, unduly complicated and a
barrier to much needed reform, but is criticised by those opposed to a
centralization of power and on grounds of being unachievable.  Each of
these first three camps have attracted criticism on account of their
'black and white', dismissive, dogmatic and uncompromising stances.  ...
their manner of dismissing arguments opposed to their own is more likely
to inflame this debate rather than settle it.

The idea that Australia's present federal system of government, with the
States in their present form, is the best of all possible designs is
almost certainly wrong.

This does not imply that the best of all possible systems would
necessarily be a unitary form of government; there is room for
improvement in the placement of sub-national boundaries and the balance
of powers and responsibilities between central and sub-national
governments.  There is value in exploring as wide a range of options as
possible.

The fourth camp described above has undoubtedly contributed more
constructively than the first three camps to debates over possible
reforms to the Australian system of government.  Spate captured the
merit of this fourth camp :

 The socio-economic cast of the Australia of to-day differs ... from 
 that of the Australia of 1900 ... and it would be highly unrealistic to 
 expect that in an age of two world-embracing wars and of dizzy 
 technological change, the balance appropriate to 1900 could be 
 statically preserved.

An American scholar named Daniel Elazar who recently sadly passed away
was a leading American advocate of inherent, almost panacea like
attractions of federalism The Federalism Research Centre at the
Australian National University in Canberra, which ceased operation a few
years ago, seemed to attract/host many people who felt (in my view) that
federalism was something to be admired more than seriously
examined/challenged.

Christine Fletcher was one such person, with whom I spoke several years
ago, who was disconcerted by my questioning of the merits of our federal
system.  She was convinced that our states bring democracy close to the
people.  Campbell Sharman, a senior academic in WA, is known to strongly
support federalism.  John Stone, the former Secretary to the Treasurer
who supported Joh for PM, has been a somewhat zealous advocate of the
Samuel Griffith Society position, though I've not heard much from him in
the past few years.

It is always hard to distil out whether these supporters of our present
system are more fans of federal systems generally or our specific
federal system, but I suspect they are more the former, which helps us a
lot.  Although, on the other hand, I recall the late Ken Thomas (the
founder of TNT transport and author of a system comprising 37 regional
governments in what was clearly intended to remain a federal system - I
have first hand correspondence from Ken on this) saying that he spoke at
the Samuel Griffith Society and his 37 region model was poorly received.

I think it is possible to divide federalism supporters into (1) credible
academics who support the theoretical principles of federalism (and
claim that such theoretical benefits translate into practice under our
present arrangements ) and (2) hardline conservatives who can "sense"
that our federal features serve the conservative cause very well (by
obstructing change - for example, our federal system thwarts generally
progressive causes such as the pursuit of national laws giving equal
rights to homosexuals, females, people of all religions, aboriginals,
people not heirs to the throne etc.  ) 

There is also a view (taken by Professor Graham Maddox at the Uni of New
England among others) that the "political class" (including politicians,
senior bureaucrats, consultants and some academics) benefit nicely from
our system, by creating work to keep them employed.  So whilst many
accountants, economists and lawyers support change, they can
nevertheless see that the present system creates lots of work for their
ilk."

Jim Snow comments :

> There are few ardent federalists in active national politics.  Most
> Prime Ministers have been happy to reduce the power of the states and
> John Howard observed it would be better if the nation was not divided
> into states but we have them and have to work with that.

Klass writes :

> Federalism is now defended by some conservative forces only - and some
> academics.  Greg Craven's justification (in the Barton lecture) is
> extremely naive and weak.

> I know Daniel Salazar.  I met him in 1979 in Philadelphia and he
> published an article of mine in Publius, the Journal of Federalism, on
> Southern Africa.  Support for federalism in the US is in a special
> category but increasingly ever since WWII, progressive social writers
> and political economist have come to regard federalism as a device to
> retard, frustrate social reforms , welfare measures, human rights,
> health reforms, etc. in certain US states.

> Obviously, that is often an abuse but that is not unlike what happened
> here with Mandatory Sentences in NT & WA. Howard is a federalist when it
> suits his conservative agenda and not when it suits a different agenda,
> eg compliance with WTO dictates (Tasmanian salmon).

7. The academics, the environment

Further to the description of "the opposition", Klaas writes :

> It is important that we all understand the nature of the 'debate" - such
> as it is - amongst senior political scientists and constitutional
> lawyers.

> In the past 20 years the debate amongst political scientists
> particularly , some of whom were quite progressive and innovative in the
> late sixties and early seventies, has been descriptive, conservative and
> career oriented.  Few stick their necks out, talk to the public and join
> causes.  Brian Gallighan is a perfect example of this but there are many
> others.  There are all kinds of reasons for that but the dominance of
> economic rationalism, emergence of the New Right as a major force in
> public policy making, high unemployment and decreasing security of
> tenure in universities have all contributed to that deplorable
> situation.

> Students and on journalists who draw on the socalled gurus to find out
> what it is all about come back to the general public without anything of
> interest or significance.  I have read stuff of most of these people and
> it has always struck me how APSA for instance shies away from anything
> controversial or activist.

> At the October 2000 APSA conference in Canberra there were papers by
> people who had been involved in Reshaping Australian Institutions
> program of ANU, headed by Frank Castles at the RSSS (who has now left
> Australia in some disgust).  

> I asked him why it was that the public had heard so little about what
> had happened in that program (which apparently produced some 20 books in
> five years).  Frank and his brother Steven (?)...at Wollongong Uni.
> are/were fairly progressive academics but it seemed that it hadn't
> occurred to them that this material should reach the general public much
> more than it did.  This program had a potential to change the debate,
> but did not.  

> The "experts" can give us background but little more.  They are almost
> the opposite of reformers, and are more often a hindrance because they
> reinforce the status quo which is the backdrop and strength of their
> careers.  The universities have suffered greatly in the last 15 years.
> They are not really in touch with the general public.  Things can turn
> around but the impetus has to come from groups such as ours, from
> individuals, from freak events etc which can be turned to advantage by
> such groups and individuals.

> It is not surprising that number of students who study politics has
> declined in the last 20 years.  While environmental studies etc have
> grown - and that's where the more radical scholars have tended to go and
> flourish - the big shift has tended to be to Business Studies - and MBAs
> which draw students away from even thinking at all about changes in
> political structures - unless they can be shown to stand in the way of
> money making and hampering corporation (which the present structures
> actually do!).

8. Litmus tests and Consensus statements

David identified a sequence of questions to figure out views on these
topics. I think this is important, as it helps us to understand what
our views are. This is quite separate to discussing details of what the
details are of how things should be better or how we should change them.

Here's the basic version :

DEFINITIONS:

Regional level is defined as any multi-function government level between
state and local government.  So the current system of many parallel
functional regions is ruled out.

An apolitical body is defined by example as something like the
Australian Electoral Commission: subordinate to the national level of
government, but operating on the basis of principles established in a
bi- or multipartisan way, protected from arbitrary changes to its
operation by the government of the day, though perhaps only by
convention.

These are "working definitions for the set of questions", not broader
definitions or prescriptive definitions.

GENERAL:

 _ (G1) "The division of powers between levels of government should be
changed."

STATES:

 _ (S1) "State governments should continue to exist."

 _ (S2) "State governments should continue to have constitutional
protection."

 _ (S3) "State governments should have increased responsibilities."

 _ (S4) "There should be more states."

 _ (S5) "State governments should have reduced responsibilities."

REGIONS:

 _ (R1) "Regional governments should be created."

 _ (R2) "Regional budgets should be constitutionally guaranteed."

 _ (R4) "Regional budgets should be fixed by an apolitical body."

 _ (R5) "Regional boundaries should be constitutionally fixed."

 _ (R6) "Regional boundaries should be fixed by an apolitical body."

LOCAL:

 _ (L1) "Local governments should continue to exist."

 _ (L2) "Local government responsibilities should be constitutionally
fixed."

 _ (L3) "Local governments should have increased responsibilities."

 _ (L4) "Local governments should have reduced responsibilities."

 _ (L5) "Local government boundaries should be constitutionally fixed."

 _ (L6) "Local government boundaries should be fixed by an apolitical body."

 _ (L7) "Local government budgets should be constitutionally fixed."

 _ (L8) "Local government budgets should be fixed by an apolitical body."

 _ (L9) "Present local government responsibilities should be better funded."

MISCELLANEOUS:

 _ (M1) "The senate should be abolished."

 _ (M2) "The senate should be elected on a one vote one value basis."

RESIDUAL POWERS:

 _ (P1) "The powers of the subnational governments should be defined in
 constitution and the remaining (residual) powers directed to the national
 government."

 _ (P2) "The powers of the national government should be defined in 
 constitution and the remaining (residual) powers be directed to one or
 more subnational governments."

Clearly, such a test puts limits on expression, but it is still a postive
step. From it, we could come to grips with the range of opinion within
the ASC, and represent it graphically if need be.

There are some subtleties these questions do not bring out. When we want
"more states", how do they differ from regions ? An implication could be
that regions have less power than states, and less constitional protection
than states - they could still have constitutional guarantees based on
apolitical bodies and parliamentary process, but not the "almost total"
soveignty that States do.  So "more states" implies "more almost totally
sovereign states like we have now."

The issue of how you deal with multiple functional regions does not really
appear in these questions, but this is a detail which I do not think is
really contentious.

The actual powers put to the different levels of government does not come
out in the questions either - but it still represents a useful set of
distinctions.

8b. Consensus statements

Here's the consensus statement we have recently agreed on :

"The Viewpoint and Objectives of the Abolish the States Collective

The ASC believes that Australia needs a better system of
government, one without state governments in their present
form, and that state governments should be abolished at the earliest
possible opportunity.

We believe that state governments are divisive, the source of
destructive "bidding wars" and "buck-passing", wasteful in their
duplication, and an enormous cost burden generally which Australia can
ill afford in an increasingly competitive world.

We recognise the link between government system design and public
outcomes and heed the opinion polls which continually remind us that
Australians would much prefer governments invest scarce resources on
education, health, safety, the environment and so on rather than bear
the cost of eight state and territory parliaments and their attendant
bureaucracies.

We believe that everything state governments do could be done better
at either the national government level or at a level closer to the
people than state governments are in their present form.

We believe that Australia needs a single, effective national
government which would assume most of the powers and
responsibilities held by the present state and federal governments.  We
also believe our national government should administer uniform national
laws, but we endorse flexibility in the local application of such laws.

Our membership represents a range of views on what the subnational
governments should be.  We generally agree that we need two principal levels
of democratic government, though some also support additional levels of
democratic participation.

One suggestion is that we eliminate state governments and continue with
local governments in more or less their present local council format, though
with expanded budgets and perhaps modestly expanded powers and
responsibilities.  Proponents of such a move, whilst generally opposed to a
tier of regional government as such, are nevertheless supportive of some
intermediate structures such as voluntary collaborations of localities at
city or regional levels which could pool their resources for joint purposes.
Voluntary regional organisations of councils (VROCs or ROCs) presently in
place provide a model for such arrangements.  Significantly, such
intermediate structures would not have the attendant parliamentary or
bureaucratic expenses of the present state governments nor the power to make
laws resulting in inconsistencies across borders.

Another option under consideration is the replacement of both state
and local governments by a number of (probably 30 to 60) regional or
provincial governments having lesser powers than present state governments
but greater powers than present local governments.  Some believe we should
introduce a two tier system comprising national and regional (or provincial)
governments, whereas others believe additional levels of democratic
participation should be encouraged in smaller communities given that such
regional government areas would typically have populations of around half a
million people.  Mindful of historical
efforts to create New States (such as the New England New State movement
which narrowly failed in a 1967 Referendum), the ASC encourages cooperation
with those supportive of New States and acknowledges that if New States were
to form they would be, in effect, regional governments.

There are a range of views on the sovereignty of these different
levels of government, their funding, how their boundaries might be changed,
and various other points.

Regardless of the details, our desire is for a system of government
which is:

Democratic, understandable, accountable, just and equitable, affordable,
efficient, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable,
stable but flexible, close to and responsive to the needs of individuals
and communities, responsive also to the needs of the country as a whole and
global circumstances, and centralised and decentralised in an appropriate
balance.

We are together developing ideas for improved government which satisfy
these criteria, and endorse any associated improvements to the present
system, including, for example, the Albury-Wodonga union.  However such
one-off changes attack symptoms, not causes, and the pace of improvement
is glacial.  We believe the major costs associated with cross-border
inconsistencies, bidding wars, buck-passing, excessive duplication and
so on can only be removed through our preferred comprehensive
improvement option of state government abolition.

In its efforts to achieve a new and better system of government, the
ASC is pursuing a process of public consultation, education and advocacy in
order to provide the people of Australia with the opportunity to participate
in the process and bring it into being.

We invite you to learn more about the ASC, to join our mailing list
and join us at our dinner gatherings and other meetings. Together, we can
work to bring about a long overdue and much needed change to government in
Australia!

John August, ASC Convenor,

On behalf of the Abolish the States Collective"

This has had definite consensus support, with the only thoughts for
changes being of grammar and perhaps stating problems with the present
setup.

Nevertheless, I'm presently drained, and would much rather leave it be
and move on, I think everyone is relaxed about this. I do plan to talk
about changes to content and expression in the statement in about half
a year. But in the meantime, lets get on with other stuff, OK ?

AJ writes about a consensus statement :

"Is a very good idea, a good test of the purpose of this discussion and a
nothing... anything worth writing has to be written with a consciousness of
both those who need convincing, and those who will openly attack."

Here's an original range of options, beaten into shape by various people.
The originator is noted sometimes, but they've been changed from the
original.

In these statement, we tried to focus on a core nucleus of commonality.
This did not work, and the broader more detailed statement above covering
the diversity of views seems to have been the way to go. 

These statements do provide a background of how people have felt; I'm
leaving them in for this reason.

Activity statement. This is non-contentious, we all seem to agree on it :

> In its efforts to achieve a new and better system of government, the ASC
> is pursuing a process of public consultation, education and advocacy in
> order to provide the people of Australia with the opportunity to
> participate in the process and bring it into being.

Option 1 : "No consensus statement at this time".

Option 2 : John August's endorsement of non-preferred options

> The ASC endorses changes to the current system of government which
> improve the allocation of powers and responsibilities between the three
> tiers so as to achieve a more simplified system hosting uniform laws &
> regulations and improved cooperation across the country.  Either removal
> of the State/Territory tier or its replacement with a "Mezzanine" level
> Government/Administration with limited budget and powers, are the
> preferred options.

There was some discussion about having a statement of non-preferred 
options. AJ writes :

"I don't believe in people shortcutting their goals and objectives due to
perceived short-term prospects of reform...  this is a terrible syndrome
currently afflicting much of the cash-strapped academic community...
the aim should be to identify the fundamental positive principles of
what is more desirable and why, and then have secondary discussions
(informed but not controlled by those with technical knowledge, such as
us lawyers) about the possible means."

I'd reassure people to say that my objective in having such a statement
is consistency. If we say "Abolishing the States has benefit X", and there
are other ways of getting to benefit X, it would be wrong to dismiss them.

We can still say that Abolishing the states is the most effective way of
getting to benefit X, and that Abolishing the states is the only way
of getting some other benefit.

Option 3 : Max Bradley's endorsement of non-preferred options

The ASC endorses changes to the current system of government which improves
the allocation of powers and responsibilities.  Such changes would bring
about uniform laws and regulations, improve cooperation across the country,
and provide more resources at the community level.

Option 4 : No statement of non-preferred options

Option 5 : My statement of preferred options 

> The State governments should be abolished immediately, and their powers
> (including all sovereignty) transferred to the commonwealth.  The
> commonwealth would be expected to delegate implementational
> responsibility to the regional level as appropriate, as is done now by
> the states.  During the formative period, sovereignty might also be
> passed on to the regional level (being administered by transitional
> means before the system is set.) The degree to which such delegation
> of responsibility and sovereignty takes place is an open issue, and is
> is not a consensus position.

Mark has noted this goes into transitional detail, which may be unwarranted
in such a statement.

Option 6 : Mark/John hybrid

The ASC believes Australia deserves a system of government which is
democratic, understandable, accountable, just and equitable, affordable,
efficient, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, stable
but flexible, close to and responsive to the needs of individuals and
communities, responsive also to the needs of the country as a whole and
global circumstances, and centralised and decentralised in an appropriate
balance.

Mark : 'The above would be like a corporate "Vision" statement to
complement our main consensus statement (which is more like a corporate
"Mission" statement)'

Option 7 : Max's statement of preferred options

> Australia should change its system of government, by abolishing the 
> state governments, to one in which political and financial powers and 
> other responsibilities presently held by the states and territories are 
> transferred to the commonwealth. The Commonwealth will delegate to the 
> existing Local Government and the existing regional administration 
> areas, who will implement the laws and deliver government services, as 
> they are now, with greater financial support from the Commonwealth.

Mark : 'This is almost the classic ALP unitary system stance, except
that usually regions or provinces are mentioned.  Its a cohesive
position but possibly needs something added to avoid appearing too
centralised.'

David :

"This sounds backwards. It's as though you're saying that local governments
deserve more money independent of their function, like they were poor
people.
  
If local governments have the money they need for their functions then
they shouldn't be given more.  If we are going to give them more money
it should be (a) because they have more functions (in which case it's
practically implicit, obviously the budget goes with the responsibility)
or (b) because they have responsibilities that are underfunded (in which
case say which ones)."

Option 8 : Anthony David's statement of preferred options

> Australia should change its system of government, by abolishing the
> state governments, to one in which political and financial powers and
> other responsibilities presently held by the states and territories are
> transferred to the Commonwealth and Local Government according to the
> locality of influence of those powers.  Local Government's role will be
> strengthened.  Those who are close to the people will administer and
> implement laws and deliver government services with greater financial
> support from the Commonwealth.  The powers accorded to Local Governments
> will be proscribed in the Constitution.  Accountability requirements of
> both levels of Government will also be proscribed to ensure the actions
> of the governments meet with the wishes and needs of those whom they
> serve.

Mark : ' Personally I like this emphasis on strengthening local
government.  Max and others: how far are you prepared to move on this
issue of stronger close to the people government?  I think its a winner
and that we shouldn't be shy about it.

I think the word "proscribed" needs to be changed to something like
"defined".  I don't think we need quite so much detail in a consensus
statement but that raises the issue of having consensus statements at
varying levels of elaboration - Anthony's proposal would be somewhat more
elaborated than most of the others.'

Option 9 : Mark's statement of preferred options

Australia should change its system of government to one in which
political and financial powers and responsibilities held by
the present states/territories are transferred to the Commonwealth and
local/regional governments (the latter formed with the consent of the
relevant communities) but so as to achieve uniform national laws.

Option 10 : Charles' broader statement 

> One hundred years of Federation under the provisions of our current
> Constitution have provided a sound basis from which we should now move
> forward.  In general terms, two broad anomalies are apparent.  Firstly,
> those areas of responsibility passed to the Federal Government have
> generally worked well - defence, customs, immigration, post & telegraph,
> etc.  On the other hand, those areas of responsibility retained by State
> Governments are the cause of much angst in the community - education,
> health, railways, law enforcement, etc.
> 
> Australians should now change the system of government by abolishing
> State Governments to achieve a two-tiered system in which the Federal
> Government is responsible for policy and semi-autonomous Regional
> Governments are responsible for implementation of all aspects of
> governance and for the delivery of government services.
>  
> The allocation of powers and responsibilities to each of the two levels
> should be enshrined in the Constitution.  The Constitution should also
> create an independent, Federal Electoral Office with authority over
> regional boundaries, and enshrine a formula for the allocation of
> overall funding to regional governments.
> 
> At the same time, changes to the Constitution should establish an
> electoral system that ensures true representation of communities in
> parliaments at Regional level, and at Federal level in both a
> Legislative House and a House of Review.  (Rather than representatives
> of political parties as at present).  (This to ensure accountability of
> the Parliaments to the people.)

Option 11 : An "original" statement

> The State governments should be abolished immediately, and their powers
> (including all sovereignty) transferred to the commonwealth.  The
> commonwealth would be expected to delegate implementation responsibility
> to the local government, and to the regional level as it sees fit, as is
> done now by the states.

Option 12 : Another "original" statement

> The ASC (Abolish the States Collective) agrees/believes that Australia
> should move to an affordable "best possible" system of government,
> absent of the states/territories in their present form, with a
> one-vote-one-value electoral system, in which political and are
> transferred to the Commonwealth and local/regional governments so as to
> achieve uniform laws and an appropriate balance of centralisation and
> decentralisation.

These two statements came out of our meetings, and are a bit old, but are
here for comparison/reference.

Charles' Statement.

This generated some discussion, which I'll now consider in a separate
section.

Charles' first paragraph made David wonder about just how well we can
claim Federal responsibilities have gone. It would be controversial to
say that immigration has "done well", and you could argue we've paid a
lot for mail & telegraph.

Perhaps it would be better to say that national mail and telephone
/telegraph have delivered benefits which can be traced to the fact that
they are an Australia - wide network, and better than a State based 
alternative.

Immigration has perhaps been better as a national responsibility than it
would elsewise, and controversy resulting from its political administration.

A problem with Immigration is that a disproportionate number end up in
Sydney and Melbourne, with the NSW government saying that it "must cope
with growth in Sydney because the Federal government sets immigration and
they have no choice". This could be argued to result from an ad hoc 
separation of responsibilities rather than immigration being in federal
hands.

Charles mentions "Regional Governments being responsible for
implementation of all aspects of governance and for the delivery of
government services."

This has problems with some elements of Government service - Defence,
for example, and seems extreme as an unqualified statement.

Max had problems with the lack of definition of regions; I suspect 
deining regions in terms of their function would be adequate. Mark would
prefer reference to both regions and local governments.

Max wondered how the suggested changes to parliament would be obviously
different to the current system.  Mark suggested having a "House of
Regions" with the regions themselves having a direct input into a house
of parliament.

David criticised having anything enshrined in the constitution, in that
its original reasons for inclusion might become obsolete.  Charles
comments :

> Enshrined in the Constitution only means that it can't be changed by the
> politicians.  The people voting at a referendum can change anything in
> the Constitution any time they think fit.  The fear that conditions
> might change is no reason for excluding anything from the Constitution.

Here we are assuming that people will actually see that something
is irrelevant and needs to be changed. I guess we need to have some
faith in the electorate.

Why have we rejected so many referenda ?

- The government was trying to do something inapropriate
- The bar was too high
- The Australian people are too conservative, not endorsing changes 
  which really are appropriate
- Advocates of a positive change did not sufficiently engage the 
  community in debate

Depends on how you want to view the whole idea of constitutional
change by referenda.

I questioned Charles' statement about changes to the parliament as
being a bit specific, and he responded with :

> 'Democracy is government by all the people, direct or representative.'
> (COD) Our discussions and advocacy will come to nothing unless, at the
> same time, we restore democracy by ensuring communities are represented
> in Parliament not just political parties.

This seemed a bit specific to me.

Max thought that having a go at political parties was unwise, and David
questioned how you might stop them from forming. You could not stop
them from forming, but I imagine the idea is to change to a system where
policies are influenced directly by the people rather than a party system,
and parties have less relevance and effect.

David felt that regional boundaries required more value judgement and would
be the conceren of elected officials. But, the whole idea of such commissions
was that they meant that regions could not be altered at the whim of elected
officials, and had some sovereignty. I think the its analagous to having the
high court separated from parliament.

Having a formula for funding bothered David, particularly if something 
dramatic changed and we went to war. I guess we could have funding by 
formula except for a "state of emergency", defined in the constitution and
with some input from the high court.

David's concern was that it wasn't really about abolishing the states.
More like creating fifty where we had six.

In spite of the criticism, it does seem to me that Charles' statement
could be modified into one which meets other's concerns and still 
derives from his original initiative.

Finally, comments about our focus compared to becoming a republic, and
the republic now site :

Mark :

> I'd just like to recommend that in our capacities as ASC/Abolish State 
> Governments/Shed a Tier network members, it would seem important that we 
> welcome people who want to see an end to state governments but support 
> the monarchy.  I've met people (my Grandma and Mum are two Liberal 
> voting examples) who'd sooner ditch the states than the monarchy and I 
> think we have to promote our "brand name" here at arms length and 
> distinct from the Head of State issue.
> 
> Each of our groups/parties/networks has important roles to play and it 
> looks as though we have a fruitful future of cooperation to look forward 
> to.

Brett Evill :

> Not everyone who wants to abolish the states is necessarily a
> Republican. I have at least one friend who shares my objections to the
> multiplicity of Parliaments and legal systems in Australia but who
> thinks that it is a damned good thing to have a disinterested foreign
> head of state. And while I would not include an hereditary monarchy if I
> were drafting a constitution from scratch, I conceive that there are
> problems with our present arrangements both more important and more
> urgent than abolishing the monarchy. Such as abolishing the states.

9. Discussion of Advocacy

Here's some of the material discussed at our 8 June meeting, which
David Bofinger, Jon Tourle and myself, later Arthur Chesterfield-Evans
joined in.

> There are three elements to the Abolish the States collective :
> 
> 1. Discussions.
> 2. Media.
> 3. Membership expansion.
> 
> We heard Arthur talk of "Ginger" groups which say radical things to
> get media interest, which are followed up by moderate groups who in
> fact get things happening.
> 
> I'd prefer to think that the whole issue of "Abolishing State Governments"
> is radical enough that you can advocate reasonable things within this
> context and still be radical enough that the media will pay you some
> attention.
> 
> That's what I hope, anyway. Experience may force us to reassess our
> position, but lets have that experience first. 

David comments :

"A bit of context: Arthur Chesterfield-Evans suggested we might make the
best contribution as a "ginger" group, raising public awareness by
feeding stories to the media.  The assumption here is that we don't
worry ourselves too much about having a well-thought-out alternative
that will survive criticism.  Mark Drummond's calculation of the cost of
states would be an example of the sort of thing to push.  I can see
where he's coming from here: raising public awareness by stunts is
likely to be a prerequisite to anything else.

Some members, though, may be reluctant to give up the more serious kind
of discussion.  So I suggested the group could organise itself as a
collection of overlapping functional groups.  A subset of the membership
interested in discussion of alternatives, a subset interested in ginger
activities, a subset wanting to talk about regional government, etc."

> As far a discussion of Advocacy, there were many things we could do :
> 
> 1. Enhance the webpage
> 
> We could introduce the various documents we access with one paragraph
> descriptions, adding something of our own to the flow of information, 
> and making a useful contribution.

(Mark has introduced a combined list of web references; we'd only want to
add commentary, making it into a more useful list).

> We could also have lists of things wrong with the present system. At
> previous meetings, people seemed sure there were other web pages out
> of there describing these things, but I have not heard any mention of
> them.
> 
> In addition, we could put our bulletins on the webpage. Quite apart
> from members of the general public, this could be useful for members
> without email access who do have web access.
> 
> There was some concern over the bulletins being "private", and might
> be used by enemies out there. However, the bulletins provide an idea
> of not just principles in the abolition of state government, but also
> who we are, what we're about and how we think, so potential new members
> can figure us out before they join, which I think would be good.
> 
> If our enemies are taking enough notice of us that they
> are actually reading our stuff for the adverse stuff they can get from
> it, then we're doing well to have such problems.
> 
> A "FAQ" would be a nice thing to have for new members joining the
> discussion group; ideally it would mean we would not have our principles
> questioned in the same way by every new member, but new member could
> still participate in the discussion.
> 
> We could also get our group included on web pages _of_ political groups.

(we've since been linked to David Moss' political page)

David comments :

"Anyone who wants to write something, I'm happy to HTMLise and upload it.
Or, teach yourself HTML: it's easy (took me an evening to get confident)
and then you can mail me pages direct.  Or, put it up on your own site
(getting a free web site is usually a no-brainer, but I'll give you
advice if you want, or help out if you have trouble for some unforseen
reason).  Then I can link to your URL, and you can edit your own work
without my intervention at all.

The moral of this discourse on the web: just because I put up the web
page doesn't mean I'm the only one who can write for it.  For instance,
it would be great to have (as John said) a one paragraph summary for
each link on the page now.  The hard part is: someone has to read the
pages at the end of those links, and write the paragraphs.  The web page
is easy."

> We could think of four main ways of getting at the media : 1. paid
> advertising 2.  letters to the editor 3.  personal contact, particularly
> to editors of feature pages 4 press releases.
> 
> Accessing the media would be for two reasons : to get our message
> across, and to increase membership.
> 
> Paid advertising, particularly in local papers, might be the way to
> go if we have public seminars, but not normally.

(but, current strategy is moving towards giving presentations at existing
community groups : see later)
> 
> Letters to the editor cannot hurt, though it is better to have articles
> and features.
> 
> I hope we can use the mailing list to become aware of
> the media, and perhaps have people on the list tell the whole
> list when there are opportunities for letters to be sent. Mark did this
> on his initial list.
> 
> Clearly there's some demand from the media for
> comment, and raising our profile to the point where they contact us
> cannot hurt.
> 
> I'm planning to get in touch with feature editors, "Australia All Over",
> and perhaps a few journalists.  Problem is, a lot of them (I know) will
> ask for something in writing. I hope to have the consensus statement by
> then.
> 
> Do people have any suggestions for journalists who are friendly to the
> cause of state abolition ?  It makes sense to have a strategy.  It makes
> sense to pay attention to the media and get a feel for how the
> journalists feel, and what the movements in the media are.
> 
> The last option are press releases which you "sow" to many journalists
> all around, but my own experience is that phoning journalists works
> better. If they won't talk to you they probably wouldn't read your
> press release anyway.
> 
> Thing is that we have little opportunity for "news" in the sense of
> something new. "We're alive and well and advocating !". Well, because
> there aren't many groups like us perhaps we'll get some play from this.
> But we need to be a bit more organised.  "ASC running a public forum".
> That's a bit more newsy, but first you have to get a public forum
> organised. Holding a forum in Berrigan, which is presently planned,
> may provide this possibility.
> 
> I suspect the best method is to be on speaking terms with a few
> journalists/editors, and when they feel not so much that our issues
> are newsworthy but rather they have not had a play for a while, that
> they would then get us involved.

As a sideline to media promotion, I pushed to have the Shed a Tier
congress promoted to the media, and managed to get Jim Snow's approval.
We did not get much coverage, but better luck next time :)

Klaas ended up with a letter in the SMH. I think it worthwhile
to see the original and that actually published, in terms of what fact
and opinions we have managed to get out there. 

The original :

> Thirty billion for the Knowledge Republic
> 
> The funding required for the doubling of R & D and revitalisation of
> tertiary education is estimated to run into the billions.
> However problematical the funding may seem at last here is a vision
> statement of some substance by the ALP. Let them now
> connect this bold undertaking with another one: a Republic without the
> archaic states and it will solve their funding problem at
> the same time. Drummond and Hall (1998) calculated that abolishing the
> states would save Australia a conservative $30 billion
> per annum. While we need not agree with  all their assumptions and
> prescriptions a read of their concise text will leave most
> convinced that (a) the argument to abolish the states makes perfect
> sense in a country that has changed dramatically since 1900
> (b) that the savings achievable do run into the billions per annum.
> These would be so enormous that free tertiary education
> could be reintroduced as well. The conservative view that Australians
> are stuck with the states because of some extremely rigid
> agreement made in 1900 is fallacious and must be abandoned. A sovereign
> people can always rewrite their constitution to
> reconstruct their government and spend the money saved more wisely.
> 
> Klaas Woldring, Pearl Beach.
 
Following is the version which I see made it in to the SMH:
 
> The funding required for the doubling of R & D and revitalisation of 
> tertiary education is estimated to run into the billions. However 
> problematical the funding may seem, at last here is a vision of some 
> substance by the ALP.
> 
> Let the party now connect this bold undertaking with another one: a 
> republic without the archaic States and it will solve the funding 
> problem at the same time. Drummond and Hall (1998) calculated that 
> abolishing the States would save Australia a conservative $30 billion a 
> year. The savings could enable free tertiary education to be 
> reintroduced.
> 
> The conservative view that Australians are stuck with the States because 
> abandoned.
> 
> A sovereign people can always rewrite their constitution to reconstruct 
> their government and spend the money saved more wisely.

Mark recently started promoting the big pulse web site, where you can
log in to vote on a range of issues, or put up a placard to promote a
new issue. You can also comment on posts in a bulletin board.

It has the web address http://www.bigpulse.com

Anthony David said that people are welcome to add comments to his on the
bulletin board

I've voted for it, and have watched the two issues rise into the top
ten.

There's also the public debate sites :

"Should the States be Abolished?"
www.publicdebate.com.au/is/193/index.html

"Does the three tiered system of government need changing?"
www.publicdebate.com.au/is/14/index.html

Mark comments :

> I believe in chaos theory (aka the butterfly effect) - this site obviously
> attracts activist/lobbyist types and if we can let others know loud and
> clear that we're on the block to stay then they might just begin to see how
> abolishing the states can help their respective causes (e.g. the
> environment, doctors in the country etc. - abolishing the states CAN help
> with many of these concerns).
> 
Its worth noting (as Mark later did) that you can only vote once in seven
days for a vote to be counted in the "7 day" grouping. Anyway, I've
certainly voted, and it cannot hurt.

Mark makes the point that "interested" people log into the site, which means
you're getting a better strike rate of interested people than the mass 
media. Still, you're talking about a small subset of the community, so 
there is a trade off. We should not forget about the "broader community".

Mark notes that site claims that politicians take it seriously. That's 
possible. It could be seen to attract "opinion leaders" in the community.

And I hope that getting to the top of the board does not smack too much
of an "engineered attack" ... or at least, if it does, its a statement
of our enthusiasm rather than our manipulative ability.

Mark has proposed workshops, which Klaas and Charles have suggested we
run in conjunction with community groups. Charles is thinking of "Probus"
and Klaas notes he is communicating with groups on the Central Coast.

Charles writes :

> Getting the general public involved is, without doubt, a monumental task and
> all strategies we can think of will have to be employed.
> 
> On the basis of my experience with the Constitutional Centenary Foundation,
> I would suggest that, although public workshops are an excellent idea for
> obtaining feedback from the public, a lot of work and effort reaches very
> few people.
> 
> It seems to me that a better result-for-effort can be achieved by using
> existing forums.  For example, by offering, say the local PROBUS Club, to
> run a workshop at one of their regularly scheduled meetings.

Here's Mark's (draft) proposal for workshops :

> SHED A TIER NETWORK
> REPLACEMENT
> MODEL WORKSHOPS
> [proposal drafted 19 July 01]
> 
> As one of its community consultation activities, the Shed a Tier Network is
> conducting a series of workshops at public meeting venues and schools across
> Australia up until approximately September 2002.
> 
> AIMS
> 
> The ultimate aim of these workshops is the design of a replacement model of
> government to replace the present federal system of six state and two
> territory governments.  We would also aim to have the public consultation
> and design processes involved in the workshops attracting an appropriate
> level of publicity.
> 
> RATIONALE
> 
> The idea is that the workshops will not only provide valuable consultation
> and data, but they will also attract publicity beneficial to our overall aim
> 
> VALUES
> 
> The Shed a Tier Replacement Model Workshops shall be conducted by
> facilitators who will be open-minded and good listeners.  In the interests
> of integrity of process and constructive devil's advocacy, facilitators will
> encourage participants to explore replacement model preferences which differ
> from those held by the facilitators themselves.
> 
> METHOD, EXERCISES AND QUESTIONS
> 
> Workshops will involve facilitators (members of the Shed a Tier Network) and
> participants engaged in two way communication, education and ideas sharing.
> The facilitator (of facilitators, depending on the number of participants)
> will direct to the participants to develop group responses to several
> exercises and questions such as the following, assuming scenarios as
> indicated:
> 
> Exercise A - Establishment and weighting of Design
> Criteria/Principles/Features (Question 1)
> 
> It has been suggested that a "best possible" system of government for
> Australia should host features such as the following:
> 
> a.     affordability
> b.     economy/efficiency (absence of wasteful duplication)
> c.      effectiveness (in terms of the delivery of government service/care
> and the achievement of associated public outcomes)
> d.     uniformity, standardisation simplicity
> e.      stability, flexibility, modifiability
> f.       understandability, comprehensibility
> g.     democracy, accountability, responsiveness
> h.     proximity (in terms of being "close to the people)
> i.       compatibility with economic, historical and cultural communities of
> interest
> j.       compatibility with geography and settlement patterns
> k.      territorial/spatial justice,
> l.       equality of access to democracy;
> m.    equity and egalitarianism
> n.     efficiency affordability
> 
> Question 1:  Which of the above features (or any others you can
> think of) should carry the greatest weight in designing the replacement
> model?  Rank these design features in order of their priority as you see it.
> 
> Exercise B - straight shedding of a tier scenario (Questions 2 and 3)
> 
> Suppose that the federal, state and territory governments were amalgamated,
> but in such a way that allowed local governments to remain more or less as
> they are.  So in effect the state and territory governments would be
> abolished and basically absorbed into a new national government, leaving us
> with just national and local levels of government.  If that were to happen:
> 
> Question 2.  Which powers and responsibilities presently held by
> the state/territory governments should be transferred to
> the your local government/council? (all other powers and responsibilities
> would remain with the newly formed national government).
> 
> Question 3.  Which powers and responsibilities presently held by
> your local government/council, if any, should be
> transferred to the national government?
> 
> Exercise C - improved close to the people government scenario (Questions 4
> to 8)
> 
> Again suppose that the federal, state and territory governments were
> amalgamated, so the states and territories would be abolished and basically
> absorbed into a new national government.  It is not assumed that local
> government will remain in more or less its present form, and you have been
> assigned the task of designing an appropriate form of sub-national
> government.
> 
> Whereas communities can be described at levels ranging from neighbourhoods,
> through to local communities through to larger regional communities ...
> 
> Question 4.  Describe the community you feel most a part of?  Does
> this community fall within the bounds of your local government/council area?
> Extend beyond it?
> 
> Question 5.  Which level of community (i.e. neighbourhood,
> township/suburb, city/region, other?) that you are a part of do you believe
> is best suited to form the area for the level of democratic government (with
> its bucket of money to spend on service delivery) that is "closest to the
> people" in your area?
> 
> Question 6.  Suggest a name for the "closest to the people" level
> of government you arrived at in question 5.
> 
> Question 7.  Roughly how many of these "closest to the people"
> governments do believe we would need across the whole of Australia?
> 
> Question 8.  Do you believe the close to the people level of
> government you proposed in questions 5-7 is the only level of government
> needed in addition to the national government?  If not, what form do you
> believe an intermediate level of government should take?  And how many of
> such governments do believe we would need across the whole of Australia?
> 
> Exercise D - general suggestions (Questions 9 and 10)
> 
> Question 9.  Can you suggest any features of government systems in
> other countries which you believe Australia should adopt?
> 
> Question 10. Can you suggest any particular problems with our
> present system of government ... and possible solutions?
> 
> [We could spread ourselves too thin if we
> pose too many questions.  The above set of 10 questions in four
> exercises might be more than could be covered in a single session, depending
> on participant numbers and workshop duration.]
> 
> WORKSHOP DURATION
> 
> The ideal duration of workshops might depend on the number of facilitators
> and participants.  With several facilitators or several groups, four
> exercises such as the above could be attempted concurrently, or with a 
> single facilitator and a single group, consecutively.
> 
> I estimate 20 minutes would be the minimum time necessary to give
> groups a reasonable opportunity to complete each of the four exercises, so
> that at least 2 hours would be needed to complete a workshop, taking into
> account introductory and summary comments by the facilitator and breaks
> between exercises.  A workshop duration of 3 hours might be ideal, but such
> times might need to be assessed on a trial and error basis.  We could
> "pilot"/"trial" such a workshop among ourselves.
> 
> TWO MAIN CATEGORIES OF WORKSHOPS
> 
> It is proposed that two categories of workshop be conducted: (1) those open
> to the public as a whole, and (2) those conducted with groups of secondary
> school children, as follows:
> 
> The Shed a Tier Network Replacement Model Public Workshops would be
> conducted at appropriate, comfortable venues, with good chairs,
> desks, refreshments etc.  They would be open to all members of the public.
> They would be "advertised" by invitation to organisations such as the
> Rotary, Apex, Lions and local leagues/RSL type clubs (asking them to place a
> small advertisement about the public workshop on their notice board and/or
> in member newsletter), local councils, major local businesses, business
> groups and/or chambers of commerce, local branches of political parties,
> local newspapers (with the hope that free/cheap advertisements could be run
> to publicise and invite participants). Local bulletin boards and websites
> could be used to advertise.  The local federal and state/territory member of
> parliaments would be invited to attend. An RSVP date would be stated in the
> invitation to help with numbers and venue planning, but it would be
> emphasised that people could simply turn up on the day/night.
> 
> The Shed a Tier Network Replacement Model Workshops for Secondary Schools
> would be conducted at individual schools that agree to participate following
> invitation.  They would be conducted at the school or at such location as
> seen fit by the school.  They would be conducted at government and
> non-government schools alike so as to ensure that all different types of
> school (public, Catholic, Anglican, other) are given the opportunity to
> participate.  Staff, parents and other citizens/friends associated with
> schools would be welcome to attend.
> 
> CONNECTION WITH OTHER SHED A TIER ACTIVITIES
> 
> Workshops could be conducted in conjunction with Shed a Tier Congresses.
> For example, Congresses including keynote speakers could be conducted in a
> morning session, leaving the afternoon for a workshop.  In this way, the
> educative, consultative and design arms of Shed a Tier Network activities
> can be combined in a single daily event.
> 
> HOW MANY WORKSHOPS DO WE CONDUCT? AND WHERE? AND WHEN?
> 
> We shall conduct as many Replacement Model Workshops as we can comfortably
> manage, at venues we can comfortably reach, given the time, transport and
> other resources we have to contribute individually and collectively.  If we
> conducted 20 at schools so as to be roughly in proportion to the number of
> children who attend various school types, this might involve say 12 to 15 or
> so public schools, 3 to 5 Catholic schools and 2 or 3 other schools.  This
> breakdown of schools could obviously vary, however, for example, to give
> higher participation rates to non-government schools owing to their
> numerically smaller numbers (I, Mark D, have a public school background but
> I recognise the importance of giving kids from all systems a fair say).
> Furthermore, if members of the Shed a Tier network would especially like to
> conduct a workshop at a particular school - for example their old school, or
> that at which their kids attend or whatever, that of course would be
> strongly encouraged.
> 
> We should certainly aim to conduct at least 20 Replacement Model Workshops
> for Secondary Schools plus an additional 20 Replacement Model Public
> Workshops.
> 
> Workshops shall be conducted in various location types, so as to include
> capital cities, larger and smaller cities outside the capitals, and small
> towns.
> 
> We should conduct workshops at least as follows:
> 
> ·       all 8 capital cities
> ·       4 other cities with populations of 40,000 or over
> ·       4 cities/towns with populations in the range from 10,000 to less
> than 40,000
> ·       4 towns with populations less than 10,000
> 
> Capital city workshops should be conducted at any convenient location,
> taking into account where facilitators live and can easily get to, and the
> desire to hold meetings at places of differing demographic profiles (not
> always in places like Sydney's North Shore for example).
> 
> School workshops should be conducted during school hours or at other times
> acceptable to the schools in the early months of 2002 or in any event on
> days that do not interfere with end of year exams and pressures.
> 
> DOCUMENTING WORKSHOPS
> 
> Each workshop should be recorded by video or audio tape and notes taken by
> the facilitator and participants.  The notes taken by workshop participants,
> and especially the final responses to the various questions, should be
> collected by the facilitator for use in preparing a brief summary of
> findings for each workshop.
> 
> The use of standardised exercises and questions will enable us to compare
> and collate responses across multiple workshops.  Each workshop should be
> recorded by video or audio tape.
> 
> Summaries of Findings for Workshops shall be placed on an appropriate
> website and shall be combined to form a hardcopy book/booklet.

Mark followed up with :

> I'm presently preparing a statement summarising two countrywide consultation
> programs that could prove extremely useful for us.  The first was a joint
> effort of the National Australia Day Council and the Australian Local
> Government Association (ALGA) referred to as "Australia Consults" and also
> as "The Big Conversation", involving some 126 community forums held on or
> around Australia Day 1997.  The second program, jointly organised by the
> Constitutional Centenary Foundation (CCF) and the ALGA again, involved
> around 50 Local Constitutional Conventions conducted in 1997 and 1998.
> 
> The records of these programs provides direct evidence of particular
> councils/localities/groups who strongly favour state abolition, two tier
> government, regional government, stronger local government etc.  My guess is
> that the participants in these events who favour change along the lines
> which we desire are probably sitting around right now thinking to themselves
> "so where do we go from here?".  So maybe we can tap in to some of this.  I
> thought we could approach those councils/localities which have expressed
> clear/strong support for regional government, 2 tier government etc. along
> the lines of:  "We understand that back in 97/98 a group in your town
> supported X,Y and Z.  We'd be interested in conducting a workshop dealing
> more specifically with your recommended move to a system of regional
> government (for example) ..."

10. Decentralisation and funding in Australia.

According to Mark :

>     ... our local governments are especially heavily relied upon to 
> address local needs and provide services which our state and Northern 
> Territory governments are simply too distant to provide.  Yet our local 
> governments are starved of powers to an extent unmatched in the 
> democratic world, accounting for only 6% of total government spending.

According to David

> There are three explanations here:
>  
> 1. We have it right, they have it wrong. Probably hard to prove or disprove.
>  
> 2.  Our local government functions are hopelessly inadequately funded.
> I find a factor of 3-4 hard to believe, though: it's not like there's
> garbage rotting in the potholed streets.
> 
> 3.  Our local governments have fewer responsibilities than theirs.  In
> which case the key question becomes: what aspects of government should
> be transferred to local government?  Whether that's a complete transfer
> of power as in the Drummond model or administrative resonsibility only
> as, I think, Elaine Thompson (sp?) is saying shouldn't matter.  Either
> way we should be able to answer the question before making the case for
> a change in resource allocation.

This is a trigger for issues of centralisation.

Point is, I guess, that if we spend money locally we must get it from
somewhere, and have less spending at a higher level of government.

Mark writes about centralisation, asserting that we need more 
decentralisation than New Zealand would :

> Just as we need and/or could only possibly benefit from a system 
> compatible with our economic realities (level of wealth, global 
> vulnerability, susceptibility to market failure etc.) - an affordable 
> system in other words - we can also clearly need and/or could only 
> possibly benefit from a political system compatible with our physical 
> and human geography and settlement patterns.
>  
> Centralisation needs to be assessed in terms of a country's size.  The 
> essence of legitimate decentralisation is its manner of bringing 
> services, accountability and a degree of political/democratic power to 
> levels close to the people.  In small country's like Singapore (and to a 
> lesser extent NZ) the need for political decentralisation is surely much 
> less than in the case of Australia, because in Singapore no person is 
> very far away from their political leaders etc.  It IS significant that 
> in Singapore everyone is within half an hour of their Prime Minister.  
> The internet and high tech comms generally can only do so much here!
>   
> Australia's population is over 5 times that of NZ, and our land area is 
> nearly 29 times that of NZ, so if, all else being equal, our political 
> system was as centralised as that of NZ, we'd in practice have a system 
> "many times" more centralised than that of NZ when our vastly larger 
> land area and population are taken into account.

David replies

> On those grounds it's hard to argue.  There are only two western
> democracies with land areas of the order of or larger than Australia's,
> and they're both federations.  But it's a small sample size, all three
> derive from multiple British colonies (which may say something about
> British colonisation patterns) and it's another issue as to whether
> federation is good for them. 

Mark :

> Federalism probably works as well in the USA as it does anywhere, along 
> with Switzerland where it also seems to work very well.  A really key 
> statistic is that in the USA, local government accounts for 25% of all 
> government spending, and in Canada, local government accounts for 18% of 
> all government spending.  For Australia the corresponding figure is a 
> paltry 6%!!!! (In Switzerland its 21%) 
  
Mark also commented on the decentralisation in a few different countries :

> France indeed is often regarded as the classical highly centralised
> unitary state.  Britain is hard to neatly classify, but is clearly in a
> dynamic stage in respect to sovereignty.  Many commentators consider
> that the recently established Parliaments/Assemblies of Scotland, Wales
> and Northern Ireland now give Britain at least a quasi-federal
> character.
> 
> Italy is regarded as a somewhat decentralised unitary state in which its 
> regions have considerable autonomy, though not as much as say Spain.  
> Spain is generally regarded as quasi-federal.
> 
> Autonomy is a word which is commonly used in the unitary country world 
> to describe forms of politico-constitutional decentralisation and 
> degrees of subnational sovereignty - the word "sovereignty" seems to 
> have somewhat British and legalistic biases to it ... maybe "autonomy" 
> is a better word for certain purposes?

11. Paths to State removal.

The Democrat's statement prompted some discussion of how we might in
fact remove the states.

AJ commented that it would be counterproductive to get bogged down in a
discussion of details, and we should move ahead in terms of what the
results we want, rather than the paths.

Eventually AJ and myself agreed that you can have "too much" discussion
about details.

AJ's suggestion is worth remembering :

> The key thing is not to think of the end goal as the constitutional reform,
> and waste time worrying about the technical efficacy or desirability of
> different paths, when the end goal is actually the social, economic and
> political reform which the constitutional reform is intended to achieve.
> That's really what needs to be better defined and communicated.

But, I think what was discussed was an entertaining diversion, and
did not dominate affairs. I can't see it hurting to be a little familiar
with these issues.

Max wrote :

>             Interesting how the democrats will alter the 
> constitution to abolish the state governments and local government. I 
> don't believe we can abolish the state governments through alterations 
> to the federal constitution, because this power is not there in the 
> constitution to do this. Local government can be abolished any time with 
> out any constitutional change. 

David wrote :

> IIUC modifying the constitution would allow powers to be transferred
> from the states to the commonwealth.  It would also allow the senate
> representation system to be reformed in such a way that states were no
> longer mentioned.  If we were to transfer all powers from the states to
> the commonwealth, delete all references to states in the senate
> electoral system, indeed delete all references to states in the
> constitution, how would that differ from abolition of the states?  I
> suppose in some technical sense the state would still exist but they'd
> find it hard to do any damage.

> I suggested once that the most natural vehicle for abolishing the states is
> to allow the commonwealth parliament to amend state constitutions. The idea
> here is to create a constitution that has all the state constitutions in as
> grandfather clauses.
>  
> It occurs to me now that this is kind of dangerous from a human rights
> and a checks and balances point of view.  Effectively we'd be creating a
> constitution which was 50% hard to change as now and 50% very easy to
> change.  Who knows what a future Senator Palpatine could do by changing
> the state constitution part?

Ahah ! I think this reflects the need for checks and balances ...

Simon wrote :

> I think that the states have sovereignty.  They own property and have
> jurisdiction as well as having powers.
> 
> All property and jurisdictions (as well as powers) would have to be
> transferred as well to effectively abolish the states.

Max :

> David,
> How do we go about modifing the consistitution so as to have the states 
> powers given to the national government ? I like the concept of yours as 
> it is simple, and I see it needs how it can work made clear. Do we have 
> a referedum that,'' All the powers, rights and property of the states be 
> given to the federal government" If this got a yes, I believe we have 
> abolished state government.

Simon :

> The states can voluntarily relinquish such rights under the conditions they
> see fit.  No referendum is required at either level.
>  
> I think this has happened with aviation.  The constitution gives no power to
> the commonwealth to makes laws about aviation, (in fact a referendum in the
> 40s to give the power to the commonwealth - amongst other things - failed).
> I think the states voluntarily relinquished the power (perhaps with some
> persuasion) some time after.
>  
> They can also relinquish property (all that land called "crown land" is
> actually "state" land) under such reimbursement as they see fit.

> I might have left out an important point.
> The constitutions do not get amended by such a transfer.
> It is a transfer by agreement so I suppose it would be documented only by
> passage of law at the State level.
> -	Surrender of legislative power s51(xxxvii) and (xxxviii) of
> Constitution.
> -	Surrender of territory s111 of Constitution.

> Realistically, I think it is more likely that it will come about by
> white-anting at the states powers through
> -	greater globalisation and meeting international obligations,
> -	High Court rulings tending to favour the commonwealth government,
> -	occasional commonwealth governments that gradually persuade the
> States to relinquish powers that are expensive to keep (eg health care,
> education, and occupational health and safety),
> together with a possible division of the states into smaller entities,
> culminating in a referendum to constitutionally document the reality of the
> situation at that time.
> In fact the GST (being dedicated to the states) has probably done more to
> slow the gradual centralist movement than any single event since federation,
> because in the past, the Commonwealth has held an effective bargaining point
> to say ("We now have effectively the sole power to tax so if you want any
> share of it this year, please hand over power to legislate on issue x" -
> perhaps not so blatantly)

Charles :

>   The power to amend, (or completely revise) the Constitution is in 
> Section 128.  The powers held by State Govt's are implicit in the 
> Constitution in that certain powers are given to the Federal Gov't; all 
> other powers remain with the States. 
> 
>   Obviously, an amendment to the Constitution that transferred all 
> remaining powers to the Federal Gov't is possible.  And without powers 
> the State Gov'ts would cease to exist.

12. Responsibilities, and uniformity of administration

Anthony David writes :

> It is not clear to me what powers that Local Government will have conferred
> upon them when the powers are transferred to the Commonwealth and Local
> Governments. One of the problems I have with the current Federal
> system is that for many people, in particular those in the bush, there is
> a sense of powerlessness when it comes to being on the receiving end
> of State AND Federal Government decisions. I feel that it is very important
> that specific powers be proscribed to Local Government and that some of
> it could even be a subset of the Federal powers.
> 
> I hope the following example will help my case.
> 
> It is important that people feel empowered by the abolition of the
> states, not isolated and powerless.  Decisions that directly affect a
> community should be made by the community.  You could have a Government
> where all power is conferred to a central executive, remote from a large
> portion of the population it purports to serve.
> 
> The above example, I think,  does not require legislative power on the
> part of the local government but it does require adminstrative
> responsibility.
> 
> Trading hours for example, could be a local legislative responsibility
> as it affects local businesses, their employees and local customers.
>  
> One counter-argument I come across when talk to people regarding the
> empowerment of Local Government is "But Councils are corrupt". It is
> imperative that Local Government reform be implementeed in tandem
> wth Constitutional reform in order to improve the accountability of
> all elected governments.

Here's Anthony's summary statement : 

"Australia should change its system of government, by abolishing the
state governments, to one in which political and financial powers and
other responsibilities presently held by the states and territories are
transferred to the Commonwealth and Local Government according to
the locality of influence of those powers. Local Government's role will
be strengthened. Those who are close to the people will administer
and implement laws and deliver government services with greater
financial support from the Commonwealth. The powers accorded to Local
Governments will be proscribed in the Constitution. Accountability
requirements of both levels of Government will also be proscribed to
ensure the actions of the governments meet with the wishes and needs
of those whom they serve."

David asked :

> Can you give us some examples of things presently done by state or national
> government (perhaps through functional regions) that should be done by local
> governments?

Anthony replied :

"Trading hours regulation was in my email.

Hospital, Schools and Policing should be locally administered within a
national framework to ensure these intitutions are tailored to meet
the communities' needs."

David :

> I'm still not sure what this means.  When you say police should be
> administered by local government I have visions of the mayor telling
> police whether or not they should bother to prosecute her daughter for
> drunk-driving, or how many police should be allocated to her
> neighbourhood and how many elsewhere.  There are some jobs in government
> that should be controlled by people they _don't_ affect.  In the case of
> schools I presume you mean that the local government would decide how
> much money went to each school in their district, ditto for hospitals.
> Trading hours regulations hook directly to working hours in awards, do
> we want to give local governments influence on that?

Anthony said this last point was why he brought up "accountability" - 
democratic scruitiny was intended to curb this sort of excess.
 
> Maybe I'm just confused about what "administer" means.
> 
> One reason I'm confortable with the minimalist version of state
> abolition ("abolish all the state governments, transfer all their powers
> to the commonwealth, and let the national government delegate to local
> governments the same way it does now.") is that I understand everything
> in it.  The "um, but, hang on, I didn't understand that bit" factor is
> just about zero, and you can write it unambiguously on a business card.
> These other ideas are going to need a heap of work before we can get
> them to a similar stage.  Not that I'm saying that work isn't
> worthwhile.

Anthony :

"In Marketing there is a saying "Don't confuse sales with
implementation" and on the point of keeping things simple, I agree.
However, when I see the above Federal-centric statement I get Orwellian
nightmares."

As a general "on the ground" encapsulation, Max made the following
statement :

> The total revenue of the Berrigan Shire 2000/2001             
> $15,225,540
>       total expenses                                                     
>     $16,613,640
>       deficit for year                                                   
>        $ 1,388,100
>       surplus brought forward                                            
>   $ 1,394,170
>       surplus carried forward                                            
>    $       6,070
> 
>       Shire road expense total  $5,051,760, This amount is spent on new 
> roads, repairs to the roads, footpaths, guttering, street lighting, 
> signs, drainage, and all things relating to roads and we are not keeping 
> up with the deprecation of this infrastructure.
>       Library expense total $227,370, and we could use more books and 
> computers.
>       Fire control expenses $252,450 and we need better fire trucks.
> 
> Local government does not have the money they need, and any extra funds 
> could be spent on community services, such as community transport, where 
> the council supplies transport for aged people to travel to medical 
> appointments in other towns as we have no public transport.
> 
> Things that are presently done by the state and commonwealth that should 
> be done by local government? I know of none, and four council CEOs I 
> would keep out of the thing we have to do now it would be a lot better, 
> as in local planing. [this paragraph is confusing to me - JA ]
> 
> Trading hours for example, use to be controlled by the NSW government 
> but there are no longer any restrictions, but council does have control 
> over extended hours of hotels. 
> 
> The educations regions across NSW already have a deal of autonomy to 
> implement the curriculum as more suits an area.
> 
> The police region that Berrigan is in covers one sixth of NSW so local 
> government has no say in the administration, and I see nothing wrong 
> with this system.
> 
> But councils are corrupt. Corrupt people can occur in any level of 
> government, and there are already laws in place for this, and the way to 
> make elected governments accountable is the have the people make use of 
> their vote.
> 
> At the moment the NSW government is trying to decide on making Sydney 
> into one region or three regions or five regions for planing.

For me, the most interesting part of Max's summary was the idea that
"people using their vote make elected governments accountable". That's
an important part of what we're about.

My own take on these issues appears below :                                           
> The two major models are based on different views of the States. One view
> is that they are an abomination, the other that they are merely redundant.
> If they are an abomination, then they should be removed, so we have one
> national government and many local councils. If they are redundant, it
> may make sense to have two tiers, with the lower tier being regions with
> some state-like powers.
> 
> Upon reflection, the only power which I can think of which is naturally
> local is zoning and development applications. Having "close to the 
> people" government is a nebulous thing which we have not really defined
> yet.
> 
> Having a local government provides democratic scruitiny of some services.
> So does a national government. If the national government is readily
> approachable in case of problems, then why do services naturally need
> "local" democratic scruitiny ? They need accessible democratic input
> and scruitiny, accessible locally but not necessarily based around 
> local councils.
> 
> "close to the people government" seems to me to indicate accessible in
> case of problem, open if you want to scruitinise it. This is an 
> operational definition - what you want out of it. It does not have to
> mean local democratic units like councils.
> 
> Regions have wanted to cleave themselves off and form a new state. 
> States have wanted to cleave themselves off to form a new nation. Why ?
> Presumably they felt decisions were being made at a distance, and imposed
> from a distance.
> 
> But didn't these regions have democratic representation at parliament ?
> The question then becomes why in spite of democratic representation,
> regions nevertheless felt cut off. I suspect party politics quenching
> regional issues had something to do with it, but there's probably a 
> lot more to it.
> 
> I feel democracy should _in principle_ be able to provide regional
> input, and be accessible to the regions.  Its a matter of setting it up
> appropriately.
> 
> When there was no ACT government, the only way of raising the issue of
> garbage was at question time for the Federal parliament. Clearly, this
> is not what you want.
> 
> For instance, we could have a situation where houses of "ombudsmen" are
> elected, with carrying out scruitiny their main task - not approving
> or developing legislation, and having several ombudmen per electoral
> district, so you wouldn't get party dominance.
> 
> Or, you could have elections for heads of regional departments.
> 
> I'm willing to take Max's word on this that he could do with more funds
> to better deliver services. The problem is that while funds would have
> to be taken from elsewhere, or taxes increased.
> 
> A given service could always be provided better.  The issue is where
> funds should be directed for the most benefit.  It could well be into
> local government based services Max mentions, but this is not obvious.
> 
> There's a sense in which a given service should be done "properly" -
> there's a minimum standard.  To the degree that the services are not at
> this minimum, we have a real problem.  Not keeping up with depreciation
> indicates to me a "real problem" of this type, and a priority for
> expenditure.
> 
> However, it prompts me to look at it all more broadly.  Rather than
> saying the Shire needs more discretionary money, we could say that there
> ought to be State or National road, information and fire control
> policies.  Additional funds could be directed to the councils under the
> umbrella of these schemes.
> 
> Alternatively, there could be regional government bodies, arms of the
> national government, who provide local roads, information and fire
> control.

13. A collection of posts

These posts did not really fit into categories, but they seemed worth
including.

Mark : "Support for important common ground as expressed by
AJ and John A"

> I think it helps the cohesiveness and focus of our cause to constantly keep
> in mind that the distinction between means and ends extends even further
> than the "end" system/model of government we work towards.  Ultimate ends
> should always be kept at the forefront of attention, and, ultimately, a
> system of government ought to be assessed in terms of (1) "good government"
> criteria and (2) "system" (or "system integrity") criteria.
> 
> Good government criteria could be assessed in terms of the "goodness" of the
> public outcomes through :
> 
> A.  economic, social and environmental integrity and sustainability (with
> the economic elements here more appropriately viewed as "means" and the
> social elements definitely as "ends" - I'd see the environmental elements as
> both means to social outcomes and ends in themselves)
> 
> B.  social justice, social cohesion, justice, democracy and equity
> 
> C.  specific functional outcomes in education, health, safety (generally)
> and Occupational Health and Safety (more specifically) etc. etc.
> 
> The "system" or "system integrity" criteria should include the
> accountability mechanisms that initiate and maintain the integrity of the
> system.  A system of government can be viewed as a
> feedback control system, the integrity/quality of which depends upon timely
> and high quality feedback/responses.
> A well designed constitution can serve
> to provide
> (1) sound initial conditions, (2) the right balance of stability and
> modifiability, and the design framework necessary to achieve (3) the right
> political and fiscal balance of powers, responsibilities and rights
> (including in respect of tax raising powers/duties and equitable revenue
> entitlements) as between levels of autonomy/sovereignty extending from
> individual citizens (human rights) through to local and ultimately national
> government, and (4) good government outcomes in functional areas like
> education, health etc. (for example through the explicit mention of
> function-appropriate healthcare regions etc.).
> 
> Because our nine sovereign
> governments serve constituencies which are so huge in land area and
> generally very large in population (NSW's population nearly equating to that
> of Switzerland for example), and are hence very far from being "close to the
> people" in any real sense, we presently have a
> big "political distance" between our nine sovereign governments and the
> people at large.  This critically diminishes our present system's capacity
> to be responsive to feedback
> on perceived needs, opportunities and threats - including those relating to
> matters of life and death gravity such as safety, poverty, child abuse,
> medical care etc. Most feedback received by our "nine big governments" is
> collected through the broad brush of elections and/or at levels too large in
> land area and population to properly address the diversity of special and
> very real needs, threats and opportunities experienced and expressed in
> "closer to people" regions/localities/communities WITHIN state/territory
> boundaries and across diverse functional areas. 
> 
> These feedback/responsiveness failings critically diminish the
> accountability of our so-called "democratic" and governmental institutions.
> 
> Whereas we clearly need to emphasise excellent system design processes in
> our design, consultation, education and advocacy endeavours, our cause must
> also maintain focus on the substantive social, economic, environmental and
> political/democratic outcomes/ends which an excellent system of government
> will de designed to deliver.

Mark's point about "elections" being a too broad brush a feedback mechanism
strike a chord. Issues at an election become one or two large scale things,
people are unable to vote on how "system responsive" a government has been;
hence you get a large number of minor issue parties.

Being more cynical, parities at election time are more keen to persuade the
public of their ability, rather than encouraging them to "look into it and
make the judgement themselves". Hence, the feedback is not based on 
responsiveness, but rather on the different parties' persuasive ability.

AJ, on the Senate, and other issues :

> Senate/states
> 
> A focus on abolishing the senate, as a natural effect of abolishing the
> states, could be revisiting a rather unproductive history. 
> 
> The ALP ditched its 'abolish the states' federal platform progressively
> from 1961 to 1967, and ditched its 'abolish the senate' plank in 1979.
> All for good historical reasons.  Brian Galligan's 'A Federal Republic'
> (1995) has a good chapter on this even if many of Brian's views
> sometimes stick in some people's craw.
> 
> The right tactic is to work out the purposes
> served by a national upper house and figure out how to get there.  There
> are many valid reasons why many parliamentary democracies 
> have retained houses of review.  Here in Qld we are the only
> place in Australia to have delivered (in 1922) on the ALP policy of
> abolishing upper houses.  But the second part of old ALP policy, replacing
> the upper house with an alternative check - referendum - was never
> implemented.  The totalitarian qualities of Qld politics under all parties
> until (arguably) 1998 cannot be entirely divorced from the 1922 result.
> 
> Under whatever alternative system, there is also natural attractiveness in
> having a second house continue to represent minorities unrepresented
> elsewhere (as far as I'm concerned, thank God for Tasmania's and WA's
> incredibly miniscule quotas in helping deliver some wildcards, e.g. Greens
> and even Harradine); and a house providing the geographic/regional
> representation the senate was supposed to, but has never done.  Boil these
> things down and there is probably still a role for a bicameral process.     
> 
> Sovereignty
> 
> Whatever our subnational structure, how do we realistically protect it from
> abuse/attack/erosion of its position by central government?  Despite our
> 100 years' experience as a federation, we have a 200 year experience of
> incredibly centralised governmental systems generally.
> I believe a strong constitutional system is needed
> if our subnational units (local/regional/more states)
> are able to deliver solutions to their people which they know are
> right, with the central government sticking a spanner in the works.
 
> I do not believe that "realistically [the central government] would have
> to delegate...".  All due respect to our Canberra chaps, but history
> suggests that central governments will delegate when it suits, and
> centralise when it suits.  This behaviour is a core source of many of
> our most intransigent problems.

> While divided sovereignty in a constitution may therefore be a bit of an
> unhelpful concept, it may leave us with some ideas about how we can
> protect different roles for different spheres of government.

> Prospects for reform
> 
> To abolish the states lawfully (i.e. under the constitution) would require
> even more than Brian warns - a majority of the people in a majority of
> states - it would require a majority of people in EVERY state.  Further,
> the constitutions of individual states predated the federation, and could
> be entrenched by their parliaments - so that should the federation be voted
> out of existence by simple majorities, even higher majorities were required
> to abolish the states per se... the federation would be killed off, but six
> independent states would revert! Alternatively elements of British
> sovereignty might also revive, if we are not yet a republic by that time.
> 
> Basically, you cannot unscramble an omelette unless you're prepared to eat
> something even less digestible.  You have to swallow it and get to the next
> meal (legally speaking).  All the more reason to think laterally, figure
> out objectives from first principles, and not exclude possibilities until
> absolutely certain... all while maintaining direction!  If it takes itself
> seriously then ASC-discuss has a genuinely noble task.

Jim Snow :
  
> If we support unitary government we ought to beware of further eroding
> democratic rights and civic responsibilities (or civic virtue which comes
> from having responsible electors who feel their influence). I favour unitary
> government of a type I've called 'shared government' with local government
> areas (of whatever type - collective council areas councils or 'regions')
> directly represented in the Senate, the way the states are supposed to now.
> The Senate would have an equal say with the House of Reps when issues,
> including budget allocations need to be made, with more use made of joint
> parliamentary sittings to resolve issues and differences. I could see some
> diminishing powers of the major parties. Even as a party person I can tell
> people would not mind that.  

Next, from Ross Garrad, "A decentralist view of abolishing state
governments" :

> In this context it’s vital that any proposed constitutional changes promote
> the building of new institutions from the “bottom up” rather than “top down”
> . The Democrats policy, while being a welcome contribution to the debate,
> looks like a top-down, centralist approach.
> 
> Simon Bastin raises a vital point:
> "I'm for the creation of regions to be recognised in the constitution, but
> not as sovereign entities - rather in the same way as the states currently
> give certain powers to local government."
> 
> What are sovereign entities? Where does their sovereignty, and their
> democratic legitimacy, come from? In the case of the Commonwealth,
> supposedly from a vote by the people, just over a century ago. Those who
> know their history will realise that this is stretching the truth almost to
> breaking point. The States derive their sovereignty from the British Crown,
> and local governments in turn are creatures of the States.

I'm not sure many people would claim we have sovereignty as the result of
a vote of the people, but I'm willing to be corrected.
> 
> I think the new Australia should contain two types of sovereign entity (or
> rather, one sovereign and one semi-sovereign):
> 1) the Commonwealth, operating under a Constitution unambiguously approved
> by the people, and
> 2) local governments, probably looking pretty similar in many cases to what
> we have now, but constructed by their people under a citizen-initiative
> process outlined in the Constitution.
 
> The regional entities would be jointly owned by the Commonwealth and the
> constituent local governments, would have a Council consisting of
> Commonwealth MPs and local government representatives, and would be
> responsible for the delivery of many, perhaps most government services
> in a unified system.
> 
> The title of these “mezzanine” entities – which to my mind are the key
> to a sensible and achievable system – “region” is not good enough.
> “Territory” is better, but to most people a Territory is a Claytons
> State with its own elected politicians, which most of us want to avoid.
> I prefer “Province”, which has some historical resonance with earlier
> efforts to build a unified system.  Here in the Deep North we often talk
> of our “provincial cities” so it’s a logical term to use.
> 
> In looking at how change could be achieved, we shouldn’t put any faith
> in a referendum to explicitly abolish the States.  It may be on shaky
> ground legally, and the big question is whether it could ever be
> carried.  A more Constitution certainly could be altered to deprive the
> states of their powers, and of course their money.  Personally, I like
> the idea of retaining State Governors as democratically-elected remnants
> of the States, with some powers of oversight over local governments and
> provincial administrations, and with a potential role in sending
> divisive issues to the people for a democratic decision.  But with no
> actual “governing” role.  A Super-Ombudsman, perhaps?

Mark : "I agree re Ross' decentralist view PLUS comparative figures" :

> I'd be somewhat confident that the Democrats