There was some discussion of the notions of accessibility of government.
Charles is a believer that government as it presently exists is too 
indirect, too representative and not participatory enough. In fact, I
suspect his view leans towards the idea that the present representation
system means that elected politicians can wield excessive power without
real accountability.

Charles' views derive from this. In the following discussion, Charles
is marked as >, David as >>

> One.  We should have only ONE (not ten) parliaments making LAWS for this
> nation of 20 million people.

>> This makes the distinction between a law on the one hand and a local or
>> regional government regulation on the other?  Is this more than a
>> technical point?

> Yes.  Assume that a central Gov't passes a LAW on, say, land use.
> Although the general regulations needed to facilitate the implementation
> of that law would be universal, I can foresee a need for differing
> regulations in different parts of the country.

> Two.  The PEOPLE must be empowered in a way that restores their right to
> say how they will be governed.

>> You're arguing that at present they can't?  Because referenda are too
>> hard to pass?

> No.  I argue that, because the PEOPLE cannot INITIATE referenda, we are
> in the hands of the politicians when it comes to, say, changing the way
> we are governed by reducing the power of politicians and enhancing that
> of citizens or, say, becoming a republic with an elected Head of State.

> Three.  Administration of the laws and the delivery of government
> services must be done by organisations CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE.

>> I'm not sure I know what this means.  Do you mean that they need to be
>> provided by small bodies?  If so, how small is small?  Decentralisation
>> taken to its logical extreme becomes anarchy.  If you have a principle
>> supporting making government bodies smaller, but don't believe in
>> anarchy, then you must believe in some other principle driving larger
>> government bodies.  How does this tie in ?

> What I mean is that, although it is fine for one law making body, it is
> not fine for a citizen to have to deal with a remote, monolithic
> bureaucracy.  "Reasonable access" to the people administering the system
> is a must.  This is not only for the "feel good" of the citizen but also
> for feed-back to the central bureaucracy.  Obviously, "reasonable access"
> is going to be different for someone living 400 miles west of Alice
> Springs and someone living in Sydney.

>> You're saying that you need to talk directly to the people administering
>> the system, not just by phone or e-mail or whatever is going to be the
>> preferred remote method in the future.  I guess I can sympathise with
>> that, but:

>> I'm not sure if it's something that should be discussed in the context
>> of constitutional reform, maybe it should be left to the policies held
>> by a candidate from time to time and let the people decide whether to
>> elect.

>> It seems a principle that will get weaker with time, as communications
>> get better.  I guess part of your reasoning is that people should be
>> able to go up in person so they can shout and make noise and thus evade
>> being ignored?

> Four.  The division of powers between levels of government on the basis
> of subject matter alone (as in our current Constitution), is no longer
> feasible.

> Currently, our Constitution allocates power to the federal gov't by
> subject matter - defence, customs, immigration, etc.  All else is the
> province of State Gov'ts.  This means that State Gov'ts are responsible
> for the subject matter, say, education.  Principle Four is designed to
> recognise that it is not appropriate to allocate responsibility for,say,
> education, to one level of gov't.  "Policy" on education is obviously
> the responsibility of a central gov't so that we have a common system
> across the country but implementation could well be different in
> different parts and, say, a regional gov't should have the power to vary
> the implementation.  Hence the need to allocate responsibilities to
> various levels of gov't, not simply by subject matter.

>> The alternate approach is to make the lower level government a creature
>> of the national level, (or vice versa as in the United Nations, not that
>> I'm recommending that).  Thus avoiding demarcation disputes about what
>> is policy and what implementation.

## Distance of Government 

Does government seems distant ? Do the bureaucrats in Canberra become
distant ? What does government seem like to different people in Australia ?

Max writes :

> A large number of people who live in Sydney feel alienated from
> government in NSW, and if you visit my area you will find the people
> would never vote to have a region centred on Wagga or Albury, they may
> as well stay with what they now have.  My reasoning behind have just a
> national government centred in Canberra is that then although the
> largest proportion of pollies will come from ex capital cities they will
> have to compete against each other and as individual cities they will be
> out numbered by the regional and rural sector.

Charles writes :

> Under the regional gov't model, 'close neighbourhood' would be defined
> as being 'within 5000 voters'.  The model I have in mind is that
> regional MPs would be elected from an electorate of approx 5000 voters.
> Obviously, in an urban area this would be within a few streets.  In
> country areas it could be quite some distance away but would still be
> much better than the current situation in which your local Fed MP is one
> of 80,000 voters!


> People everywhere in Australia are unhappy about government, at all
> levels.  That is why we are struggling to redesign the system to provide
> 'close to the people' delivery of services and intimate representation
> to achieve greater accountability.  In Brisbane (pop 1m approx) people
> are saying the local gov't Council is too remote.  The creation of two
> or three regional govt's would be welcomed by many.  I only lived in
> Sydney for 5 years so I would welcome some research on that but my
> impression is that Sydneysiders think the State Gov't is too remote and
> local gov't ineffectual and corrupt.  I only lived in Townsville for two
> years but I can assure you the people there regard the State Gov't as
> another 'down south' organisation that collects taxes but spends most of
> it in and around the Capital City.  The politicians in Brisbane complain
> that Canberra is too far away and out of touch.  They don't seem to
> realise that Cairns is much further from Brisbane than Brisbane is from
> Canberra!


> Bureaucrats who have lived all their life in Canberra (and we are
> now on to third generation Canberrans in the PS in large numbers)

David writes :

> I was under the impression that the people of Canberra were the most
> transient in Australia.  I think of my friends in Canberra and maybe
> 15-20% grew up in Canberra.  I can imagine it's changed a bit since, and
> I guess my friends were more globalised than most, but then so are
> senior bureaucrats.  And I doubt it makes any real difference whence
> came an ASO3, since they make no policy.