There's a separate report by Mark on the Corowa conference in the 
"Corowa" section.

First, me, in Europe.

> Europe was lots of fun.

> While in Paris, along with taking photos of the statues of naked women
> in the museums (Ahem !), I managed to get a photo of some promotion by
> South Australia of itself in Paris.  I've packed down the photo to stay
> within the 40k limit ...

> Anyway, I was aghast at this sort of promotion.  I'd feel the same way
> if it were NSW.  Is it appropriate for the different states to promote
> themselves this way ?

> In New Zealand, go to any tourist office and you'll find a stack of
> leaflets about that region ...  and stuff from far away, too.  We do not
> have anything like that in Australia.  The NSW / Victoria divide comes
> to mind.

> In London, I went to a pub and noted that there were Californian,
> French, Australian and Hungarian wines listed as options, one each.
> Sure, we have a lot of different wine making regions, but the reality is
> this is the way things are categorised overseas.  You're being quite
> stupid to promote a sub-national Australian identity overseas.  It
> really makes no sense to me.

And now, Max, who went to see the talk hosted in Brisbane :

> I had a very interesting trip to Brisbane to hear Geoffrey Blainey and
> Cheryl Saunders talk "Why every region of Australia should be its own
> state'.

> Geoffrey spoke mainly on Queensland cutting of the northern part and it
> becoming an other state.This then raised some interesting ramifications
> - is it one new state and one old state or is it two new states ...  and
> what about the allocation of senators ?

> Cheryl spoke on a new system of government, without state government, or
> with regional government.  Cheryl remarked the we will not do away with
> local government nor should we.  Cheryl then put a lot of questions that
> anyone with any new system of government has to answer or they are
> doomed to failure.

> I hope AJ can get a copy of these question for all to see.  It was well
> worth the trip even if my mother's car and a kangaroo had an altercation
> on the way home, and has done $2000 damage.

Mark, attending the Interface congress in Sydney :

> Thanks for the kind responses to my speech at Interface which took place
> on Saturday 20 April.  It seemed to go really well.  Couldn't have gone
> much better really.

> Ted Mack was very much on side.  He advocated 15 to 20 regional states
> but with powers not too different to the beefed up local government I
> recommended.  He was very strong in recommending a stronger national
> government in response to globalisation - an apparently increasingly
> called for development.  He suggested a get together so I'll have to get
> on to that very soon.  Ted could see that despite the apparently huge
> disparity between a model of 700 or so local governments and one of 20
> or so regional governments, in essence/substance we weren't really that
> far apart at all.

> Besides Ted Mack and I the other two who spoke to the question that I
> had ('The Buck Stops Where?  Which Level of government Should do What
> and Why?') were Ann Symonds (former ALP MLC in NSW Parliament), a very
> warm caring lady, and Judy Greenwood, a Greens councillor on Randwick
> council.

> Judy gave a case study on local v federal government squabbling in a
> case between her council and the Defence department over management of a
> Randwick wetlands area - apparently the last of its kind in the area.
> Not so much a direct addressing of the question, but it complemented
> what we other three spoke of well I felt.

> Ann spoke largely of her lament with contemporary politics and public
> policy and in particular the over-zealous privatisation of everything.
> She was extremely favourable to my speech (the order of speakers was Ted
> Mack, then me, then Ann then Judy - Ted had to go early as the
> enthusiasm for moving beyond the states as expressed around the Whitlam
> era.  She strongly encouraged that we keep at what we're doing towards a
> better system, so that was really good.  Ann was clearly a very caring,
> warm lovely lady.  Judy also very much favoured the national-local
> approach.

> The audience were mainly uni students but several others also.  Their
> response to the thoughts I proposed were generally favourable, even
> enthusiastic.  I had multiple copies of my speech to hand out with many
> to spare and people came up and grabbed copies afterwards, so there was
> clearly interest in it.

> Another beauty of local government (that occurred to me following
> discussions at sessions other than that at which I spoke) is the
> somewhat seamless transition towards Aboriginal self-determination to an
> apt extent that can be facilitated by having aboriginal community
> councils regarded as local governments - something already happening
> through their membership of the Australian Local Government Association
> (please note the Australian Local Government Association website at
> http://www.alga.com.au/about_alga2.htm says: Australia has about 750
> Local Government Councils accountable to diverse metropolitan, regional,
> rural, and indigenous communities).

> It seems increasingly as though people are comfortable with the idea of
> a large number of local governments rather than just 30 or so regional
> governments (an earlier preference of mine).  A recent email from AJ
> Brown prompted me to have a close look at the US local government
> situation as a way of putting into perspective our 750 or so local
> governments (including Aboriginal community councils as above.

> America conducts a Census of governments every 5 years, with one due
> this year (2002).

> The most recently reported 1997 figures show that the US had 87,453
> local governments in total.  That is, an average of 1750 or so for each
> US state.

> The report as follows is helpful here:
> http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/sec09.pdf

> See especially Tables 490 through 492.

> Illinois has 6835 local government units.  Pennsylvania has 5070.  Texas
> 1700 and California 4607.  Lowermost is the summary list.

> For an Australian perspective I've not been able to locate a full
> listing of all Australian councils with land areas and populations
> (though could probably track something down from the ABS on this), but
> for NSW councils, the NSW Dept of Local Government webpage at
> http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/documents/comparatives/com00ax3.pdf
> provides excellent data.  Local government areas more than 10,000 square
> kilometres (i.e.  about 100 km by 100 km, and hour and a bit's drive by
> an hour and a bit's drive - if the roads go in favourable directions) in
> land area and of population around the5000 mark or less are quite common
> (see especially the Group 9 and 10 councils/shires).

> Again hope this shows that our 750 or so local governments is hardly an
> excessive number given our immense land area.