The ‘sphere and the media have been discussing issues of federalism and centralism, so I thought I’d weigh in on the debate.

It was all triggered by Howard’s comment that Australia didn’t need the states. Noteworthy contributions on the discussion come from John Quiggin and Troppo Armadillo.

I’ve stated before with regards to both Universities and Industrial Relations, I’m a centralist and believe (albeit reluctantly) that the federal government should have control over both of these issues. This is based on my belief that I prefer a two-tier system with a Central government and Local governments, with constitutionally enshrined rights (currently, they are simply a product of state legislation) and redistribution the separation of powers outlined in section 51 of the Constitution so that Local governments had constitutionally designated responsibilities and roles. It would also mean a reconstruction of out parliament and voting systems to ensure checks and balances so that minority and regional interests are represented.

John Quiggin is quite critical of what he terms ‘regional government’ which is what Howard is arguing for. It seems hard to criticise a bloke like John (all round nice guy and clearly very bright). I don’t necessarily want to do that but it seems to be that John is critical of a very specific form of ‘regional government’ I’d like to have a more detailed response from him. Firstly, I’d suggest that 20 regional councils are a bad idea, but 50 to 100 perhaps, or ever 200 to 300 aren’t and may go some way towards overcoming these problems (currently there are over 600 Local governments in Australia).

Secondly, he makes no mention of the parliamentary and constitutional changes. While John is concerned about an uneven distribution of power to the metropolitan regions, I’d suggest that this is an excellent opportunity to address some power imbalances.

In a system such as this with a regionally focussed distribution of power and resources there are always going to be arguments about how democratic they are. Should a small regional government have as much power and resources as the large urban ones? What about equity of access and universal service provision? Should the number of votes allocated to a regional government be equal so as to have regional equity or should it be weighted according to population so there is equity in numbers? I’d lean towards the regional equity.

With anything like this, checks and balances need to rectify power imbalances and this should be a founding principle of these sorts of distributions. Hence regional equity which is somewhat enshrined in our current constitution. In my mind this is more democratic is about more than voting, it’s also about access to power and the ability to influence.

In addition, I’d argue that this sort of decentralised model would improve service delivery as the councils would be small enough to be locally adjusted which would place communities in greater control of their own destinies – something I never seem to shut up about. State governments are simply too big to do this at the moment.

Finally, I’d like to mention the role of time and history. The Senate was set up as the ‘State’s House’ where state governments were given a voice and the opportunity to block legislation. Today, the states are completely irrelevant in the Senate but it continues to provide a valuable check and balance (up until July 1 when it becomes a rubber stamp). Over time its role has changed. The development of any new system will be problematic to some extent and its end result will only ever be known after time and this role will continue to evolve. This needs to be taken into account in these discussions.