A continuing confusion? A comment on the appropriate dispersal of policy powers in the Australian federation

Abstract

Dissatisfaction with Australia's federalist constitutional and administrative arrangements seems universal. The Labor Party has historically preferred a centralist thrust to the Australian federal compact. From the opposite, decentralist tack the Liberal-National Coalition parties currently propose that the Commonwealth should hive-off policy functions to the States. These attitudes are expressed in an intellectual climate that disparages the allocative efficiency of Australian federalism and debates these issues in terms of shifting power to or from the Commonwealth. A more sensible focus is on the usage that the citizenry has made of the federal system in obtaining satisfactory service delivery. Using this approach our federal system works efficiently (in a limited politicaladministrative sense. This is not an argument that Australia's federal system is good because it maximises fiscal efficiency or guarantees equity. It does not do the former'and varies in its attainment of the latter. The federal system is good because it maximises opportunities and avenues for citizens to obtain what they want from government. In that sense the Coalition parties are fundamentally confused both about their philosophy and that philosophy's relationship to the political nature of Australian federalism. Labor's slowly-ebbing centralism equally ignores the political usage that citizens have made of the administrative and funding arenas provided by our federal system.

Rediscovering Australian federalism by resurrecting old ideas

“…For the most part, the Commonwealth has not been analysed in its capacity as a local service provider (but note Gerritsen 1990). Partly this is attributed to popular perceptions of the federal system in which the authority of the Commonwealth Government is emphasised at the expense of the States.…”

“…Parliamentary representation relates to majoritarian aspects of the system (Lijphart 1984) whereas federal institutions embody the organising principle for political processes reflecting territorial preferences (see Frenkel 1986, 107; also Dahl and Tufte 1973). Most of the literature on Australian government deals with the majoritarian aspects of the system rather than the dynamics of federal institutions (but note Galligan 1989;Galligan and Uhr 1990;Gerritsen 1990;Holmes and Sharman 1977;Painter 1988;Sharman 1990). Also, it is common for hierarchical levels of government to be emphasised at the expense of federal processes and from a federal perspective; this leaves a rich political landscape of government organisation virtually untouched (but see Galligan and Walsh 1990).…”

Multiscalar Governance and Regional Environmental Management in Australia

“…Classical readings of environmental policy, for example, focus on levels of decision-making (for example, Kellow, 1996;Gerritsen, 1990). 'Levels' here refers to formal governmental hierarchies.…”

The Malaise of Federalism: Comparative Reflections on Commonwealth–State Relations

“…Citizens are naturally more interested in getting what they want from government than in which government they get it from. It is important to recognise ‘the highly utilitarian usage the citizenry have made of the different loci of power provided by a federal system’ (Gerritsen 1990:229). While Riker put these propositions in rather extreme form, the point is essentially a Rikerian one: citizens are not fundamentally interested in federalism (Riker 1969) and have turned to the national government because their state governments have ‘performed poorly’ (Riker 1975).…”