The Ghost of Reforms Past
Are Premier Berejiklian’s federal reform ambitions doomed to go nowhere?
by Jacob Deem
On May 2, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian delivered an address to the National Press Club in Sydney, the first time such an address had been held outside Canberra in 75 years. In the context of Australia’s increasingly centralised federal system, this alone was an interesting and significant move for Australian politics.
However Ms Berejiklian built on the importance of the occasion, and launched a spirited critique of what she described as Australia federalism’s ‘archaic structural arrangements’. It is a critique I welcome, as it will hopefully inject life into the federal debate. There some concerning aspects to the Premier’s approach, though. While she argued that the current federal-state relations ‘thrive on mediocrity’, her proffered solutions did little to indicate that we have learned the lessons of the past.
The Premier is certainly not wrong to point out that Australian federalism is in dire need of reform — as State and local governments become increasingly reliant on Commonwealth funding, and key policy areas such as education, health and transport fall further into the realm of central responsibility, we do need to seriously consider if our system can handle the pressures of these trends. Although it was ultimately put on hold, the recent (2014–2016) White Paper on the Reform of Australia’s Federation shows that this is an issue on the radar of all levels of government, not just the States.
In fact, there were more parallels between the Premier’s speech and the White Paper process than simply recognising that our federal system is not working well. Specifically, Ms Berejiklian called for a system of ‘earned autonomy’, where states would have more freedom to innovate and experiment with policy. It’s a call that echoes then Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s desire to make the States ‘sovereign in their own sphere’ with the launch of the White Paper. Further, both the First Issues Paper and the Premier’s address highlighted the need to end duplication and inefficiencies within the system.
Given the parallels between the White Paper’s preference for a ‘clean lines’ approach to federalism, and Ms Berejiklian’s claim that ‘cooperative federalism has run its course’, it is worth considering the difficulties previous reform attempts faced (and arguably, why the White Paper failed to take off). While Australia’s federal system as a whole has become more centralised, the exact degree of centralisation has been inconsistent between (and even within) policy portfolios. This has resulted in a veritable ‘dog’s breakfast of responsibilities’, where it is increasingly unclear who is responsible and, when things fail, who is to blame.
However, it became apparent to the White Paper Taskforce that unravelling these shared and overlapping roles would be a Herculean job. There was a sense in the final days of the process that it was too difficult a task, even by the standards of the difficult nature of federal reform. Nor was it necessarily desirable. Despite the current system’s susceptibility to inefficiency and blame games, participants of community consultation Round Tables voiced their appreciation for the inter-governmental networks that comes with a cooperative federal model, and some in the non-government sector preferred the ability to ‘play governments off against each other’.
The Premier’s desire for ‘fewer points of contact’ between federal and State governments may therefore be wishful thinking. But does that mean her ideas are not worth pursuing? No, of course not.
While the nuances and complexities of coordinate or cooperative models of federalism can be debated all day, there is plenty of room to clarify the respective roles and responsibilities of State and federal governments without moving to a complete ‘clean lines’ extreme. We just need to be realistic in our ambitions.
The second, and more controversial, aspect to the Premier’s ‘honest conversation about what works in our federation and what doesn’t’ was her criticism of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) process, and the ability of smaller jurisdictions to block reform. Ms Berejiklian was critical of the Australian Capital Territory’s ability to hold COAG hostage ‘to a lowest common denominator approach that privileges the parochial interests of small populations more than it should’.
The Premier saw an injustice in the fact that Canberra and New South Wales have an equal voice at COAG, despite the former’s population of around 400,000 being almost 20 times smaller than New South Wales’ population of 7.7 million.
Again, while Ms Berejiklian isn’t wrong to point out the tensions around what ‘fair’ representation should look like, there is more to the story. Australian federalism must constantly strike a balance between giving the smaller States and Territories a say that, while prima facie equal, gives them a disproportionately greater voice, and ensuring that they are not simply drowned out by the majority that comes from New South Wales and Victoria. It’s an issue that was relevant even at federation in 1901, as our Constitution provides that the Senate must be comprised of an equal number of Senators from each State (Territories get a raw deal here, unfortunately). Clearly, then, our system should allow for the smaller States to make their voices heard — if not, the voices of New South Wales, Victoria and the Commonwealth risk becoming synonymous.
Andrew Barr, the Chief Minister for the Australian Capital Territory, bit back at Ms Berejiklian’s claims. However, rather than citing the reasons I have just discussed, he instead argued that it was unfair of the New South Wales Premier to single out the ACT, when other small jurisdictions like Tasmania were more obstinate in the COAG setting.
And herein lies the problem.
One of the reasons the White Paper failed to gain traction was because the States were able to put unified pressure on the Commonwealth. While Mike Baird (NSW) and Jay Weatherill (SA) made some attempts at coordination, there was no consistent push from the subnational level.
Regardless of whether Australian federalism should look more coordinate or cooperative, and meaningful and lasting reform must have the consensus of the States and Territories. Thus, while Ms Berejiklian’s criticism of our ‘archaic’ system is needed, attacking other jurisdictions to highlight the inadequacies of the system is not the right way to do so. Adopting an ‘every State for itself’ mentality will get us nowhere.
Arguably, what this issue really does is highlight just how big and unwieldy State governments can be. Almost a third of Australia’s population lives in New South Wales — comparatively, California (the most populous US State) only makes up 12% of the American population. Western Australia, our fourth most populated State, comes the closest to this kind of proportion to the rest of the population (10%), and it faces issues of its own, being six times the size of California in terms of land mass, and three times bigger than New South Wales. The question then, might not be ‘why should Canberra (and Tasmania) have so much say if they’re so small?’ instead, we may be better off asking if New South Wales needs to be so big.
Ms Berejiklian announced that the New South Wales government would be putting a more detailed reform proposal forward in the coming months. It is something that I welcome, even if there is some irony in the New South Wales Premier arguing for decentralism and earned autonomy from the Commonwealth while the government still wrestles with the issue of unpopular Local Council amalgamations. Federal reform is a crucial issue, and having a big State like New South Wales weigh in will hopefully lend some clout to the movement. However, like federation itself, reform is not something that New South Wales can achieve on its own — Ms Berejiklian and the other leaders will have to work with, rather than against, one another if they hope to rise above the mediocrity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JACOB DEEM
Jacob is a PhD student in Griffith University’s Centre for Governance and Public Policy. His thesis examines public attitudes towards federal institutions and the principle of subsidiarity, both in Australia and overseas. Jacob works as a research assistant on the ARC Project ‘Confronting the Devolution Paradox’, and teaches several undergraduate courses, including Australian Politics, and Political Leadership.
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