There's one issue not on the agenda at today's meeting between the Prime Minister and the premiers in Canberra. But it is the issue that everyone will be thinking about -- and that issue is of course the future of John Howard as prime minister.
What will be on the agenda are initiatives such as Victoria's proposals for improvement to the delivery of health and education services, the implementation of a national approach to business regulation, and a new funding program for indigenous communities.
Steve Bracks has gone so far as to call the meeting "an historic occasion". While the description might be a little overdrawn, it is true that the outcomes of the discussions could be very significant.
There's the potential to give real impetus to the next round of national policy reform, and to take the stimulus of competition and consumer choice into new areas they have not previously reached, particularly hospitals and schools.
The possibility that the politics of the Liberal leadership could derail the reform process has been widely lamented. It will be difficult for the Prime Minister and premiers to strike a deal if the premiers believe that in six months they could be dealing with someone who has a completely different approach to federalism and who has no commitment to any agreement reached by his predecessor. This is exactly the fear that the premiers have voiced.
The open barracking of the Labor premiers for Howard against Peter Costello has as much to do with the premiers' genuine personal preferences as it has with their desire to perpetuate mayhem against their political opponents.
Business is being directly affected by the Liberals' convulsions. In the energy sector, for example, several companies are waiting to make investment decisions. But they can't until the regulatory regime is known, and to finalise the relevant regulations requires the agreement of the federal and state governments. If federal/state co-operation grinds to a halt, business activities are put at risk.
There have been other events that have dramatically demonstrated the collision between politics and good policy. The cancellation of the float of Snowy Hydro last month, after 150,000 investors had already registered for a prospectus and just days before the start of the initial public offering road-show, wasn't an example of world's best-practice decision-making.
In this context the call for more policy stability is understandable. But before we rush to eliminate the politics from policy, we must consider what would happen if we actually succeeded.
With democracy comes politics, and with politics comes uncertainty, and at times instability. If there is a leadership challenge, the person who becomes prime minister is a decision that will be made in the party room -- comprising MPs and senators, who themselves have been elected through a free vote. The price we pay for this system is that, as the contenders jostle for the leadership, their attention is diverted from the all-important, long-term national reform agenda.
The rule of law and property rights also come with democracy. These features of liberal democracies are benefits to individuals and businesses that far outweigh any of the disadvantages of the democratic political process.
When the sale of Snowy Hydro was abandoned last month, the ABC radio program PM reported the comment that the actions of the federal government made "Australia look like a Third-World country". Hardly.
The majority of Third-World countries are poverty-stricken dictatorships whose governments rule without regard to the will or the benefit of their citizens. A Third-World country would have carried through with the sale of Snowy Hydro regardless of popular opinion.
The remark was also made that because "the government can flip-flop around on policy on a day-to-day basis" on issues such as Snowy Hydro, it would be more difficult to sell Telstra. This assessment is accurate, but it doesn't mean, as was asserted, that therefore potential investors will regard Australia as "risky", in the same way as they consider India or Thailand.
Those countries might be preferred as investment destinations, but it's not because they have better legal and political systems than Australia.
A week ago the chances of today's meeting being the "historic occasion" hoped for by Steve Bracks were no better than 50/50. The events of the past week have reduced those odds even further.
If the meeting collapses, politics will be blamed for the failure. That would be true -- but if we want to enjoy the benefits of freedom there's no alternative to politics.
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