"It's a helluva way to run the country". This is a pretty accurate description by Labor frontbencher Bob McMullan of what the Howard government has been doing in recent days.
First there was the federal takeover of a hospital in Tasmania. Then there was promise of $4 million of taxpayers' money to rescue a private timber mill in Canberra. To top it off there was the announcement that the Commonwealth would fund the Australian Electoral Commission to run plebiscites in Queensland to stop the Beattie government merging local councils.
It's lucky that the election could be as close as 12 weeks away. That means there's only another 12 weeks of bad decisions.
Wednesday's interest rate rise has dominated the headlines, but its effect on policy will be short term. On the other hand, the effect of the coalition's decisions will linger long after the determination of the Reserve Bank on interest rates is forgotten.
At one level there's nothing new in what's happened. Unfortunately the Prime Minister has proved himself to be as committed a centralist as Gough Whitlam, and the Howard government won't be the first in Australian history to waste money bailing out a failed company. Since time immemorial voters fortunate enough to live in marginal electorates have enjoyed the beneficence donated to them by taxpayers in safe seats.
However, what John Howard has done, particularly by attempting to overturn the policies of the Tasmanian and Queensland governments, is of an entirely different nature to anything that has occurred over the coalition's 11 years in power.
Previous efforts by the Howard government to interfere in state activities have been the result of efforts to hasten policy reform. Federal and state ministers may well have argued over exactly what constituted reform, but at least there was some sort of broad agreement as to the general direction of policy. For example, there's no dispute over the need to improve the quality of school education in this country -- the question is, what is the best way to do it.
But never before has the Commonwealth intervened to actually stop a state government undertaking reform. It is not the case that there is any clear and obvious policy failure from either the Tasmanian or Queensland government. It is simply that they offered an opportunity for the coalition to score political points against the ALP.
The only justification provided by the Prime Minister is that what the Tasmanian and Queensland governments has done is "unpopular", with local communities. Well, of course it is. Reform usually is unpopular. In state politics there are few things more difficult than shutting a hospital or merging local councils. After what has occurred this week, the Prime Minister will never again be in a position to criticise the Labor premiers for failing to take the tough decisions. If a state government fears it is going to be second-guessed by the Commonwealth whenever it does something unpopular, the incentive for a premier to act is zero.
One can only wonder what would have happened if, while Nick Greiner and Jeff Kennett were undertaking their reforms, Howard had been prime minister and he had been in a political situation similar to the one he is in now. Would he have tried to stop Kennett's closures of schools and railway limes, or his forced public service redundancies?
The most unfortunate thing about all of this is the message that the coalition is sending to the public. And that message is that we can avoid the hard decisions.
The costs of an ageing population with ever-growing health needs are not going to be managed if the Commonwealth insists that every hospital in regional Australia is kept open. Whether merging councils in Queensland is a good or a bad thing is irrelevant. The issue at stake is the capacity of state governments to respond to changing circumstances as they see necessary.
It is a paradox of democracy that sometimes leaders must make decisions that a majority of the electorate either disagrees with, or would disagree with if it had the chance to express an opinion. The public didn't vote to reduce tariffs, float the dollar, or sell Commonwealth Bank of Australia. If the public had been given a say on any of these policies they would been rejected.
If the test of a policy was its popularity, then the Prime Minister would repeal Work Choices and he would immediately withdraw Australia's troops from Iraq.
ADVERTISEMENT
No comments:
Post a Comment