Tony Abbott sets the battlelines for the federalism debate

Tony Abbott has written an article in The Australian that confirms his preference for what is effectively unitary government for Australia.

He first expressed this view in his book Battlelines.

In his newspaper article Abbott says:

My proposal is not to abolish the states but a referendum to give the national parliament the same authority over them that it’s long had over the territories. It’s not a bid for more power to Canberra. Rather, it’s an attempt to establish clear lines of accountability and responsibility.

He wants constitutional change so as to permit the Australian Parliament to make laws for the ‘peace, order and good government of the country’ – that is, confer on the national parliament the plenary power to make laws on anything.

Despite what he says, it is a bid for more power to Canberra.

The structure of the Constitution means there are some areas where the Commonwealth cannot legislate. Allowing the Commonwealth Parliament to legislate over any given subject necessarily means the Commonwealth gains power.

A bit of honesty would help debate.

Moreover, even though the travails of the Defence Department chronicled by Malcolm Farr in the Daily Telegraph suggest that not every area of commonwealth administration is an example of perfection, the Australian article gives the clear impression that Abbott thinks that the Feds run things better because, well…. they’re the Feds.

He says:

Similarly, at least since Queensland abolished death duties in the 1970s, there are no discernable examples of good policy adopted by one state and then copied by the others that would render plausible the argument that ‘states area laboratory for policy change’.

Anyone comparing commonwealth government health programs (such as Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
delivered by private doctors and pharmacists) with state government ones (such as public hospitals run by giant bureaucracies) would have to conclude that Canberra understands the subsidiarity principle far better than the states.

Taking the last observation first, if you are going to compare things you should compare like with like.

Both Medicare and the PBS are designed from the ground up as subsidy schemes with the intention to reduce the cost of particular goods and services to consumers and no more.

Hospitals provide direct medical services.

It may well be better if public hospitals were privately owned, thus facilitating the creation of a real contestable market in the provision of hospital services.

But comparing the administration of subsidy schemes with the administration of institutions providing services is a false analogy.

That said, there is an absence of modern examples of how the federal system has developed a novel policy development slowly picked up by other jurisdictions.

The development of modern seat belt laws is the usual example trotted out – but that is now nearly 40 years old.

Moreover, as a recent intervention by Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser has recently suggested, without own source revenues there are limits to what a state can do as a ‘sovereign’ jurisdiction.

By implication, there is only limited capacity for a state to be a policy ‘laboratory’.

The debate will be assisted if a list of tangible policy initiatives developed in one state and adopted in others can be identified, so a final decision can be made as to whether in the 21st century there are advantages to a genuine federal system, or that in fact Canberra is always right after all.