The Danger Of Meddling

by Graeme Orr - Canberra Times

Local government is a creature of each state, and for good reason. Some councils, unfortunately, are prone to mismanagement or financial crisis.

But being close to the people, local government is also emblematic of democracy. In many shires, it is easy to get to know your councillors. The Queensland Government may have good reason to amalgamate some councils, but was politically unwise to try to stop them having local polls on amalgamations to vent some steam.

Into this fray jumps the elephant from Canberra. Mr Howard announced he will use Commonwealth taxpayers' money to fund ballots on council amalgamations.

It is a gob-smackingly clever, but deeply flawed proposal.

It also confirms what was blatant even before the leaked strategy document from the Liberal Party's polling advisers. The Federal Government will meddle in an ad hoc and populist way on as many state issues as it can, this election year.

This strategy is remarkable, as it makes the Federal Government look less like a national government, and more like a collection of state oppositions. But it might just save enough Coalition votes, especially in non-metropolitan areas, to stave off loss of the House of Representatives and certainly the Senate.

First, the obvious: Mr Howard is acting purely to create political mischief for Labor.

It is deeply ironic that in 1988, the Hawke government tried to entrench the existence of local government in the Australian constitution. As Opposition Leader, Howard opposed that, and ensured a referendum on the issue was sunk. Now he is the saviour of smaller shire councils.

The Howard Government also decreed that universities could not run require students to pay service fees, even though that was the equivalent of a community rate. It did not poll student bodies before stripping their associations.

Second, the rub for Labor. If these amalgamation plebiscites are held on federal election day, maximum damage will be done to federal Labor, at least in regional Queensland. Mr Howard would do this under the guise of saving money just tagging along with the Australian Electoral Commission and voters who are compelled to attend federal polling.

It would be a travesty to hold such votes on federal election day, since that will deliberately confuse federal issues with a purely state/local matter. Our Electoral Act has long decreed that no state election can be held on federal election day, precisely to avoid such confusion.

Third, does Mr Howard have the power to do this? The Commonwealth collects 80 per cent of public revenue. The High Court has said it can do what it likes with that money. It can set up a pregnancy counselling hotline, for example, though it has no legislative power over abortions or hospitals for that matter.

The Commonwealth could require the AEC to offer its services free of charge to run elections for bowling clubs if it liked. It just needs to legislate to add this to the functions of the AEC.

What the Commonwealth cannot do is legislate to make such votes legally binding. It cannot require electors or councils to take part. The votes will not have any effect. They would be the strawest of straw-polls.

And the Commonwealth cannot override the states' ultimate responsibility for the structure of local government. In particular, Mr Beattie can still legislate to direct councils not to take part in such polls, on pain of fine.

But Mr Howard does not want these polls to achieve anything, except political mischief. Mr Beattie's problem is he already looks dictatorial in pushing through council rationalisation, and will look even more so if he uses legal means to fight Mr Howard on this.

Why is Mr Howard's intervention bad policy?

It is not entirely unprecedented. Recently we've had the Senate holding an inquiry into a controversial Queensland dam decision. Conversely, we've had state governments running inquiries into the effect of the federal "WorkChoices" laws.

To a point, such hyper-competitive federalism is not all bad. It might provide some check on the Coalition's absolute control in Canberra, and Labor's absolute control in some states.

Also, it is entirely reasonable for politicians of different levels of government to air opinions about each other's decisions. Howard can criticise the state hospitals, Beattie the treatment of Dr Haneef.

Local governments even get in on the act: at least one City Hall flew the UN flag before the invasion of Iraq.

These are harmless, if tedious, symbolic and expressive actions.

But long-term, it is bad policy and bad governance to have one level of government implementing policy and expenditure on top of, and in defiance of another.

It is a sign that the ideology and politics of federalism is collapsing under the Howard government.

Just imagine if an ailing Labor government decided to hold a straw-poll at a state election, asking voters if they want troops pulled out of Iraq.

Worse, there is nothing to stop either level of government "investing" millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising to push their favoured line in such straw-polls.

Mr Howard hopes to harvest votes out of his intervention on councils. He does so at the risk of making a mockery of federal-state relationships.


Associate Professor Graeme Orr researches the law of politics at the University of Queensland.