Is It Ignorance or Doesn't He Care?

Our local councillor is a woman, Sue, who lives up the road. She works at the local servo, has been known to have a beer and smokes rollies - but she is going to give up. Thanks to Sue's representations, our road has now been sealed past our gate, but not to Sue's place.

Sue and I don't agree about everything but, on most things that matter at the local council level - roads, fire and weed management, community services, development and animal control - we are pretty much in agreement. And if we don't agree we can have a chat. In fact, if we disagree enough then I could get myself organised and run against her. Probably wouldn't win but it would shake things up enough to have my point well heard by all.

Our MLA, Rob, is a mate of mine. He used to work for me and stayed a mate afterwards. Rob doesn't get involved in local issues. Instead he is held accountable for the things that are the Territory Government's responsibility - health, major roads, education, housing, infrastructure development. Rob may not always agree with me but he always pays attention. He knows that I am a vicious sod and if he upsets enough people like me then he is out of a job. In an electorate of just over 4,000 electors everyone is a potential 'vicious sod'.

Rob is a member of the ALP and, while he is personally accountable to his electors, his party is also accountable. Rob may do the right thing but we still might have to throw him out if his party stuffs things up. This is precisely what happened to Tim, the previous MLA - good bloke, good representative, wrong party.

Warren, or more properly Wozza, is our local MHR. Wozza is also a pretty good sort of bloke. He has been there for a long time and I suspect that the next will be his last term unless he cracks it and becomes a Minister. Lingiari is a safe Labor electorate. Some would call it rusted on. Voters in this electorate obviously make their decisions on all sorts of factors but it would be no surprise to find that Indigenous and regional development issues are up there for most people and the ALP is clearly seen as better on those.

All of these people are my representatives. They are accountable for their actions and the actions of their parties - and they know it. The people who stand against them were also held accountable for their actions and the actions of their parties and that is why they were not elected.

It seems to me to be stating the absolutely bleeding obvious that the capacity to hold our representatives accountable is at the heart of a representative democracy.

Buck passing and cost shifting are diseases that can make this 'heart' of our representative democracy very ill. They are probably impossible to cure completely but they are so much more debilitating where it is not completely clear who is responsible for something. No level of government is immune from the seductive influence of being able to spin a line that someone else is to blame. A bureaucrat who fails to get someone else to pay for something that needs to be done when that is remotely possible would not last.

So I would argue that the first step in allowing us to hold our representatives accountable, and thus keeping the heart of our representative democracy well exercised and healthy, is clarity of responsibility.

As with anything that involves the division or provision of power, achieving clarity of responsibility between Federal, State and local levels of government is very hard to achieve. Those who developed our Constitution were well aware of the issue. Unfortunately, they were actually 100% wrong in thinking that they needed to try to protect the Commonwealth from the States, but they still provided a system for sorting out problems.

The system is actually pretty simple. Specify the powers of one level of government, add a couple of absolute prohibitions, leave all other powers and functions to the States, give the High Court the power to interpret and, if all else fails send the issue to the people in a referendum.

Many, many people would say that we have an imperfect system. Gough Whitlam as Deputy Leader of the Opposition in 1966 in a speech to the Fabian Society proposed a system that would abolish the States and create 18 regional governments. It might have been a good idea but it never had a show because the other side of politics - and probably most of his side - wouldn't wear it. And as everyone knows a referendum that is not supported by both major parties has no hope.

There are other ways of changing the system. Again it is basically very simple. You simply get control of the money and use it to both strangle the States and pursue your own agenda. You can do this now quite legally under the Constitution. The High Court is likely to support your moves.

This situation, by the way, is not new. The Concrete Pipes Case in 1971 gave the Commonwealth a very powerful weapon in the corporations power and Moore v Doyle on industrial relations was decided in 1969.

It may be legal but is it right? Do we want a system where one level of government makes all policy decisions? Do we want a system where our State/Territory governments wither on the vine and where our local councils, in whatever shape they end up, are simply purveyors of the policy of our federal government?

I don't know what everyone else wants but I know that I want to have a say. I want the chance to have the case debated and, on something this important, I want to have a vote.

And I have to say, in my most restrained voice, that I object strenuously to a Prime Minister and a government that, for short term political purposes, are prepared to create precedents that will make it so much easier for another government to move just a bit further and further and further ....

And what is this rubbish about the Commonwealth's supposed 'overwatch' role. Where the blazes did that come from? Certainly not the Constitution.