Policies > Government

The problem

Government in Australia is very complicated but the politicians like it that way so they can hid behind the confusion and structures. The State politicians say 'we didn't get enough from Canberra so we can't run our hospitals well'. Federal politicians say "we gave you 5% more than last year and your still wasting it all." Who are we to believe - the state or the federal politicians? Are they both lying when things go wrong?

About half of the money in the state governments comes from the Commonwealth or Federal government. The payments are confusing and meaningless. Why does the federal government give the state four types of grants.

Take an example of the NSW State Budget 2009/10.

Revenue sources are: 24% Commonwealth General Purpose Grant, 13% Commonwealth National agreements, 11% Commonwealth National Partnership, 1% Other Commonwealth Grant. So 49% of the NSW State's Revenue comes from Canberra. The other 51% comes from other sources like taxes. But can you see the problem? States may want to cut their inefficient state taxes and hope that Canberra will give them more and more money. There is no binding promise of helping each other out. Each political party is trying to do all they can to throw dirt at the other political party.

The second problem is with arrangements such as in health and hospitals where there is a 60:40 split of funding. In Disability services there is a 80:20 split. Why can't one level of government take responsibility and stop the daily blame game?

The solution of No State Governments

We think there should only be a federal government based in Canberra with representatives from every corner of this country, and there should also be independent local councils that serve their local community.

There should be no vertical fiscal imbalance. Each level of government is responsible for their own taxes and from that pool of funds they spend the money on public assets and services. Then each level of government can take full responsibility for the areas they manage. However isolated rural councils will receice additional federal funding.

What will the federal government be spending money on?

Federal Government - fully responsible for the nations defence, health, disability services, hospitals, schools, universities, TAFE and other education and training programs, immigration, foreign affairs, main roads, rail and all port facilities. They will also be responsible to manage the nations emergency services, electricity grid, water and telecommunications. They are also to provide all funding for the public transport infrastructure in the major capital cities. They should set national laws for crime, business, consumer protection, environmental standards and every other law that should be consistent across the nation.

What will local councils be spending money on?

Local Government - fully responsible for local roads, community facilities and building, garbage and sewerage, ovals and other sporting facilities, Swimming pools, tourism, community services, Libraries and cultural facilities. Local government should provide funding to volunteer organisations in their local community. They are to decide on zoning and building regulation and D A for projects up to twenty million dollars. They are to set local laws relating to parking fines, pubs closing times and alchol free zones and other laws that apply to the local community that do not have to be consistent across the nation.

No forced mergers of councils

We do not think we need to merge any councils as there has already been a significant number of forced mergers. The community should be represented by local government members who live in their local community.

Regional governments?

There will be periodic occasions where a number of local councils will need to meet together to solve a problem that relates to their region or city and is not confined to their local government area. These regional governments are formed by representatives of each local council that is taking part in the discussions. These meetings are not forming another level of government in Australia, but are a practical response to regional issues and the decisions are binding. Councillors will receive no extra pay for attending these meetings and no additional public elections needs to be held. For more on local councils.

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Policies > Government

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