Guy Beres

One of the dominant themes guiding latter day Federal Labor’s approach to policy is that a better approach to federal-state relations is needed. One gets the feeling that this has been a powerful and popular theme, given the general public antipathy for “buck-passing” between the federal and state governments and the creaking state of the constitution. In my days of door-knocking for local Labor candidates and talking with folks in my local electorate, I found that one of the last answers that an angry citizen wants to hear when they complain about something the government has (or hasn’t) done is that a different tier of government is to blame. In some or even many cases it is a realistic fob, but it is a fob nonetheless to blame the failure of government to achieve something on another tier of government, usually quite conveniently being run by another branch of the party, or else a different party altogether.

I am a strong supporter of a refreshed approach to federalism and indeed constitutional reform, and I do think that the Howard Government’s record on federal-state relations was far from spectacular. Having said that, it’s probably fair to say that the natural political antagonism between the Labor state and territory governments and the Federal Government was always going to make things virtually untenable for the Coalition in this area. Now that Labor is in power from coast to coast and across the Tasman, expectations are high that the party will deliver for the country. More than that, any other result besides a noticeable improvement stands a very good chance of getting Labor on the nose across the nation very quickly.It in this sort of climate that I welcome the new tentative federal-state agreement on the Murray-Darling with both hope and some degree of scepticism. Mike Steketee’s less than glowing opinion piece on the agreement in The Australian sums up the reasons to be sceptical quite nicely; like many other of the Rudd Government’s initiatives, it’s hard to see this one bearing real fruit for at least a couple of years. It’s also quite interesting to see just how quickly the shoe has been thrown onto the other foot by the Labor state and territory governments, after a number of years of often worthless backslapping with their old mate John Winston Howard. At least one of the premiers couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a dubious dig:

South Australian Premier Mike Rann, whose state sits at the end of the Murray and has been receiving limited flows, said he was delighted with the agreement after the months of stalemate.

“More has been achieved in the last 11 1/2 weeks in talks over the river Murray than has been achieved in the previous 11 1/2 years,” Mr Rann said.

Of course, it’s probably worth reminding the mentally incapable that Mr. Rann has had one of the more powerful seats at the so-called unsuccessful negotiating table for over six of those eleven and a half years. He has some portion of the ownership for whatever outcome those years wrought, or rather, failed to. Clearly, there really are a lot of reasons to be sceptical about Labor’s blanket talking up of its achievements on federal-state relations; the real proof will be in the meat of the agreements, and whether or not reforms are introduced that serve to improve the current situation for all time. It’s all very well for the heads of the six state and two territory governments to sit down with the Prime Minister, agree on something, and then celebrate, but only the naive think this somewhat co-incidental situation will persist forever. What the nation needs is a revised legislative and yes, constitutional framework for ensuring that the blame game is consigned to the dustbin of Australian political history.

With the stars aligned as they are for Labor politically at the present time, nothing less than this will suffice, quite frankly.

Tags: Mike Rann, Murray-Darling, The blame game

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Rudd Labor Government, federal-state relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.