8/11/2019 Time to Rethink the Federation (Barnaby Joyce)

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Time to rethink the Federation

Barnaby Joyce

Published: July 12, 2014 - 7:19PM

Growing up in New England I was acutely aware of the 1967 referendum for a seventh state, in northernNSW, which was lost narrowly by an ill-fated late decision to include the city of Newcastle within the proposedborders.

The opposition to the proposition was that Newcastle would never swallow being run from Armidale. But thequestion northern NSW was posing at the time was: why should it be run from Sydney?

At the time of the secessionist movement the value of production of northern NSW exceeded that of SouthAustralia and those agitating for a new state wanted self-determination rather than being governed fromdistant Macquarie Street. Over time this disenfranchisement has grown worse. The wealth of seats in one

location, Sydney, has disenfranchised others.

Federal senators, who were supposed to be the counter-balance to regional disenfranchisement, nowoverwhelmingly reside in these same capital cities, reinforcing the problem. In Western Australia 12 out of 12senators reside in Perth even New York has only two senators and our Senate was based on the USsystem.

Other states tell a similar story. Adelaide has 11 out of 12 SA senators, Melbourne has 10 out of the 12senators for Victoria and Sydney has 9 out of 12 for NSW. Even Queensland, which prides itself on beingdecentralised, has eight out of 12 in Brisbane. We have become not so much states as city states with moreand more forgotten hinterlands.

Although historians estimates vary, prior to 1788 Australia had upwards of 200 to 250 Aboriginal tribal areas or nations based on geographic and demographic tribal language traits. In many cases these nations werethe size of an average European country. Within each nation people lived in clan groups with strict protocolsfor inter-clan contact.

In 1788 the colony of NSW covered two-thirds of the land mass and included New Zealand and there were nofewer than nine colonial border changes before 1901.

Since Federation Australia has been less adventurous, although Central Australia existed above SouthAustralia for a short time in the 1920s. In 1911 the Australian Capital Territory was carved out of NSWbecause Melbourne and Sydney were shrewd enough to understand that if either became the capital, theother would be left behind as other towns in their states had been left behind by them.

The US took a much different approach to the creation of states. Many are farm states, such as Wyomingand the Dakotas, that did not require large populations to be successful. The capitals of at least 33 states arenot larger than their respective states' most populous cities and many state capitals (Pierre, Bismarck, CarsonCity and Juneau for example) have populations the size of a large regional Australian city.

If we want true competitive forces such as a state that does not believe in payroll tax because a business isgood at employing people or respects the fact that private ownership does mean you own something withoutstates continually putting caveats on rural private properties, we need to rethink the Federation.

Up to a million people live in north Queensland, which has long wanted its own state. Queensland is largerthan any state in the US, eclipsing Alaska, Texas and California. The royalties of central Queensland buildroads in Brisbane and disparaging statements about hearing the banjos north of the Pine River are still thepejorative.

The white paper on Federation is a chance for Australia to move on from the bog we got stuck in in 1901. The

8/11/2019 Time to Rethink the Federation (Barnaby Joyce)

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population then was 3,773,000 compared with 23,518,000 now and we need to have foresight for futuredecades.

The founding fathers of Australias Constitution made creation of a new state a theoretically straightforwardexercise (Sections 121 and 124), requiring only the consent of the Parliament of a state to form a new statewithin its boundaries or for two states to decide to amalgamate, although the Commonwealth is not bound bysuch a decision.

The provisions are so liberal that the authors of our Constitution were clearly aware that the progression tonew states was not designed to stop for eternity in 1901.

The alternative to new states is to remove the states altogether and have regional administrations instead. Butthis would leave all power in Canberra and there are legitimate historical fears about unitary governments,whereas the principle of subsidiarity is the best defence against absolute and centralised power.

Those who are the benefactors of the present system, the city as a state, which can funnel the resourcescontinually into their area thereby attracting more people and the greater mandate to funnel even more, willnaturally want to keep the status quo.

Australia is a young and growing nation-continent and just as the creation of Melbourne as the national capitalwas deemed not to be the best long-term solution as the national capital, neither is the six-state condition.

Barnaby Joyce is the Minister for Agriculture and the deputy leader of the National Party.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/time-to-rethink-the-federation-20140711-zt3yj.html