Election Scorecard: Poll

Your thoughts in the comments – is the scarcity of political talent around an indication of market failure and a justification for closing down State Governments?

I think so. The Labor Party is so desparate to fill out all the seats around Queensland they’ve picked a Brisbane uni student to run in Hinchinbrook who won’t do recorded interviews with the ABC – the Premier had to chastise him via the media.  

But the problem is widespread – NSW isn’t much better. The downside of abolishing the states would be State of Origin would lose its significance without the premiers being able to make their annual wagers.

Comments

Joel says:

I’ve thought that Australia is well over-governed for some time now. The state governments are superfluous. Education and health should be nationally run anyway, and once we take them away from the states they don’t really have a role as everything can be run at a regional level. I don’t know how realistic it is though…

Leah says:

State governments are necessary for some aspects, but there are many things they currently control that would probably do better under federal government. Like Joel said, education and health are two major things that should go to federal.

Tim says:

How would we get along without people as obviously talented as ‘the Borg’ or captain Bligh?
Those pirate impersonations sure show the seriousness of the issues at stake.

Nathan says:

Sadly I would vote for the “best pirate” if we were purely electing a head of state style head of state.

queenstuss says:

What aspects, Leah?

I am a supporter of stronger federal and regional government, and abolishing state governments.

I would like to see a unified Education system. There are currently 8 education systems in Australia, each with a separate curriculum, different starting and finishing ages, and each with different pay and work conditions for teachers. If this was all streamlined under one system, then there would be more money available for things like paying teachers, curriculum development, and education revolutions. And it would be much easier for students and teachers to move between schools across the country.

Tim says:

Too true. Someone who can do a bad pirate impersonation on radio knowing they’ll never live it down is obviously willing to put themselves on the line for their job. So points for that.

Tim says:

I agree in principle on federal management. But on a practical level I’m still skeptical. In health again there’s large discrepencies between states on pay and conditions etc. But a department that big and geographically dispersed is terrifying in it’s difficulty to manage. But I suppose queenslands already a good example of that. The question is could it be worse?

queenstuss says:

I’m thinking of a system in which both federal government and regional governments are stronger. The problem I see in Queensland is that too many people of influence forget that anything exists north of Noosa, because they’ve probably never travelled any further than that.

I’ve live in regional qld for most of my life, and am continually frustrated by the discrepancies between metropolitan and regional areas.

Amy says:

Best pirate would be a far more interesting way to do it.

Whether or not state governments are necessary (apart from employing myself and my husband, which of course makes them extremely important) or useful (though the way our local council is run doesn’t give me that much hope if they were it), the way that our system of government was constructed originally was that the states allowed a federal government to rule over them, not the other way around (similar to the US – the united states where certain powers were legally enshrined as belonging to the individual states as a condition of having an overarching government). All very complicated and probably legally very difficult to disintangle. I know this doesn’t make much sense – I’ll have to look it all up again.

Tim says:

Would basing the systemin Canberra or Sydney help? The people there may have even less of a clue than brisbane based people?

Amy says:

The problem I see in Queensland is that too many people of influence forget that anything exists north of Noosa, because they’ve probably never travelled any further than that.

But what happens when it is centralised and no-one remembers that anything exists outside Canberra/Sydney? I see that as more likely to happen than federal governments giving any say to local governments. Cynical, I know.

Amy says:

Can you tell that Tim and I have these conversations all the time. We don’t sound alike at all…

queenstuss says:

I’ll get to watch the Sydney local news masqueraded as national news, as I currently do with Brisbane local news?

But you have a good point.

Amy says:

I’ll get to watch the Sydney local news masqueraded as national news, as I currently do with Brisbane local news?

That’s right – because the world revolves around Sydney, donchaknow.

Even now the ABC high def channel seems to only run the Sydney news not the individual state’s.

queenstuss says:

Oh, my husband watches the channel ten news every night, so I thought that world must revolve around the Sacred South East. I refuse to watch it anymore, I try and watch ABC on standard def.

Amy says:

At least the ABC doesn’t have show ads masquerading as news, which is something at least.

Kieran says:

There are a few…wait, to many to list, contentious issues with our state government. The biggest problem is that we have a government that is not accountable. With the government only consisting of a house of reps, they are free to go willy nilly on what they like without the scrutiny of a senate.
(one issue of contention is the nurse rape case on mabuiag island, and that there is aparently significant report that was established before the incident, claiming lack of appropriate conditions in relation to the facilities for staff, yet our health minister did nothing to attend to that report and that Bligh has now realised that her staffers are fully under performed, and is now scrutinizing the health minister.)(a bit late i think)
One major factor is that the labor government spends money without proper management and as a result has had to sell numerous businesses to quickly prop up their budget (http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200704/1898931.htm?queensland).

All i can say is that i have lost faith in this form of dictatorship government.

Amy says:

Why is it that Queensland is the only state that does not have a second house? How did this come about?

Nathan says:

It was abolished as a cost cutting method from memory – although that’s memory from about 8 years ago now. When I was in first year law. So it could be hazy. I sound old saying I was in first year 8 years ago.

Amy says:

On 1 May 1860, Governor Sir William Denison of New South Wales appointed the first 11 members of the Queensland Legislative Council for five-year terms. Subsequent appointments were made for life. The number of members was expanded to 15 later in the month by Queensland’s first Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen.

The Queensland Legislative Council, as a non-elected body, represented conservative and at times, reactionary, policies reflecting the interests of wealth and privilege. In the other Australian colonial parliaments, significant cooperation either occurred between the two Houses of Parliament, or some workable method of resolving deadlocks within a bicameral system existed. In Queensland no such flexibility was evident.

A cautious and potentially obstructionist Upper House confronted Queensland’s first majority Labor Government in 1915. That Government was intent upon a robust program of social and economic reform – the stage was set for confrontation and high political drama. Between 1915 and 1920, the political process repeatedly ground to a halt over an escalating dispute about the powers of the respective Houses.

To ringing cheers from the Government benches in the Legislative Assembly, in November 1915 Premier Ryan announced the introduction of a Bill to amend the Constitution by abolishing the Legislative Council. Between this moment and the passage of the 1922 Act lay a tense struggle. In the end, the Legislative Council went quietly, after the elevation of some 30 Government appointees to its ranks between October 1917 and March 1920. The second reading of the Constitution Act Amendment Bill of 1921 was eventually carried without amendment, by 28 votes to 10, on 26 October 1921 and the Bill was passed on 3 November 1921.

After the Conservative Moore Ministry in 1931 made a half-hearted attempt at resurrection, the succeeding Labor regime of William Forgan Smith passed the Constitution Act Amendment Act 1934, preventing the life of any Parliament extending beyond three years and ensuring that, except via referendum, an Upper House could never be revived in Queensland.

From http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?sdID=50

Kieran says:

http://www.democraticaudit.anu.edu.au/papers/20070213_aronprass_upphqld.pdf this is a discussion paper submitted to the Democratic Audit of Asutralia by Nicholas Aroney and Scott Prasser. It is a quick read and give you a good basic idea of how Queensland became an extreme executive state.

queenstuss says:

So, maybe we don’t need to abolish the states, but rather have some sort of review of how the states run and do their job?

Amy says:

So, maybe we don’t need to abolish the states, but rather have some sort of review of how the states run and do their job?

I think so – like having a national curriculum and standard health worker pay and conditions and so on, but these be administered by state level government.

And perhaps consider removing some of the layers of middle-management fat and putting the money into front line workers instead – but we know that will never happen.

Kieran says:

I think its a time for spring cleaning of the government.