The Strategy of Decentralization in Australia - Essay Example

Why Australian governments abandoned the regional development strategy of decentralization during the 1980s Name Course Instructor’s Name Institution Date Introduction Decentralization is a social process whereby people are redistributed away from a central location, mostly the urbanized areas, to the other outlying regions. Prior to the 1980’s, Australian governments had adopted a policy that encouraged decentralization while as the country had a fairly small population. For instance, after the World War II, Australia had a population of seven and a half million citizens. In an attempt to respond to this population size, the government discouraged concentration of people in only one region which reduced development and brought underutilization of the country’s vast land. In keeping with the population review, the Australian population has since grown very rapidly to around 22.68 million people. So as to keep up with this trend, succeeding Australian governments had to abandon the strategy of encouraging decentralization to keep up with the self-initiated population trends. Most of the government agencies had to adapt to the arising population trends. However, their information on the population was not enough to provide a drive as to whether it is desirable to change these population trends or not. According to Tomaney (2010), regional development is a major priority of governments in Australia but the government agencies aren’t comprehensive and strategic enough but rather more of opportunistic. Decentralization during the 1980s was a non-metropolitan issue that the governments assumed to require small-scale engagement since they considered other broader challenges that they face in their attempts to bring about regional development as more important. Critique of the Regional Development Strategy of Decentralization The Australian governments during this period felt that inter-regional disparities would increase, and this would broaden poverty gaps in the nation and encourage politically threatening forces. In view of the fact that different Australian regions had different endowments in terms of raw materials, values of land and economic activities; they would generate more revenue and citizens in those regions would enjoy better quality of life. There was a need to avoids such extreme disparities and ensure there was equitable resource distribution which was the situation if decentralization was used (Haughton & Counsell, 2004). According to Gibson & Cornell (2012), incase the Australian governments continued using decentralization during the 1980s; there would have been higher risks of the resources being captured by small groups of local elites. The governments during this period did not have adequate safeguards and decentralization arrangements to counter this risk of some specific elite and interest groups high-jacking the process. Federal government had proved to be a more viable and rational program in view of the fact that it encouraged an all round, local and regional, development. On the other hand, it did not fully get involved in the participation of development programs. Efforts by the Whitlam Labor Governments to promote decentralization proved very futile and for about 20 years, the financial capacity of decentralized areas and citizens did not improve. These attempts only duplicated of the federal government in the regions without necessarily causing decentralization of the population (Herbert-Cheshire, 2000). Another main reason for the abandonment of decentralization strategy is the many major issues that have to be resolved prior to its adoption. The country needed to have a very comprehensive population projection. This required an in-depth evaluation of the population trends and their impacts for a number of years to come. Whereas the Howard Coalition Government had attempted major regional interventions to enhance regional development, it was not able to carry out viable and reliable projections on demographic factors which thwarted efforts to bring about decentralization. Decentralization necessitates change in immigration rules and procedures. Attempts to implement such a strategy needed to consider the effects of migration patterns. Internal migration when not well planned and self-initiated presents immense effects on poverty, land utilization and environmental factors. The governments during the 1980’s faced these challenge and considered it a big challenge redistribute the population being adamant that communities unearth their own solutions. During that period, Australia encountered very underperforming regional economies. It was very unlikely that a government would encourage its citizens to move from the high performing areas to local regions that only have little potential. According to Potts (2010), any attempts of decentralization were questionable since most of the regions contained aboriginal people who were not ready for industrialized and contemporary development strategies that would come along with decentralized people. In keeping with Eversole & Martin (2005), the market is the de facto spatial planner i.e. regional development grows in respect to how the market force work not according to the organization of demographic factors. The hegemony of the market allows the population to organize itself. During the 1980’s a decision was considered necessary on whether redistribution towards Southeast Queensland and the north coast of NSW were appropriate, and if not, what policies would be installed to adjust the trends. The government considered market forces and regional development in the areas as the best answers to that. Even though calls for a decentralization population policy more often than not must be a comprehensive and full-fledged, necessitating consideration of a variety of population issues, decentralization population policies had to be very simple. The main issue in Australia at that time was the rate of population growth and the anticipated population size. For that reason, it was argued that Australia did have a decentralization population policy since the previous postwar years until the period when Whitlam government decided to abolish it in the 1970s (Australian Population and Immigration Council, 1977). Most Australian leaders believed that the strategy had encouraged misuse of authority since there wasn’t enough supervision and mechanisms to ensure there was accountability in the system. Local governments brought about a new autonomous status, without alternative accountability mechanisms having been put in place. This shows that very little attention had been put in ensuring there was proper oversight and accountability which led to failure of devolution in participatory local governance framework. This led to the abandonment of regional development strategy of decentralization strategy so as to improve accountability in leadership, utilization of resources and wealth. The Australian governments considered decentralization as more of a passive or indirect result of other government projects that they applied as long as they intended to enhance development throughout the nation. One such procedure is fragmentation. Fragmentation is the process whereby the nation is broken down or devolved to smaller authoritative regions. The governments considered it better to devolve the health, education and other developmental facilities throughout the nation. State governments had encouraged the population to move and settle in non-urbanized regions of the country without the government having to use decentralization strategies (McGuirk & Argent (2011). The governments did not have adequate implementation strategies to ensure that there wasn’t any disparities between the revenues that the functions performed by local governments and the revenue that were being generated. This did not only make decentralization ineffective but also made the governments to discredit it. Most of decentralization schemes had been hastily adopted schemes which were not thought about well enough and failed to ensure the intended end result was arrived a. In keeping with Stimpson et al (2006), a nation has to avoid deficiencies in the evaluation, implementation and during planning arrangements. The regional development strategy of decentralization that had been adopted in Australia was not carefully planned and implemented which meant that in the long run, it would end up being a failure. Given that the reform initiatives brought about by decentralization is very complex, the governments during the 1980s were forced to abandon it. In the 1970s, Australian governments provided incentives for the firms and industries to relocate to less concentrated areas. This led to the development of "bloated cities". During this period, there was minimal information regarding regional development while the citizens still had faith in the solutions provided by the "little-knowing" governments. These government put a lot of weight of ensuring local governments working while as they did not have adequate information to make them work. As time passed and knowledge about need for federal governments increased, Australian governments decided to neglect the complex decentralization strategy and adopt a simpler policy where the market forces were allowed to work freely to bring regional development. According to Cocklin (2005), decentralization creates an atmosphere for probable conflict between national and local interests. Most of the regions in which decentralization had been practiced, there was a tendency to identify and articulate certain interest that they considered beneficial to them. Cocklin (2005) also postulates that this brought about conflicts in Australia which was not necessarily harmful but these conflicts were not well considered and addressed. Lack of an appropriate framework to solve conflict destabilized the system and forced the government to abandon it. A Defense of the Adopted Policy of Regional Development against Decentralization Strategy Unlike a regional development strategy of decentralization, regional policy developed into a practical and rational set of procedures deliberated for use in regions and communities to fine-tune them to adopt change (Beer & Maude, 2003). It helped distinguish the setbacks of the 1980’s governments and their responsibility to help societies and regions adopt ongoing structural change. Arguably, the regional policy adopted had a good fit with the Australian Regional conditions and limits of low rate of coordination of government action. Moreover, during the 1980’s, the argument that governments in fact “did little” in regional development in Australia was itself be subject to question. The regional policy of development essentially occupied a central position, between those who want government to do no more than free up barriers to the movement of regional resources, whether employment or wealth, and persons who would have liked to nature spatial outcomes through government action that moves resources to certain places (Enright & Roberts, 2001). The Australian governments also decided to abandon decentralization since they believed that another system which could bring forth economies of scale was better. Economies of scale ensured that the central delivery of most of services is more efficient. This disadvantaged decentralization the nation enjoyed more savings for example through bulk purchasing. However, this system was not that applicable since it faced many challenges but the governments considered it better that decentralization which posed more complex and enormous challenges. Though the system did not necessarily value local involvements, it generally led to greater efficiency in provision of services by ensuring there was closer supervision and awareness by national government about grass root activities. Conclusion Estimates imply that decentralization is presently being practiced in at least 80% of developing countries globally. Numerous people believe that local government directly changes their lives, predominantly through the helping provide essential services like water and healthcare. However, during the 1980s, Australian governments were not ready enough and equipped with the necessary information to effectively carry out the process. This thwarted their efforts to make decentralization work and forced them to abandon it in their attempt to bring regional development. The analysis above stipulates the major challenges that the government faced in its attempt to implement the regional development strategy of decentralization. Though there were many political challenges in the governing systems of the nation, many other demographic, economic and social trends affected implementation of the policy. It has consulted various previous works that were written on past performance of Australian governments especially those that were in authority during the 1980s. In studying History, it is necessary to identify that Australian governments during the 1980s had little to do in their attempts to implement decentralization. Many negative outcomes form the regions such as reduction in regional economic capabilities, underutilization of labor and poorer firms’ market by themselves were the major setbacks. Most historians understand that past events in Australia were not within the reach of the government since the population size was very small compared to the vast land of the country. Therefore, a decentralization policy was very had to cope with during that period. References Beer, A., & Maude, A. (2003). Developing Australia's regions: theory and practice. UNSW Press. Beer, A., Maude, A., & Pritchard, B. (2003). Developing Australia's regions: Theory and practice. Sydney: University of New South Wales. Beeson, M., & Firth, A. (1998). Neoliberalism as a political rationality: Australian public policy since the 1980s. Journal of Sociology, 34(3), 215-231. Cocklin, C. (2005). Sustainability and Change in Rural Australia. Sydney: Univ. of New South Wales Press (UNSW Press. Enright, M. J. E. M. J., & Roberts, B. H. R. B. H. (2001). Regional Clustering in Australia Regional Clustering in Australia. Australian Journal of Management. Eversole, R., & Martin, J. (2005). Participation and governance in regional development: Global trends in an Australian context. Aldershot: Ashgate. Gibson, C., & Connell, J. (2012). Music festivals and regional development in Australia. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. Haughton, G., & Counsell, D. (2004). Regions and sustainable development: regional planning matters. The Geographical Journal, 170(2), 135-145. Herbert-Cheshire, L. (2000). Contemporary strategies for rural community development in Australia: a governmentality perspective. Journal of rural studies, 16(2), 203-215. McGUIRK, P. A. U. L. I. N. E., & Argent, N. (2011). Population growth and change: implications for Australia's cities and regions. Geographical Research, 49(3), 317-335. Potts, T. (2010). The natural advantage of regions: linking sustainability, innovation, and regional development in Australia. Journal of Cleaner Production, 18(8), 713-725. Roberts, B. H., & Enright, M. J. (2004). Industry clusters in Australia: recent trends and prospects. European Planning Studies, 12(1), 99-121. Stimson, R. J., Stough, R. R., & Roberts, B. H. (2006). Regional economic development. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. Stough, R. R., Stimson, R. J., & Nijkamp, P. (2011). An Endogenous Perspective on Regional Development and Growth. In Drivers of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Regional Dynamics (pp. 3-20). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Tomaney, J. (2010). Place-based approaches to regional development: Global trends and Australian implications. Sydney: Australian Business Foundation. Read More

These attempts only duplicated of the federal government in the regions without necessarily causing decentralization of the population (Herbert-Cheshire, 2000). Another main reason for the abandonment of decentralization strategy is the many major issues that have to be resolved prior to its adoption. The country needed to have a very comprehensive population projection. This required an in-depth evaluation of the population trends and their impacts for a number of years to come. Whereas the Howard Coalition Government had attempted major regional interventions to enhance regional development, it was not able to carry out viable and reliable projections on demographic factors which thwarted efforts to bring about decentralization.

Decentralization necessitates change in immigration rules and procedures. Attempts to implement such a strategy needed to consider the effects of migration patterns. Internal migration when not well planned and self-initiated presents immense effects on poverty, land utilization and environmental factors. The governments during the 1980’s faced these challenge and considered it a big challenge redistribute the population being adamant that communities unearth their own solutions. During that period, Australia encountered very underperforming regional economies.

It was very unlikely that a government would encourage its citizens to move from the high performing areas to local regions that only have little potential. According to Potts (2010), any attempts of decentralization were questionable since most of the regions contained aboriginal people who were not ready for industrialized and contemporary development strategies that would come along with decentralized people. In keeping with Eversole & Martin (2005), the market is the de facto spatial planner i.e. regional development grows in respect to how the market force work not according to the organization of demographic factors.

The hegemony of the market allows the population to organize itself. During the 1980’s a decision was considered necessary on whether redistribution towards Southeast Queensland and the north coast of NSW were appropriate, and if not, what policies would be installed to adjust the trends. The government considered market forces and regional development in the areas as the best answers to that. Even though calls for a decentralization population policy more often than not must be a comprehensive and full-fledged, necessitating consideration of a variety of population issues, decentralization population policies had to be very simple.

The main issue in Australia at that time was the rate of population growth and the anticipated population size. For that reason, it was argued that Australia did have a decentralization population policy since the previous postwar years until the period when Whitlam government decided to abolish it in the 1970s (Australian Population and Immigration Council, 1977). Most Australian leaders believed that the strategy had encouraged misuse of authority since there wasn’t enough supervision and mechanisms to ensure there was accountability in the system.

Local governments brought about a new autonomous status, without alternative accountability mechanisms having been put in place. This shows that very little attention had been put in ensuring there was proper oversight and accountability which led to failure of devolution in participatory local governance framework. This led to the abandonment of regional development strategy of decentralization strategy so as to improve accountability in leadership, utilization of resources and wealth. The Australian governments considered decentralization as more of a passive or indirect result of other government projects that they applied as long as they intended to enhance development throughout the nation.

One such procedure is fragmentation. Fragmentation is the process whereby the nation is broken down or devolved to smaller authoritative regions. The governments considered it better to devolve the health, education and other developmental facilities throughout the nation.

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