Australian Federalism - Literature review Example

RUNNING HEAD: AUSTRALIAN FEDERALISM Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: 2nd September, 2010. ‘Wiltshire argues that Australian federalism has functioned more like a marble cake than like the layer cake it was intended to be. Explain what he means by these two images in relation to the workings of federalism’. Layer Cake Federalism is a form of federalism where the national government exercises its own power independently from the state government which also exercises its power independently (Lader, 2006). In this federalism, each level of government exercises its control over its own sphere of influence and there is no interaction between the two independent governments. There is a clear delineation between the functions and programs of the different levels of the government (Dautrich et al, 2009, p. 73). Marble Cake Federalism is characterized by realistic mixing of programs and tasks across the different levels of government. It is a more associative way of managing the form of government but less formal (Dautrich et al, 2009, p. 73 & Wiltshire, 1992, p. 166-167). The founders of the Australian federal system intended it to be the layer cake in that, every level of government had its own expenditure functions, revenue sources and would be separate and sovereign to the highest extent (Brett, Gillespie & Goot, 1994, p. 63 & Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 187). According to Wiltshire, the national government was intended to have limited jurisdiction in which to exercise using specific powers while the state government was intended to enjoy most powers (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 187). This is no longer the situation in Australian system of governance. According to Brown, the “Australia’s system of governance is in a state of flux” (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 3). The instability is due to the changes that have occurred in the sharing of power and responsibility between the state, the local government and the federal government and because of the emergence of another sphere of governance at the regional level in the society (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 3). More power and responsibility have shifted to the central government and different regions have been created and used to manage the cities, the natural resources and the communities. It is because of this situation that Wiltshire refers to the federal system as marble cake. There is no clear definition of responsibilities and powers mostly because of the formation of regions through which public functions are carried out by the two levels of government. If two states for example are included in one region and the public functions of such regions are carried out by the federal government, it is not easy to determine who is to be held responsible or to be acknowledged for any good work since part of the region belongs to a specific state and that state’s government should ensure it governance, but the federal government may have taken that section and included it in its governance as a region, based on the definitions of regions in the Australian system of governance. A public function would be delegated to the local government without going through the state government by the federal government. This kind of federalism reduces accountability. Lack of accountability is not the major issue in this Australian federalism, rather, what makes it marble cake federalism. Before the development of Australia’s federal system in 1901, the nation was constitutionally considered frozen. Even after the new federal system was implemented in 1901, very little change was observed considering social and economic change and the pressures that influence the adaptation of the structures of government (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 11). Recently however, several pressures have resulted to the changes in the system of government making the current federal system to be considered more centralized. The economic, social sustainability and environmental pressures which come as a result of globalization in the world have caused new interactions between the government and the community, the different levels of the government and between politics and administration making the system of government to be totally different from what it was intended to be (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 11). Because of such interactions, regionalism and centralization developed in Australia changing the roles, responsibilities and the power of each level of government in the Australian system of governance. The Marble Cake Federalism in Australia’s System of Governance Australia’s federalism is considered to have functioned as a marble cake because of centralism and regionalism. It is considered that of divided sovereignty (contrast to what the founders intended) and that with an imbalance in the financial resources (Brett, Gillespie & Goot, 1994, p. 62-68) all because of the changes that have occurred since. Below are reasons why the federal system became centralized and how regionalism has influenced the system of governance. Centralization in the Australian Government The federal system in Australia came after the development and enactment of a constitution in 1901. The common wealth constitution was established as a constitution Monarchy which means the head of state was the Queen of Victoria by then. It gave Australia the form of government it adopted which until today is a federal government. The constitution defined the common wealth government, its powers, structure, obligations and procedures as well as the rights and obligations of the states within the common wealth government (Jaensch, 1997, p. 98). The system of government that has worked since 1901 is not what it was intended to be. The commonwealth has gained more powers, the states can no longer act independently, the states have no enough finances and depend on funds from the common wealth and there is a mix in performing public functions not as when the federal system was established, when most public functions belonged to the state government (Brett, Gillespie & Goot, 1994, p. 62). Wiltshire indicates that there are six means through which the Australian federalism has been centralized (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189). One of such ways is through the amendment of the constitution which gave the commonwealth government more power. In 1927, there was an amendment on section 105 (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189) in which a loan council was set up to regulate public borrowing through state and federal loans under the security and the name of the commonwealth (Mohamed, 2006, p. 2). Amendment of section 51 in 1946 gave the commonwealth social welfare powers, the amendment of section 51 and section 127 of the constitution (The Australian Government, 2010) that gave the commonwealth a role in indigenous affairs (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189). High court judgments have also increased the commonwealth powers (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 190) for example in 1997, the high court invalidated state taxes and a new tax system developed based on federal tax collection system known as Goods and Services Tax (GST). The high court has also given much power to the common wealth through interpretations for example the 2006 interpretation on federal power to regulate corporation (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 11). The third means through which the commonwealth power has grown is through the financial relations. Commonwealth government collects more than 70% of Australia’s taxation revenue, has control over GST, income tax and other indirect taxes, all because of the court judgments involving taxation, the uniform tax arrangement and the 1927 amendment (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 190 and Grewal & Sheehan, 2003, p. 3). The fourth means is through executive federalism which was developed for very many important reasons for example, to ensure all Australians have access to public resources regardless of where they live, to avoid provision of administrative activities that have similar characteristics and to pool resources enough to handle projects bigger than one level of government among many others. Executive federalism led to the intergovernmental agreements which in turn led to assignment of public functions to more than two levels of government. The system of governance changed to that where the functions of the government mix involving two levels of government (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 191). The fifth means is through the emergency powers and overrides that the commonwealth has and the last is the unconstitutional actions done by the commonwealth government. Trends towards centralism reduce accountability of the federal system (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 192). Currently, the Australian system of governance is centralized and from what Wiltshire notes, it is true Australia’s federalism has and will continue suffering from lack of accountability. Centralization has contributed to the marble cake federalism because it has encouraged mixing of government functions in different levels of the government. The states are no longer as powerful as they were intended to be because of the powers the commonwealth government have gained and used to reduce their powers (Grewal & Sheehan, 2003, p. 1). Regionalism in Australia Federalism is a system of government in which the authority is divided between the federal, state and local governments (Saunders, 1997). According to Brown, (2007, p. 13) the case of Australia, federalism is defined as a system of government on which authority is constitutionally divided between the central government and the regions of the nation. According to the constitution, Australian has six regions (the six states) which previously were the six colonies of the British (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 13). The nation should therefore have a central government with its powers and responsibilities and the state governments with their powers and responsibilities as first intended by the founders of the Australian federal system. In the real world however, considering public policy and political culture, there are more than six regions. This is because of the definitions given to the regions. One is that a region is defined by the globalization trends (the concept to map trends in globalization), the second is that regions are defined by direct political and geographic ways, third is that there are regions defined by administrative and scientific roles of sub national, supra national and transnational levels of government and lastly, that there are regions based on being rural or urban, that is all those regions that are outside capital cities are referred to as rural regions (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 14-16). Since 1901, the Australian government has developed regions through which it conducts its governance most of which are developed by the commonwealth and the state government. These regions are developed for delivery of services by the state or commonwealth government or for purposes of decentralizing state or commonwealth government resources (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p.188). From the above description about region definitions, regions in Australia are formed for purposes of community engagement, bureaucratic organization, service delivery, planning and funding distribution (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 14) which explains why the state government and commonwealth government have engaged in development of their own regions (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 188). The regions are also formed on the basis of political and geographic ways which explains the existence of the six states of Australia, the scientific and the administrative basis which explains the existence of “the 57 regions of the federal state natural resource regional management bodies administering the National Heritage Trust and National Action Plan on water quality and salinity”, the “85 biogeoraphic regions of Australia identified cooperatively by state and federal government scientists since the early 1990s” (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 15) among several others and the rural urban regionalism (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 15). Because of the creation of such regions, the change in the system of governance to regionalism and the shift of more power towards the federal government, the Australian federalism has functioned more like a marble cake where commonwealth government selects its regions of service delivery, offers funding to the local government when the local governments form a bottom-up approach region, and overlooks the state’s region by directly offering funding to the local government (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189). The state governments have also created their own regions for service delivery and have overlooked their own local governments for offering regional service delivery. Local governments are the creations of the state governments but according to the constitution are not recognized as part of the federal system with powers and responsibilities (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 188). Regionalism in the Australian system of governance also led to the commonwealth government performing functions that were not constitutionally assigned to it. The Whitlam government of 1972-75 performed functions such as urban regional development, regional distribution of funds, environmental issues and the creation of a horizontal fiscal equalization scheme for the local government (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 188). References Brown, A. J. & Bellamy, J., 2007, Federalism & Regionalism in Australia: New Approaches, New Institutions? Sydney, NSW: ANU E Press. Brett, J.,Gillespie, J. A. and Goot, M., 1994, Developments in Australian Politics, Prahran, Victoria: Palgrave Macmillan Australia. Dautrich, K., Yalof, D. A., Prindle, D. F., Newell, C. and Shomaker, M., 2009, American Government: Historical, Popular, and Global Perspectives, Stamford, Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Grewal, B. and Sheehan, P., 2003, The Evolution of Constitutional Federalism in Australia: An Incomplete Contracts Approach, CSES Working Paper No. 22. Viewed on 1st September, 2010: Jaensch, D., 1997, The Politics of Australia, 2nd Ed., Norwood, SA: Macmillan Education Australia. Lader, C., 2006, How to Prepare for the AP U.S. Government & Politics Examination, 4th Ed., New York, US: Barron's Educational Series. Mohamed, P. F., 2006. The Concept of Federalism. The Law Journal. 13 (3), p. 1-3. Saunders, C. 1997, Federalism: the Australian Experience, Pretoria, SA: HSRC Publishers. The Australian Government. (2010). Fact sheet 150 – The 1967 Referendum. Archives of Australia. Viewed on 1st September, 2010 from: < http://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/publications/fact-sheets/fs150.aspx> Wiltshire, K., 1992, Australia's New Federalism: Recipes for Marble Cakes, The Journal of Federalism 22(3):165-180. Read More

Before the development of Australia’s federal system in 1901, the nation was constitutionally considered frozen. Even after the new federal system was implemented in 1901, very little change was observed considering social and economic change and the pressures that influence the adaptation of the structures of government (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 11). Recently however, several pressures have resulted to the changes in the system of government making the current federal system to be considered more centralized.

The economic, social sustainability and environmental pressures which come as a result of globalization in the world have caused new interactions between the government and the community, the different levels of the government and between politics and administration making the system of government to be totally different from what it was intended to be (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 11). Because of such interactions, regionalism and centralization developed in Australia changing the roles, responsibilities and the power of each level of government in the Australian system of governance.

The Marble Cake Federalism in Australia’s System of Governance Australia’s federalism is considered to have functioned as a marble cake because of centralism and regionalism. It is considered that of divided sovereignty (contrast to what the founders intended) and that with an imbalance in the financial resources (Brett, Gillespie & Goot, 1994, p. 62-68) all because of the changes that have occurred since. Below are reasons why the federal system became centralized and how regionalism has influenced the system of governance.

Centralization in the Australian Government The federal system in Australia came after the development and enactment of a constitution in 1901. The common wealth constitution was established as a constitution Monarchy which means the head of state was the Queen of Victoria by then. It gave Australia the form of government it adopted which until today is a federal government. The constitution defined the common wealth government, its powers, structure, obligations and procedures as well as the rights and obligations of the states within the common wealth government (Jaensch, 1997, p. 98). The system of government that has worked since 1901 is not what it was intended to be.

The commonwealth has gained more powers, the states can no longer act independently, the states have no enough finances and depend on funds from the common wealth and there is a mix in performing public functions not as when the federal system was established, when most public functions belonged to the state government (Brett, Gillespie & Goot, 1994, p. 62). Wiltshire indicates that there are six means through which the Australian federalism has been centralized (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189). One of such ways is through the amendment of the constitution which gave the commonwealth government more power.

In 1927, there was an amendment on section 105 (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189) in which a loan council was set up to regulate public borrowing through state and federal loans under the security and the name of the commonwealth (Mohamed, 2006, p. 2). Amendment of section 51 in 1946 gave the commonwealth social welfare powers, the amendment of section 51 and section 127 of the constitution (The Australian Government, 2010) that gave the commonwealth a role in indigenous affairs (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 189). High court judgments have also increased the commonwealth powers (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 190) for example in 1997, the high court invalidated state taxes and a new tax system developed based on federal tax collection system known as Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The high court has also given much power to the common wealth through interpretations for example the 2006 interpretation on federal power to regulate corporation (Brown & Bellamy, 2007, p. 11). The third means through which the commonwealth power has grown is through the financial relations.

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