The Role and Responsibilities of Commonwealth Government in the New Federalism - Essay Example

Australian New Federalism Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Date Executive Summary The New Federalism in Australia has overseen power sharing, scrutiny of the actions of the people in power and accorded the people the power of choosing their party affiliations. There are two governments, the State government and the Commonwealth government which have been in conflicts over some issues that have put the realization of cooperative federalism in jeopardy. The report has evaluated the role and responsibilities of the Commonwealth government in the new federalism, and the form of public management that would help the government to achieve its objectives. The report has also gone to recommend some intervention that would assist in the achievement of cooperative federalism while minimizing duplication and waste. From the findings, the report has documented the role of the Commonwealth government is primarily to ensure that every Australian citizen has access to public services equally. Also, the New Public Management (NPM) has been found to be the form of public management which will help the government to achieve its objectives. Australian Federalism Introduction Federalism refers to a system which protects the people, oversees that the actions of exercising power are scrutinized, while at the same time dividing power (Brown & Bellamy, 2007). In the case of Australia, the formal division or dispersal of power is achieved through federalism, which is regarded as the ‘major mechanism’ which oversees this power dispersal (Brown & Bellamy, 2007). Therefore, the New Federalism accords people greater choices where they can decide to offer their support to a particular political party either on the Commonwealth level or at the State level (Brown & Bellamy, 2007). This is because the people tend to prefer specific approaches towards addressing particular policy issues. Following this, the report will evaluate the role and responsibilities of the Commonwealth government in the New Federalism and the form of public management which will assist the government in the achievement of its objectives. Also, the report will document the interventions that could be introduced to oversee the facilitation of cooperative federalism, while at the same time eliminating waste and duplication. Role and Responsibilities of the Commonwealth Government The Constitution has granted the Commonwealth government several exclusive legislative powers in the new federalism. For example, the Commonwealth government possesses the exclusive powers of making laws concerning the federal places and departments which are obtained by the Commonwealth for the purpose of the public (CIE, 2012). On the other hand, regarding powers, the States just retained the plenary power which means that they have the powers to legislate any matters apart from the issues that the Commonwealth government has exclusive powers over (CIE, 2012). This, therefore, means that the Commonwealth government has the role and responsibility of making laws over a broad range of aspects and areas in the New Federation (CIE, 2012). Regarding Constitutional design, the Commonwealth government possesses the capabilities concerning revenue-generation while the state government is accorded the capabilities that concern service delivery (Brown, 2004). Following this, the Commonwealth rightly seeks to influence the provision of some of the basic services in Australia like education services, environmental protection, and conservation services, among others. Also, the Commonwealth government has the responsibility of ensuring that there are significant investments which would oversee the economic success of the country (Brown, 2004). Additionally, the Commonwealth is responsible for matters that relate to foreign policies about different issues like environmental protection and education systems (Brown, 2004). The Commonwealth government also has a role of ensuring that the Australian citizens can have access to all the essential services at least at the minimum levels (Silver, 2010). This government should not discriminate between any parts of different states when it comes to imposing a tax, and they are also not required to show any form of preference between states or parts of states. The Commonwealth government is accorded the role of ensuring that all the policies are applied in a uniform manner (Silver, 2010). This is because if any form of preferences or the subjection to different circumstances exists then, there could be ‘under provision’ of the basic services in particular areas regarding what those particular communities would prefer. At the same time, there could also be the ‘over-provision’ of these essential services in other areas (Silver, 2010). Following this, the Commonwealth government needs to oversee the uniform application of policies to ensure that all the citizens have access to the basic services uniformly. However, there is a recent trend in the New Federalism in Australia which depicts a change from the competitive and cooperative form of federalism towards an opportunistic form of federalism (Gallop, 2011). This comes in where the Commonwealth government utilizes its legislative and financial powers to intervene in some areas of the State responsibility so that they can make some political and ideological points (Gallop, 2011). When the Commonwealth government does this, it tends to undermine the advantages that are associated with the New Federalism which in turn exacerbates the challenges that are associated with federalism like excessive administrative burdens and duplications (Gallop, 2011). Form of Public Management The form of public management which will best assist the government to achieve its objectives is the New Public Management (NPM). The NPM refers to an approach where governments can enhance its efficiency regarding the service delivery to its citizens (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002). Under the NPM reforms, the centrality of citizens is critical because they are the recipients of the services that the government offers them. In trying to implement the NPM reforms, some governments have utilized the e-government programs or the central service location system to oversee cost reduction (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002). In a nutshell, the central themes of the NPM include enhancing efficiency in service delivery, financial control, identification and the setting of targets, and the continuous monitoring of their performance. When the Australian government adopts the NPM approach, it will significantly assist it in achieving its objectives since they will view their citizens as their ‘customers’ while they will view themselves and other public officials as the ‘public managers’ (O'Flynn, 2007). By doing this, the NPM approach will help the government to realign the relationship that they have between the public servants, the citizens, and the political superiors; who are the country leaders. Additionally, under this approach of public management, the public officials will adopt an incentive-based motivation like setting clear performance targets which could then be assessed through using various performance evaluations (O'Flynn, 2007). Through doing this, the government will end up achieving most of its objectives within the stipulated times, in an efficient manner, and to the satisfaction of its citizens. Since the Australian government, like many other governments, is grappling with the rapid technological, economic, and social changes which include the impacts of globalization, the NPM form of public management come in handy (O'Flynn, 2007). Aside from just helping government to achieve its objectives, the approach also assists it to ensure their productive performance which includes high levels of transparency. The form of public management will also give the Australian government the opportunity to be opened up to greater levels of competition, elevated levels of market involvement, high levels of accountability, and oversee the general improvement in the performance of the government (O'Flynn, 2007). The NPM form of public management works in a way that it changes the government behavior, actions, and policies. This then leads to higher levels of achieving the set objectives which in turn improves the government’s capacity through enhancing their performance in the public sector (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002). Since decades back, the Australian government has been characterized by various changes in its structure as well as its relations with other countries (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002). Additionally, the government has undergone various administrative reforms which in one way or the other impacted its capacity to achieve its objectives in particularly in addressing the needs of its citizens (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002). Finally, the NPM form of public management will enable the Australian government to identify its problem specifics and address them the way they are. Given that most of the objectives are developed on the basis of the specific problems that the country is facing, achieving these objectives will mean that the government will have identified the specific problems that its citizens are facing (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002). Additionally, since NPM approach concentrates the government on the issues that face its citizens and government, its implementation will prevent the government the importation of sets of reforms which were initially designed for a different country (O'Flynn, 2007). Adopting the reforms of other nations leads to a government losing its focus and essentially fulfilling the objectives of another country aside from its own (O'Flynn, 2007). Therefore, NPM will enable the Australian government to achieve its goals in that it will provide a practical objective implementation framework which is specific for that particular country. Interventions for Facilitation of Cooperative Federalism It is evident that the New Federalism leads to duplication and waste which proves to be very costly to the Australian government. Most of the duplication that is experienced in Australia primarily results from the Commonwealth funds and their attempts to micro-manage some programs of the State through some payments for specific purposes (National Commission of Audit, 2015). This, therefore, means that the Commonwealth government will end up creating its bodies to set some conditions or to monitor the implementation which will end up duplicating some of the state bodies. It would also mean that the State government will need to partake of some unnecessary administration so that they could justify the funds from the Commonwealth government (National Commission of Audit, 2015). Therefore, this waste and duplication could be avoided if the federal structure could be well managed and well structured. This is through the better allocation of financial resources and responsibilities between the States and the Commonwealth government, with each one of them funding and managing its responsibilities (National Commission of Audit, 2015). In the instances where the responsibilities between the States and the Commonwealth government need to be shared, then the Commonwealth government could utilize the existing State bodies instead of having to replicate them (Hollander, & Patapan, 2007). This way, the amount of the required administration could be minimized in the case that the programs were being judged on the basis of results as opposed to the inputs and processes. On the other hand, both the Commonwealth government and the State would need to share the responsibility of making sure that the new federal system work better and in a much more efficient manner (Hollander, & Patapan, 2007). This can be possible through both of the governments harnessing the benefits of federalism and through taking actions which will either reduce or eliminate the challenges that are associated with its operations (Hollander, & Patapan, 2007). By doing this, there would be significant social and economic benefits which could be realized in the nation. Cooperative federalism could also be achieved through giving the formal legal status to Council of Australian Governments (COAG) and then requiring it to conduct some regular meetings each with a particular agenda (Silver, 2010). The agenda of these meetings should be determined cooperatively by both the Commonwealth government and the State as opposed to being defined by the Commonwealth government alone. Another means of achieving this cooperative federalism could be through amending the Australian Constitution to eliminate the barriers that exist in the cooperative legislative schemes (Silver, 2010). This will, in turn, enable both the State and the Commonwealth governments to enter the joint schemes with one national body responsible for resolving disputes and one nation regulator as well (Silver, 2010). Finally, cooperative federalism is achievable through allowing the States, just like the Commonwealth governments to play a role when it comes to the appointment of High Court judges or on the establishment of the Judicial Commission which then recommends the appointments of the High Court judges (Twomey &Withers, 2007). Additionally, a provision could be included in the Australian Constitution which supports creating intergovernmental agreements (Twomey &Withers, 2007). In the same light, the constitutional amendments need to be subjected to referenda where a minimum of half of the State Parliament needs to support the constitutional amendments (Twomey &Withers, 2007). This will end up representing a significant number of the Australian citizens or the elected constitutional conventions as opposed to just the Commonwealth Parliament Conclusion The New Federalism is a system of government which oversees that there is the division of power, the scrutiny of the actions of power and protects the people by giving them the power to make choices regarding their political party affiliations both in the Commonwealth and State level. Federalism has been linked to various benefits in the Australian government despite the challenges of duplication and wastage. The Commonwealth has the primary role of ensuring that all of the Australian citizens have access to basic services among other responsibilities. The NPM form of public management is the most efficient in overseeing and assisting the government to achieve its objectives. To promote cooperative federalism and minimizing waste and duplication, various interventions can be implemented as documented above. References Brown, A.J. & Bellamy, J. eds (2007). Federalism and Regionalism in Australia: New Approaches, New Institutions, Canberra, ANU E Press. Brown, A.J. (2004). ‘One Continent, Two Federalisms: Rediscovering the Original Meanings of the Australian Federal Political Ideas’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 39(4): pp. 485-504. CIE (2012). Impacts of Commonwealth public sector job cuts on the ACT, report prepared for Select Committee on Estimates 2012-13 ACT Legislative Assembly, Centre for International Economics, Canberra and Sydney. Gallop, G. (2011). How Healthy is Australian Federalism? Papers on Parliament, No. 56, July, Canberra, Parliament of Australia. Hollander, R. & Patapan, H. (2007). ‘Pragmatic Federalism: Australian Federalism from Hawke to Howard’. Australian Journal of Political Science, 42, 2. McLaughlin, K., Osborne, S. P., & Ferlie, E. (2002). New public management: Current trends and future prospects. Psychology Press. National Commission of Audit (2015). Reforming the Federation. Available on-line at: http://www.ncoa.gov.au/report/appendix-vol-1/8-reforming-federation.html. O'Flynn, J. (2007). From new public management to public value: Paradigmatic change and managerial implications. Australian journal of public administration, 66(3): 353-366. Silver, H. (2010). ‘Getting the best out of federalism—the role of the Productivity Commission and the limits of national approaches’. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 69(3): 327. Twomey, A. and Withers, G. (2007). Australia’s Federal Future: Delivering Growth and Prosperity, a report for the Council for the Australian Federation. Read More