SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON. E. G. WHITLAM, M. P.,
OPENING ADDRESS TO CONFERENCE OF THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON
FEDERAL FINANCIAL RELATIONS, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
27 August 1975
THE NEW FEDERALISM:
A REVIEW OF LABOR'S PROGRAMS AND POLICIES
The title given to this Conference itself illustrates
a basic characteristic of Australian federalism and the
approach which Australians have usually taken towards their
federal system. The general title is: " Making Federalism
Work Towards a More Efficient, Equitable and Responsive
Federal System". We Australians have always tended towards
a pragmatic and practical approach without concerning ourselves
overmuch with deep questionings about the philosophical nature
and purposes of federalism. Significantly this conference
does not ask the question, what is Australian federalism?
It asks, is federalism working, or can it be made to work better?
One might draw a contrast with America. A similar
conference in the United States would, in all probability,
be as concerned with first principles about the nature and
purpose of the American Constitution as about its practical
operation. For a variety of reasons, the Americans have
always tended to be more reverential towards their Constitution
than Australians, though curiously, much more ready to amend it.
whatever one's opinion about the excellence of the
Australian Constitution, one would not, I think, readily
apply to it Gladstone's description of the American Constitution
as " the most majestic single work ever struck off by the
brain of man". However high our regard for our own founding
fathers, it lies this side of idolatry.
The practical and political preoccupations of our
Constitution-makers at the conventions of the 1890' s still
dominate our approach today. We are still preoccupied with
practical and political questions of how to make the Federal
system work. In particular, we have been concerned almost exclusively
with financial relations, as the name of the Australian National
University Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations
itself bears out. Up to 1972 this question was invariably
referred to as Commonwealth/ State financial relations and usually
meant Commonwealth versus State financial relations. To the
extent that Australian federalism has been limited to the
concept of Commonwealth/ State financial relations the debate has
tended to be cast in terms of confrontation between the States
and Canberra.' This has occurred whatever the Party affiliation
of the State Premiers, whatever the ideological stance of
the Prime Minister of the day a conservative federalist
like Menzies, a conservative centralist like Gorton, or a
reform regionalist like the present incumbent.
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My first involvement with this Centre when its
establishment was proposed by Mr McMahon in 1972 was to urge
successfully that local government should be included within
its research charter. One hopes that the continuing work of
this Centre and conferences like this may help broaden the
debate and lift it beyond the slogans of centralism versus
States' rights. I believe they are concepts which little
accord with the needs or ideas of the Australian people and are
even less in accord with the reality of what the Australian
Government is trying to achieve.
I accepted the suggestion that the them of my own
address should be: " The new Federalism: A Review of Labor's
Programs and Policies". I thought that appropriate not
least because I used this expression towards a new
federalism in the last major address I made on this general
subject within this University to the Academy of Social Sciencc
at the Australian National University Seminar on Intergovernmenti,
Relations on 8 November 1971. 1 meant then and mean now nothing
especially grandiose about the term. I do not pretend to
have invented a new philosophy of government. My Federalist
Papers, if ever honoured by publication by the A. N. U. are
not intended to be a new testament to replace Hamilton,
Madison and Jay.
I was concerned then as I am now that our institution.,
and administrative system should provide a proper balance
b etween finances and functions, that each of our three levels
of government should be able to carry out the functions which
it is best able to perform. As I said here in November 1971:
" Each of our three levels of government has functions
which it is best able to perform. The key to
effective performance is not domination but
consultation, not centralisation but co-ordination.
An Australian Schools Commission would no more
deprive the States of their schools, nor an
Australian Hospitals Commission deprive the States
of their hospitals, than the present Universities
Commission has deprived them of their universities.
Failing such commissions I see no way of determining
the objective priorities for those Commonwealth
grants without which neither schools nor hospitals
can improve. Again, we will not return power to
the people simply by concentrating assistance on
the existing States. A meaningful devolution of
power will be effected in this country only when
we provide local authorities with the means and
incefttives to associate freely on the basis of
shared urban and regional interests. The new
federalism will rest on a national framework for
the establishment of investment priorities and a
regional framework for participation in all those
decisions which most directly determine the quality
of our lives." ./ 3
-3-
You will see that that statement addressed itself
to the three criteria implied in the theme of this conference
as the benchmarks by which we may measure how well federalism
is working first more efficient, secondly more equitable
and thirdly more responsive. But there is a question within
the question posed in each case. More efficient, yes but
for what purpose? It is possible to create a system which
may be quite efficient for the administrators but not very
efficient in the delivery of the benefits it is designed to
give. More equitable for whom? It is possible to make
arrangements which are seen as equitable as between the levels
of government concerned in those arrangements but which impose
continuing inequalities as between States and regions.
More responsive to whom? It may be possible to have a
national government which seems to respond readily to demands
and pressures from State Premiers but which is not really
responsive to the needs or wishes of the people.
oversimplified concepts such as centralism or States'
rights, particularly if they are thought of as mutually
hostile, mutually exclusive concepts, would have very little
to do with the promotion of efficiency, equity or responsiveness.
And of course it is a gross oversimplification to depict the
actions of the present Australian Government in centralist
terms. It is a grotesque caricature to depict the program of
the Australian Government in centralist terms.
It is not perhaps sufficiently recognised how much
the program I set out on behalf of the Australian Labor Party
in 1972 was about federalism. Indeed in its totality, in
terms of the initiatives and innovations proposed and the
means by which they were to be implemented, the policy
speech of 1972 could well justify the description of being a
document for a new federalism.
It is true that these programs specified new initiatives
and called for vigorous action by the national Government.
The programs assert the principle that unless the national
Government becomes involved in a major function or costly servicE
that function or service will either not be financed fairly
or not financed adequately or not financed at all. it should
be equally recognised that those national initiatives and
actions required co-operation with the States and the involvement
of the States and local government. Action, reform, involvement
by the national Government are not necessarily centralism.
The program of 1972 was not framed by doctrinaire centralists.
It was not framed as a statement of centralism. Nor, significant
was it interpreted as such when it was presented and argued
not, to the best of my recollection, by those who criticised it,
and certainly not by those who supported it. It was never
depicted in those terms. / 14
For example, there would be no Australian newspaper
more apt to detect the centralist heresy than the Sydney
Morning Herald. As the thinking behind the Labor Party's
program for national involvement developed and matured, so did
the views of the Sydney Morning Herald. I raised some eyebrows
and some horse laughs when I first urged national assistance
for sewerage works. On 24 October 1969, the eve of that year's
House of Representatives elections, the Sydney Morning Herald
had climaxed its editorial campaign against the A. L. P. with a
crunch line on I quote " Mr Whitlam's dizzy vision of
Canberra deciding the correct line of a sewer in Bankstown."
By 23 January 1970 it was saying surely the Commonwealth
Government will heed the plea of the Premier, Mr Askin for
special assistance on such a basic problem as additional funds
for the Water Board's sewage treatment plans". On 6 August 1970,
it again gave the Water Board's sewerage backlogs as " surely
an unanswerable instance of the need for the Commonwealth to
accept greater responsibility for urban requirements."
On 26 December 1970: " If problems such as pollution are not
to grow much worse, governments, and especially the Commonwealth
Government, must show a deeper appreciation of city needs".
On 7 April 1971: " More than 500,000 homes in the Sydney
metropolitan area are still unsewered. These basic problems
can be overcome only by a reappraisal of priorities at the
Federal level." I've never seen such intelligent, fair-minded,
responsible, judicious editorials in the Sydney Morning Herald
until last week's Budget!
At the heart of the program for national involvement
lay a view about modern, more contemporary, more rational
relations between the three levels of government and more modern,
more contemporary, more rational arrangements for the financing
and discharge of functions which modern communities now require
their elected representatives to fulfil.
Just how much our program was a statement about
tederalism a partnership between the three levels of
government is evident by recalling very briefly its key
proposals. The Schools Commission was designed to examine and
determine the needs of students in government and non-government,
primary, secondary, and technical schools. Quite apart from
the objective of making vastly more money available for education,
w e intended the Commission to -help the States with the greatest
burden upon their Budgets schools.
The Pre-School Commission was designed to enable the
children in the-States to enjoy at least equal opportunities
for pre-school care and education then enjoyed only by children
in Canberra, where the Commonwealth could not escape responsibilit
The abolition of fees at tertiary institutions and the
assumption by the Commonwealth of full responsibility for
financing tertiary education fulfilled an agreement made by all
the Labor leaders, federal and State, in 1967.
So similarly did our undertaking to make the full range
of Commonwealth assistance available for buildings and
equipment for staff and students at all teacher colleges.
The proposal for a Hospitals Commission meant that the
States would be helped with what was then the heaviest burden
on t1-ir budgets after education.
The program for urban and regional development represente.
an altogether new approach to the idea of national involvement
in the places where most Australians live. It envisaged an
altogether new approach in the relations between the three levels
of government. The specific proposals included the creation
of land commissions, a new Commonwealth/ State housing agreement,
a national sewerage plan and national aid for urban transport.
We proposed to require the Grants Commission to promote equality
between regions as it had formerly promoted equality between
the States. We undertook to accept the offers as they then
were of the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers as they th.
were for the transfer of their State railways systems and to
accept such an offer from any other State.
We undertook to revive the Inter-State Commission to
enable it to achieve the purpose envisaged by the Constitution
of ending the centralism fostered by the State Governments
within their borders through their transport systems. We
undertook co-operation with the States in supporting the
, regional development plans they had already announced. We
undertook assistance to the States and to local commurities for
the preservation of the national estate.
In order to make local government a genuine partner
in the federal system we undertook to make direct representation
of local government a condition of the Australian Government's
participation in the Constitutional Convention pr9posed for 1973.-
Further, we proposed anzamennmntofthe-Financial Agreefl
to give semi-and local government authoriti-. a voice and a
vote at the Loan Council.
It is impossible to say which parts of the program
presented in 1972 were most important in shezr terms of winning
the necessary votes to change the balance of political power.
Certainly, issues like conscription and Vietnam-were charged
with more emotion. But the ongoing issues, the ones that had to
be developed most thoroughly, to be explained most frequently,
to be expatiated upon at greatest length and in greatest detail
were those that come under the three broad headings of education,
health and urban and regional development schools, hospitals,
cities. They might not always have raised the loudest cheers,
but they certainly sustained the longest interest. They may not
have been gut issues, but they were the guts of the program.
And the great relevance of this basic political fact in my
present context is that these programs had to be defined within
a reasoned framework of national-state-local relations, financial,
functional and administrative.
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They had to be relevant and shown to be relevant to the
systems within which they would update the Australian federal
system. The program for schools, hospitals and cities would
never have made sense had it been conceived just as an exercise
in centralism; it would never have been endorsed if it had
been perceived as such.
It is important to remember that the essence of these
programs is not just increases in government spending. We
sought new techniques, not new taxes. we sought to improve
the machinery by which Australians govern themselves, not
just to outlay more of their money on national programs which
might hold electoral appeal for them.
The program was, particularly in its earliest stages
of implementation, admittedly expensive. It was avowedly
expansive. We sought to do two things. We sought to catch
up a backlog over a whole range of social matters created by
twenty-three years of conservative government and we sought
to make a breakthrough over a whole range of national issues
to make Australian government more efficient, more equitable,
more responsive. We make no apologies for being an activist Government.
But there is nothing necessarily centralist or anti-Federalist
about action by the national government. More action by
Canberra need not be equated with more power for Canberra.
National involvement in the planning and financing is not
incompatible with co-operative planning. Rather it is essential
to successful co-operative planning under the Australian
system. This holds true even in cases where the very greatest
of new outlays have been involved. In what sense can it be
rationally argued that the vastly increased sums made available
to the State Education Departments and the non-government
schools through the Schools Commission is a victory for
centralism? Who could now dismantle the Schools Commission in
the name of State rights? Again in what sense can it be
rationally argued that the redundancy of the private health
bureaucracies through Medibank is a triumph for the central
bureaucracy? But the long rearguard action by four of the StateE
against Medibank was presumably fought on just that ground.
I can best illustrate the approach of the Australian
Government by referring to the actions we took at the three
Premiers' Conferences of 1973, 1974 and 1975.
At the 1973 Premiers' Conference I put the view that in
the fields of welfare housing and tertiary education, Australian
Government spending had grown so much in the 30 years since
the Commonwealth first became involved that the Australian
Government should now accept full financial responsibility
for them. The States accepted the view; the Australian
Government now accepts that responsibility.
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At the 1974 Premiers' Conference we adopted a new roads
program. I put the view that there was no hope of our having
satisfactory inter-State highways under the existing
arrangements and that acting under Section 51( i) of the
Constitution the Australian Government was prepared to accept
not just 80 per cent of the financial burden, but 100 per cent.
At the 1975 Premiers' Conference I stressed that the
Australian Government was not prepared to carry the States'
deficit where it is growing most rapidly on railways and
hospitals other than on the basis of the agreement which
we had already achieved with South Australia. That is, we
are prepared to acquire the State railways and to share
hospital costs fifty-fifty.
In other words, at these three conferences, we have
shown our readiness to adopt a constructive approach to the
financial problems of the States. It seems to me ludicrous
to suggest that the provision of basic physical services like
inter-State roads and railways should be submerged in debate
over questions of political power or political rights. In
other federal systems such matters are planned on a national
basis. I must emphasise, however, that our approach to the
States' financial problems has by no means been limited to
a willingness to accept responsibility for some of their more
burdensome and costly services. We have not only freed them
of some of their burdens, but have given them the financial
means towards greater freedom in pursuing their own pi: poses.
There has been a very large increase in general purpose funds,
even given the constraints all governments are now under.
The figures are instructive: improved financial
assistance grants to the States, accepted at the June Premiers'
Conference, will provide a total of about $ 3,185 million in
1975/ 76, an increase of $ 811 million or 34.2 per cent over
the grants paid in 1974/ 75. The States are free to determine
how these funds are spent. The increase of 34.2 per cent is
very significantly greater than the increase in total Australian
Government outlays estimated at 22.9 per cent.
There is the additional freedom which Medibank funding
will provide to the States in 1975/ 76 relief of the order
of $ 300 million. The Australian Government has undertaken that
such relief will not be the subject of " offsets" to general
revenue grants. Unconditional funds available to the States
will thus be very significantly increased.
The Budget itself reflects an important change of
emphasis in our future approach. In the first two years of
office we relied heavily on grants under Section 96 of the
Constitution to break through in key areas which had been badly
neglected by our predecessors. Under Section 96 we involved
the national Government directly in new initiatives at the
local level. In the new Budget we have increased emphasis on
untied grants to the States through general revenue assistance
and to local government through the Grants Commission. / 8
-8-
The June Premiers' Conference was also notable for a
significant-move towards co-operative planning with the
States. Premiers' Conferences themselves are obviously unable
to act effectively to co-ordinate policies and determine
priorities. Before the June Conference Australian Government
officials conferred with State officials on the development
of co-operative planning. Those discussions were taken further
at the Premiers' Conference itself and the Premiers agreed
that the officers should develop more specific proposals and
report back to us.
As I told the Premiers:
" The Australian Government will be seeking in
the longer term a more rational and co-ordinated
system of assessing needs, setting priorities and
allocating resources in the public sector one
based on co-operation between Governments. it
may take years to develop a new approach of the
kind we have in mind, of the kind discussed among
our officials. But we believe a start should be
made now."
We have already taken steps towards co-operative
planning, for example in the fields of transport, health
and urban development.
Transport systems should be planned on an integrated
basis, the right balance needs to be struck between land, sea
and air transport so that the resulting total system satisfies
our nation's needs and priorities.
The Transport Advisory Council has become the major
forum for discussion and consultation on the problems of
public transport services and main railway lines and is now
concerned also with road matters. Moreover, the Australian
Government has recently taken the initiative in bringing
aviation matters before the Council.
In the health field, two major new programs have been
developed by the Hospitals and Health Services Commission in
close co-operation with the States the Community Health
Program and the Hospitals Development Program.
In the latter case, formal provision has been made
for co-operative planning the hospitals buildings program
for each State is considered jointly and formally by equal
numbers of Australian and State Government officers who
recommend to'their respective Governments the total program
of hospital development within the particular State.
In the case of the community health program, there is
a process of consultation, somewhat short of co-operative
planning, which recognises that individual health services
must be seen as part of an integrated and co-ordinated system.
There is growing support for the development of a
regional approach to the planning of health services. New
South Wales has formally regionalised its health services
planning and administration, and other States are examining
such an approach.
It is hoped that as regional planning and administration
of health services are developed-the Australian and State
Governments will be able to divest themselves of unnecessary
detail and devote their energies to co-operative planning
and evaluation at the broad level, while responding to and
promoting detailed planning and administrative responsibility
at the regional level.
There has been considerable progress recently in the
development of co-operative planning arrangements in the field
of urban development.
Perhaps the most complete example is the arrangements
for Ministerial Councils to oversee the development of each
of the designated growth centres. These Ministerial Councils
require the State and Australian Ministers working jointly to
determine the overall development strategy for each growth
centre-and the forward financial plan associated with that
strategy on a rolling basis five years ahead.
The Australian Government's intentions for co-operative
planning are that it be a process by which national priorities
are identified and harmonised with the priorities of other
levels of governments; by which CO>-ordinated forward planning
i's developed in pursuit of agreed ' priorities and by which functior
and finances of the Australian, State and local gover~ nents
are better balanced.
In February this year I announced the establishment
of a small committee of Ministers to be concerned primarily
with the Australian Government's relations with the States.
The Ministers are the Treasurer, the Minister for Social Security,
the, Minister for Urban and Regional Development, and myself.
This Committee is also undertaking examination of programs of
direct assistance to regions, to local government and to local
communities. This Australian Government has stressed a regional
approach to planning and decision-making.
Agreement has been reached with all States on the
regional borders used for Grants Commission purposes. In most
cases. these boundaries have been defined by the States
themselves. Our purpose in developing a regional policy, in
identifying logical regions and hopefully, contributing to
the growth of a sense of regional identity among Australian
communities, is not to out-flank the States or to replace local
government. But it is a fact that there are a wide range of
community programs and services which are most efficiently and
equitably planned, co-ordinated and delivered at a level
intermediary to those of State and local governments. There are
many examples electricityj reticulation, water and sewerage,
hospitals, libraries, some forms of public transport and some
welfare services.
The Australian Government has been encouraged by
the degree of acceptance of the concept of regionalism by local
government and the widespread recognition that regionalism
is not a threat but rather a stimulus to local government.
For our part, we see regionalism as crucial to our efforts to
make local government a genuine partner in the federal system.
The work of the Grants Commission has been the most important
step to that end that we have so far achieved. Following
the Governments acceptance of the Commission's Second Report
million will be provided without conditions this year
a 42 per cent increase on last year. Despite our efforts
at the 1973 Constitutional Convention and at a special
Premiers' Conference in October 1973 and at the May 1974
referendum, we have not yet been able to fulfil our promise
of 1972 and our hope of 1974 to give local government a voice
and a vote in the Loan Council and reasonable direct access
to the nation's finances.
Central to our concepts of regionalism are devolution
of decision-making and public participation at the regional
and local levels to give the people a say in matters
affecting them directly. The Coombs Royal Commission is
examining the regionalisation of Australian Government
administration with the aim of improving the delivery of
government services to the citizen and of giving the citizen
easier access to the array of services provided by different
levels of government.
At the Constitutional Convention on 3 September 1973
I put it that regionalism was a logical and necessar-extension
of the federal system. I said:
" Why did we create this Federation? The answer
is partly to alleviate inequalities between
regions, between colonies. Why did we accept
the Financial Agreement of 1928? The answer
is to alleviate inequalities between the States.
Why did we establish the Grants Commission? To
reduce even further inequalities between the States.
Much of the object of our history, the thrust of
our traditions, a deep part of the purpose of our
being one nation, is to alleviate inequalities. The
task now is to alleviate inequalities between regions;
our new regions, our new pattern of development know
little of the borders and boundaries established in
Whitehall last century."
It is ironic indeed that some of the Constitution's
clearest intentions and the clearest intentions of the
Constitution-makers in the 1890' s are still so strongly resisteC~
in the 1970' s.
A striking example is the resistance to the reconstitut'
of the Inter-State Commission. Section 101 requires the
appointment of the Commission . The section reads:
" 1101. There shall be an inter-State Commission,
with such powers of adjudication and administration
as the Parliament deems necessary for the execution
and maintenance, within the Commonwealth, of the
provisions of this Constitution relating to trade
and commerce, and of all laws made thereunder."
-11-
The Joint Committee on Constitutional Review, to
which I was appointed in 1956, unanimously recommended in 1959
the reconstitution of the Commission. It was, as I mentioned
earlier, one of the undertakings I gave in 1972 and repeated
in 1974. I don't recall in all those years any suggestion
that the Commission or the proposal to reconstitute it was in
any way sinister. Yet our intention and more our positive
undertaking to re-establish the Commission has been stalled
in the Senate and you may have noticed some of the denuciations.
For example, the New South Wales Minister for Federal
Affairs, Mr Hewitt was reported on 26 August in Tuesday's
Sydney Morning Herald as saying:
" The bill is more in keeping with the practices
of Nazi Germany than a federal democracy such
as Australia".
The-fact is that the Commission would do the job
intended by the Constitution to help solve the problems,
particularly transport problems, inherent in a federal system,
inherent in the continental nature of Australia herself.
There are the current examples of Bass Strait freight rates,
Victorian transport costs to the Riverina and the cancellation
of shipping services operated by Associated Steamships
from Fremantle to the eastern States. As I wrote on this last
matter to the Premier of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court,
on 13 August: " The Australian. Government's intention to
re-establish the Inter-State Commission, which
has been delayed by the Opposition in the
Senate, is designed to examine and seek solutions
to problems of this nature involving competing
modes of transport. In the absence of legislation
re-constituting the Commission, Government
intervention in matters of this kind is beyond
power under the Constitution." m
To sum up the approach of the Australian Labor GovernmE
to the federal system:
the national Government has involved itself
directly in financing and planning of a wide
range of new functions, particularly where
national involvement is crucial to the
achievement of equality of opportunity and
equality of services,
in its relations with the States, the national
Government has accepted or is willing to accept
financial responsibility for services, the
provision of which has hitherto imposed the
heaviest burdens on State budgets. Yet at the
same time we have increased general purpose
grants at a significantly increased level. / 12
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* We have embarked upon co-operative planning
at both the Ministerial and official level
on a continuing basis in those areas where
national and State responsibilities overlap
or dovetail.
* We have developed a regional policy to provide
community services which cannot be as well
provided by any of the existing levels of
government acting alone.
* Local government is becoming a genuine partner
in the federal system and is securing direct
access to the nation's financial resources.
In contemporary Australia, the questions about
structures, systems and powers the sort of concern expressed
in the old slogans about centralism or States' rights are
more likely to be the preoccupation of politicians, public
officials, the press and, perhaps, academics, rather than
the general public. The people's concern will not be so much
who performs a function, but how well it is performed in
terms of their needs and wishes and hopes.
The program of the Australian Labor Party, as developed
in Opposition, as implemented in Government, has been very
much about an attempt to bring our federal system and our
federal machinery up to date, at least to a degree already
achieved by comparable federal systems, particularly those
of Canada, West Germany and the United States.
For more than a generation, the old approach to the
Australian federal system the buck-passing of responsibility
between governments, the crude confrontation at the annual
charade of the Premiers' Conference exploited the federal
system at the expense of the Australian people. The limitations
of the Constitution were used by all governments of all
parties Federal and State as an alibi. Canberra exploited
the system to justify indifference; the States used it to
justify inertia. I might say in passing, that Liberal
Premiers sometimes think that I am abrasive about their
unwillingness to come to terms with new realities; let me
say at least that I am even sharper with any Labor leader
or State branch who uses the alibi of the federal system to
justify their failure to develop policies either relevant to
that system or particularly relevant to the needs of the people
of their States.
Be that as it may, the fact is that for a generation and
more, other federal systems were attempting to move ahead, to
grapple with the new problems created by the New Society these
highly urban, highly mobile, highly technological civilisations.
We lagged behind.
In very many important respects urban development,
transport, health, welfare, education our program was developed
and designed to match these new realities and to match what was
already being done in modern comparable federal systems.
-13-
It is interesting some may say ironic that just
when the Australian Government and the Australian system began
to catch up in terms of what had been done abroad in Federal
systems long ago, the results achieved in other systems should
come under a new and searching and critical scrutiny, indeed
a fundamental reappraisal. The new concern is whether the
objectives sought by the range of new federal programs are
actually being met. Are they delivering the goods to the
people they are designed to benefit? Are the expectations raise,-,
by the promise fulfilled in the reality? Have they produced
benefits proportionate to their cost? Have they created
welfare or merely a welfare bureaucracy? These are proper
questions already being asked, particularly in the United
States. We should certainly be asking them here about our
own programs. I should be the last to suggest that--there are
no lessons to be learnt from overseas experience, from the
experience of comparable federal systems, except those that
were to be learnt up to December 1972.
It is further interesting to note that, in the
United States, the new questioning about the efficiency,
equity and responsiveness of federal programs comes especially
from concerned liberals, from Democrats, from the heirs of
the New Deal and the authors of the Great Society.
But this new scrutiny would miss its mark if it mistook
failures in specific methods for failures of ideals and objectives.
It would be a travesty and a tragedy it trie onjectives
of welfare, of equality, of civil liberties, were to
be discredited simply because of flaws in the means by which
governments, here or abroad, were attempting to achieve them.
Knowing how quickly we imitate trends of discussion
in the United States, I think it very likely that it will
become fashionable here quite soon to decry and deride and
strive to discredit the great post-War effort towards
collective and community social welfare and social equality
made in the United States, as well as in Europe, in Britain
and in Australia herself.
From those who seek to enshrine inequality, there is
going to be a great deal of talk about " enforced equality".
Such arguments will miss the point entirely. President Johnson
proclaimed the Great Society. The ends which were sought have
not been achieved. The expectations aroused have not been met.
All sorts of reasons are given and there is truth in them.
But if the vision splendid has dimmed, let us remember that
beyond the actual shortcomings of the programs, in both
conception and execution there was a fundamental contradiction
which lies at the root of the failure of the Great Society.
The contradiction was that even the United States, for all its
unparalleldd wealth and power, could finance both the Great
Society and the war in Indo-China without damage to herself
and all of us. And just as that fallacy is at the root of the
failure of the vision of the Great Society, it is at the root
of half the economic problems we all face today. Let us bear
that in mind, before we pass judgement on the success or failure
of federal government-sponsored welfare programs, either in
the United States or in Australia. / 14
-14-
Nonetheless, the scrutiny of such programs must be
undertaken are they efficient, are they equitable, are they
really responding to the needs and wishes of the people.
That scrutiny is being undertaken by this Government. The
Budget itself was part of that process as the Treasurer
put it: " A time to pause and take stock, a time to
consolidate".
We want a continuing scrutiny to go on in co-operation with
the other Australian governments at all levels at the
federal, State and local levels, at the political and
administrative levels.
I believe the record of the past two and a half years
justifies the assertion that the Australian Government has
tried to inject a new life into the Australian federal system
and a new meaning into Australian federalism.
It has not been done through any mindless, centralist
doctrine, but by a genuine effort to build more modern,
efficient machinery at all levels of government. It has
been a genuine, creative, constructive, co-operative effort
to make Australian federalism more efficient, more equitable
and, above all, more responsive to the people of Australia
wherever they live.