John Menadue’s suggestion that Greens and Independents need to start thinking about their “bottom line” in preparation for a minority Labor Government is excellent. A key area for progress is collaboration across government levels. Despite talk for years and federal/state meetings, not much progress has occurred. In order to do better we need to look at what failed and what can be done better in future.
Governments for years have been focused on trying to save money by shunting responsibility to another level of government, or refusing to accept more costs by refusing transfers. A key one is the ongoing problem of hospitals run by states wanting to transfer old people to the aged care services run by the Commonwealth, but finding they cannot do so as they are told there is no capacity, resulting in beds being blocked and unavailable for new hospital patients. Independents and Greens could insist that health service delivery of health services from hospital to primary health care, to aged and disability care, should be run by the states, with the Institute of Health and Welfare having a key role in coordinating the agreed systems and evaluation mechanisms.
Years ago, when I worked in the Agriculture Department, I did a review of the Wheat Freight Subsidy Scheme for Tasmania. The Federal Government was thinking of cancelling the subsidy and wanted to assess the impacts of doing so, together with other alternatives. There were obvious areas for examination:
- The wheat from the mainland was shipped to Tasmania in a number of small ships – one large ship would bring economies of scale, but the silo was too small for one large shipment.
- The bakeries and glue factories etc. operated with small profits, and without the subsidy many would go bankrupt. Discussion with state services provided an estimate of numbers of unemployed, and costs of services resulting from the outcomes of business closures, such as crime rates, health problems, suicide rates, domestic violence, homelessness etc.
- Discussion informally with shipping services, state agriculture and others led to an agreed costed plan. If the Commonwealth provided funds for a revised scheme at the same level for five years which could be applied to infrastructure development (building of a large silo), one large ship could provide the wheat, and at the end of that time no federal subsidy would be required.
- The recommendations had to exclude costings of the impact on state services if the subsidy was cancelled, as the Commonwealth had no interest in their costs. Unfortunately, a change of government in Tasmania, just at the time the recommendations of the review were accepted at Commonwealth level, meant that the scheme was continued unamended.
Similarly when the Regional Forest Agreements were being developed around Australia, focussing on economic and environmental factors, we argued that the impact of closing coupes to wood chipping on the people involved needed to be assessed. It was agreed we could do a very brief social impact assessment for cabinet. The costs to people, in terms of houses under mortgage which they could not sell, lack of other jobs in the areas, and lack of skills without re-training, were just three key ones. The Commonwealth agreed to a tiny amount of compensation and re-training support, but it was only a tiny percentage of the costs we estimated.
In review of any service, or in strategic planning, Independents and Greens could insist that the costs of all options being considered must include costs to federal, state and local governments, as well as to NGOs and businesses where relevant. In this way possible cost-shifting, and severe inequities, can be identified and hopefully prevented. Two historical models for this are the Rural Affairs Network, including federal, state, local government association and rural doctor and nurse NGOs; and the Action Plan for Australian Agriculture which included the above as well as leaders of all key industry groups.
Because politicians all want to get credit for grassroots activities to support their positions, especially at election time, there is huge duplication of grant programs coordinators at local, state and federal levels. Local government should be the manager of community programs in most cases. Independents and Greens could insist on this as part of their “bottom line”.