Australia is
OVERGOVERNED and UNDERPLANNED and UNDERMANAGED!
Position Paper by Peter Consandine!
Whether it be the Wanneroo Council on the Western Seaboard or the Wollongong Council on The Eastern Seaboard, Local/Municipal Government in Australia is a “plaything” of State Governments and, writ large, is exposed to all manner of corruption whilst giving nourishment to unhealthy parochialism and nimbyism.
Whether it is the State of Western Australia or the State of New South Wales, the capital cities of Perth and Sydney, respectively, are too centralised and far too bureaucratic to be efficient enough to deliver appropriate professional public services Statewide. As a result, there are manifestly underfunded Local/Municipal Councils (some 670 of them) and there is wholesale duplication, waste of resources, non-economies of scale, non-uniform laws, serious cost shifting and blame shifting and third-rate governance practices in this country. ALL of this is made more complicated with the recent trends of the Federal government to muscle in on and compete with State Governments on service deliveries, processes and outcomes. Another factor is that instead of just one link with the Crown we have nine!
The Australian Federal System is creaking with OVERLOAD on a massive scale – from every perspective.
The Three Tier System of Federal plus State plus Local/Municipal/City Governments is a shambles and it is in dire need of an entire restructure.
Australia is OVERGOVERNED, UNDERPLANNED and UNDERMANAGED!
What needs to be done? For Starters: See Dot Point #3 of The RPA Manifesto
Links to 30 billion dollar savings etc and Mark Drummond’s current updated estimates on costing Oz constitutional change
In Dr Mark Drummond’s PhD thesis dated November 2007, the following concise/abridged Abstract was drawn:
The Beginnings
at https://members.webone.com.au/~markld/PhD/Chs/Beginnings.pdf
included in the Abstract, on page ii:
It is estimated that Unification and some Regional Government models could achieve financial benefits in the order of five to ten per cent in both public and private sectors and the economy as a whole, which, in June 2002 $AUD dollar terms, would amount to some $15 billion to $30 billion per annum in the public sector, $25 billion to $50 billion in the private sector and hence $40 billion to $80 billion per annum across both public and private sectors and the entire Australian economy.
and
The Conclusions
at https://members.webone.com.au/~markld/PhD/Chs/Ch15.pdf
included on page 442:
Estimates obtained using various regression techniques suggest that Unification could achieve financial benefits in the order of five to ten per cent in both public and private sectors and the economy as a whole, which, in June 2002 $AUD dollar terms, would amount to some $15 billion to $30 billion per annum in the public sector, $25 billion to $50 billion in the private sector and hence $40 billion to $80 billion per annum across both public and private sectors and the entire Australian economy.
Importantly, there is an appropriate link to the Abstract on the University of Canberra website, as follows:
In current $AUD dollar terms, UPdates (i.e. 2020) of these estimates would now be $25 billion to $50 billion per annum in the public sector, $35 billion to $70 billion in the private sector and hence $60 billion to $120 billion per annum across both public and private sectors and the entire Australian economy.