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Email sent 20/1/08
Mike Steketee
Australian
'How PM's red tape will bind recalcitrant states'
Unfortunately
your recent suggestion that more Commonwealth Government red tape is likely to
solve problems in Australia's federal system seems unrealistic.
My interpretation of your article:
Kevin Rudd's style is
reminiscent of Hawke - involving consensus politics and managerialism. He
is an activist, but not a risk-taker. In federal-state relationships he
has the potential to make a mark. This is the main outstanding area of
economic reform. Rudd intends to drive change through federal-state
cooperation in COAG. He has set high standards for COAG's achievements (eg
specific targets for elective surgery delays; guarantees of
early-childhood education for all 4 year olds; halving the numbers of
homeless turned away from shelters; halving gap between mortality rates
/ literacy of aboriginal and other children). The first COAG
meeting came out with a vast number of performance measures. Seven working
groups were established, and there will be four meetings per year.
Ministerial chairmanship of working parties will reduce scope for
bureaucratic inertia. If cooperative federalism doesn't work with 9
governments of the same political persuasion, it will have failed. Rudd
has faith in such a process because, as senior bureaucrat under Goss
Government, he was a key player in one of its rare successes - competition
reforms under Keating Government. He expects that Commonwealth incentive
payments will be the bait that gets states to agree. However this
cooperative phase may not last, and (for hospitals) the Commonwealth may
assume full control if cooperation fails (Steketee M., 'How PM's red tape
will bind recalcitrant states', Australian,
10/1/08).
The process you
describe reflects little understanding of what is required to make government
work effectively. It is hard to know where to start. But here goes.
Managerialism
involves the notion that 'senior' officials merely need to be 'managers' and
don't require a depth of knowledge of the function they are managing. That
this has been a poor assumption can be illustrated by the fact that (as your
article noted) Queensland's Goss Government had few successes (eg see
Toward Good Government in Queensland,
1995; and
Queensland's Worst Government?,
2005).
The
heavy-handed approach to government machinery and centralization of policy
which characterised that administration were then combined with a (so
called) 'cooperative' approach to planning SE Queensland's growth to produce a
politically driven planning process.
This seems to have some parallels with what is now intended for COAG. That
experiment
proved
anything but a sparking success.
Informed observers described it as merely a pretence at planning, and
resulting in a huge increase in emphasis on process with few results.
The whole politically-focused centralised
process of developing solutions to Australia's problems in Australia's federal
system that is now intended seems unlikely to produce pragmatic and effective
reform proposals - because it has divorced the development of those proposals
from persons with the detailed / practical knowledge and experience required
to competently produce them (see
'One big Labor party': Great Fun
but there will be a Hangover, 2008).
In particular defining performance measures
that states have to measure up to reflects a failure to appreciate the
complexity of functions that suffer market failures and thus tend to be
government responsibility (see
Mr Impractical,
2007). When one defines measures in dealing with complex public functions,
they are likely to be achieved just as one discovers the critical importance
of some measures that were not defined. Financial performance measures were
defined for Queensland's electricity industry - but investment in
network renewal was not one of them. Performance measures were defined for
Queensland's supply water system - but they involved no recognition that SE
Queensland's major water storage had never been designed for water supply (but
rather for flood mitigation).
There is considerable doubt that the National
Competition Policy (NCP) has been as successful as suggested. It suffers
economic limitations because (a) competition does not in itself ensure the
capabilities to compete successfully in high value added activities, and (b)
there can be systemic obstacles to success - eg in poorly developed
regions. NCP also had adverse effects on the capabilities of governments
because the real nature of governing (as compared with running a large
business) was simply not considered. These points are considered further in
Review of National Competition Reforms: A
Commentary (2004).
The chance that
the PM's 'red tape' will lead to improved public administration in Australia is
unfortunately nil.
Regards
John Craig
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