State’s demand for rights bothers Fraser

Press, 14 March 1977, Page 16

State’s demand for rights bothers Fraser

By

STUART McMILLAN

of “The Press’’

Enough trouble is brewing between Western Australia and Canberra to make the Federal Government uneasy about its position. The Premier of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court, recently challenged the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, over the Federal Government’s assumption of sovereignty over off-shore waters. Although Sir Charles is a Liberal, and therefore of the same party as the main partner in the coalition, the issue of the states’ rights cuts across party lines. Since challenging Mr Fraser, Sir Charles has won an election with ease. Few Liberals in Canberra would be much bothered by Sir Charles’s “union bashing” during the campaign; but they will be watching the progress of his challenge to the Prime Minister warily. The issue could split the Liberal Party. The relationship between the states and the central Government has long been an issue. There were some particularly sharp exchanges during 1972 and 1975 when Labour was in power. In fact, a failure by the Whitlam Government to take federalism seriousl” contributed to the stopping of supply by the Senate and led to the dismissal of the Government.

Mr Fraser came in with a policy known as the new federalism which was supposed to hand more power back to the states. The policy took something of a blow last year when the

states considered that they were not given enough in the annual sharing of revenue and the Prime Minister was forced to revise the formula for handing out money to the states. It seemed likely that the focus of federalism would stay cm revenue-sharing; now Sir Charles has turned it towards sovereignty over offshore waters. It is a battle which the Premier of Queensland, Mr Joh Bjelke-Petersen, is likely to join with alacrity and relish. He and Sir Charles are old hands at challenging the authority of Canberra. Both men were prominent when the issue of the states’ rights was taken to the Privy Council. The British Government said then that the matter was one for Australia to decide.

The vigour with which the argument has been conducted may be gauged from an incident in 1973. The Labour Prime Minister, Mr Gough Whitlam, said on November 25 that the Great Barrier Reef would be declared a national park to prevent its being exploited for oil drilling. Mr BjelkePetersen retaliated on November 28 by declaring the independent sovereignty of Queensland over the waters of the Great Barrier Reef within 4.8 kilometres of the mainland and adjacent cays.

It was part of a challenge which continued until later in 1975 when the High Court upheld the validity of the Seas and Submerged

Lands Act. This gave sovereignty to the Commonwealth, not the states, over the territorial sea and the continental shelf. Mr Fraser had affirmed the Federal Government’s view of its rights in a message to Sir Charles — a message that aroused Sir Charles’s ire.

In his reply, he argued that Mr Fraser’s position was against Liberal Party philosophy: “It is, indeed, sad that your public utterances on so high an idealistic plane in relation to the new federalism are not reflected by events, other than your new and praiseworthy approach to revenue sharing,” said Sir Charles.

“In the present instance, in my view, a patently political decision has been made in the shelter of a legal opinion. There has been no opportunity for discussion. There has been no attempt to endeavour to reconcile differences in legal views, nor any attempt to air the basic arguments which prompted the suggestion that was put to you. “For my part, I regret that I cannot accept your decision, because I believe it is the wrong one, because I believe it is unrealistic in terms of our geographical situation, because I believe it is dictated by the views of centralists, because I believe it is contrary to the principles which we, as Liberals, believing in local state government where it is most

appropriate, would want to uphold. . .” “You may rest assured that neither I, nor my colleagues. will ever agree to the state merely acting as the administrative agent of the Commonwealth.” Sovereignty over the seas affects such'matters as offshore oil and other minerals, fishing, marine parks, harbours, and ports. The challenge from Western Australia over the issue is bound to be taken seriously not only because of the threat to the Liberal Party and the Government, but also because there is a threat to the federation itself. From time to time suggestions have been made that Western Australia might secede from the rest of the country. It showed some hesitation about joining when the Federation was formed in 1910 and the Australian Constitution provides for Western Australia and New Zealand to join later. One of the obvious reasons for Western Australian talk of secession is distance. It is further from Canberra to Perth than it is from Canberra to New Zealand. The state frequently feels cut off from the rest of the country.

A second reason is population. Western Australia has about 1 million people and it feels that Canberra pays most attention to the eastern states where the vast majority of Australians live.

Another reason is that Western Australia would he

viable as a separate country. It has vast mineral wealth: oil, iron ore, copper, goid, mineral sands, bauxite, gas’, and manganese. There is also extensive farming. The Pilbara area, in the northwest, has what is believed to be the biggest iron ore deposit in the world.

This mineral wealth not only gives the state the certainty that if it declared itself independent of the rest of Australia, it would be a rich country in its own right, but it leads many to believe that a great deal of money leaves the state through taxation and little comes back from Canberra.

Mr Lang Hancock, an out' spoken Western Australian businessman, was quoted in 1974 as saying:

“Hell’s bells, if you study the figures, the taxation that goes out of Western Australia far exceeds the amount of money coming in. The excess is something like Sl6l million.

"There’s a tremendous drain to Canberra from the north-west and they don't contribute anything. They don’t contribute capital, or knowledge, or anything, but they do get in the road. They hinder it a lot. There’s nothing Canberra can give or does give that we would miss in the development of Western Australia.”

He undoubtedly speaks for a lot of people. How accurately is another matter. The mining companies have a heavy Japanese ownership and the profits are not going

to Australia at all. A 1974 report on the Australian mining industry said that the Pilbara iron ore province companies which are not foreign registered. and whose profits or shares in profits would exceed $3OO million, had not paid as much as $1 million in income tax to that date. Defence is another reason for Western Australia’s occasional murmurings about secession. Once more, it is felt, the eastern states have had more attention paid to them. Most of Western Australia's 12,500 kilometres of coastline faces the Indian Ocean, which has not been a priority area for defence in Australia.

Some of the talk about Soviet ships in the Indian Ocean was almost certainlv an attempt by Mr Fraser to reassure Western Australia that it was not forgotten.

The next moves between Western Australia and Canberra will be interesting to watch. It seems unlikely that Mr Fraser will surren dec federal rights over the seas, but he is likely to go as far as he can to meet the state’s demands. No threat of secession was made in the extracts so far printed from the sixpage letter Sir Charles wrote to Mr Fraser. But there was another threat. Mr Fraser was reminded of the circumstances under which the Senate refused supply, and was told that the Senate was still a state’s House "in spite of what people say to the contrary.”