Joining Australia’s pieces

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 18

Joining Australia’s pieces

Australian Federalism: Future Tense. Edited by Allan Patience and Jeffrey Scott. Oxford University Press, 1983. 217 pp. $18.99. (Reviewed by Stuart McMillan) Geographically speaking, Australia is considered an island continent. By dint of the seas that surround mainland Australia it is an island; by dint of the size of the place it has to be considered a continent. Politically speaking, it is an oddity among continents because it is the only one to be occupied by a single nation. The colonies which, in 1901, joined together to become the Commonwealth of Australia, did not give up their identities but became states within the federation, passing a few powers to the central Government but retaining many powers for themselves. This book bears eloquent testimony to the fact that, in settling on a federal solution in the business of nationmaking, the tensions as well as the nation have survived.

Much of the strength of the book lies in the fact that many of the writers have been engaged in politics as heads of Government, either at a Federal or a state level, in Australia. They are not uncommitted observers of the relationship between states and the Federal Government. Sir Rupert Hamer, who was Premier of Victoria from 1972 to 1981, fairly thunders his way through the chapter he contributes. He reviews what he

considers the Australian Constitution means, how the Federal Government, as he saw it, abused the intentions of the Constitution and finishes up each section: “That was the first (second ... fifth) blow against the states.” Mr Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Premier of Queensland, writes with unconcealed loathing of the central Government, particularly in the time of Mr Gough Whitlam. That former Prime Minister makes his own forceful arguments about how difficult it is to bring about changes for all the citizens of Australia when they can be thwarted by actions by the states. There are more contributors from universities writing in the book than there are politicians. Their contributions clarify aspects of federalism. The book considers events up to the time of Malclom Fraser as Prime Minister. Some power then went back to the states, though not nearly as

much as the “states-righters” would have liked. To some extent, it was the payment of a political debt. It was the Senate, something of a states House, which halted supply and brought about the Constitutional crisis which led to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government and the victory of the Fraser Government. Mr Fraser had his day, but he also had to share some of the power with those in the states who had given it to him.