Reforming Australia's Federal Framework: Priorities and Prospects
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Author(s)
Tiernan, Anne
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2015
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A narrative of failure permeates debates about Australia's federal system. A cursory review of analysis and particularly of media commentary, reveals a deep pessimism about this central and distinctive feature of Australia's governing framework (see, among numerous potential examples, National Commission of Audit 2014).
Elite disdain towards Australia's system of shared powers and a tendency to overlook its many strengths, has limited the scope and ambition of federal reform processes. That these are usually initiated and driven by the Commonwealth perhaps accounts for complaints from sub‐national governments that the ...
View more >A narrative of failure permeates debates about Australia's federal system. A cursory review of analysis and particularly of media commentary, reveals a deep pessimism about this central and distinctive feature of Australia's governing framework (see, among numerous potential examples, National Commission of Audit 2014). Elite disdain towards Australia's system of shared powers and a tendency to overlook its many strengths, has limited the scope and ambition of federal reform processes. That these are usually initiated and driven by the Commonwealth perhaps accounts for complaints from sub‐national governments that the dynamics of these processes often mirror those that characterise Commonwealth‐State relations, with the result that it is difficult to transcend the tensions that are borne of the centralisation of money and power that reform needs to address.
View less >
View more >A narrative of failure permeates debates about Australia's federal system. A cursory review of analysis and particularly of media commentary, reveals a deep pessimism about this central and distinctive feature of Australia's governing framework (see, among numerous potential examples, National Commission of Audit 2014). Elite disdain towards Australia's system of shared powers and a tendency to overlook its many strengths, has limited the scope and ambition of federal reform processes. That these are usually initiated and driven by the Commonwealth perhaps accounts for complaints from sub‐national governments that the dynamics of these processes often mirror those that characterise Commonwealth‐State relations, with the result that it is difficult to transcend the tensions that are borne of the centralisation of money and power that reform needs to address.
View less >
Journal Title
Australian Journal of Public Administration
Volume
74
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2015 National Council of the Institute of Public Administration Australia. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Reforming Australia's Federal Framework: Priorities and Prospects, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Volume 74, Issue 4, Special Issue: Federalism,
December 2015, Pages 398-405, which has been published in final form at 10.1111/1467-8500.12180. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving (http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-828039.html)
Subject
Economics
Commerce, management, tourism and services
Human society
Social Sciences
Public Administration