[LINK] The PLAN, and broadband speeds?

[Stewart Fist]

Howard writes
> 
> So, do you really believe that 20M population should be governed by 15
> houses of parliament and 700+ local councils.  I'm sorry, but I see that
> as gross over governance.

It depends on how you allocate the work to be done.  As Tom pointed out, his
strata-title is another level of government -- but I'll bet you couldn't get
any title-holders to suggest that they should dissolve their local form of
council and leave the job to Canberra.

There is not necessarily any more 'governance' in 700 councils, than in one.
It depends on what jobs you give them to do.

The argument reminds me of the claim made seriously by a politician the
other night on TV.  She said that one of the reasons for our water shortage
was that modern houses had three and four bathrooms, whereas the older
houses only had one.

Clearly she thought that people shit and shower in proportion to the
facilities that are available.

> All that will achieve is to add a whole new level of bureaucracy and
> another opportunity for one level to pass the buck to another level.

Bucks are passed when the work and responsibility isn't clearly allocated.
And when jobs are strictly allocated, bureaucracies don't exist as 'levels'
(with the implication that large numbers of supervisers are unproductive).

What breeds levels of bureaucracy, is to lumber all of the functions of
government together into one or two large organisations -- Canberra and/or
Sydney -- which is what you are proposing.  Then you will most certainly get
layers on layers -- with multi-level hierarchies and the need for layers of
supervision -- and lack of function, and buck-passing.

The closer you get decision-making to the consumer, the better.

> I disagree.  The American system of local government is corrupt.

That's frankly a ridiculous statement.  American politics tends to be
corrupt at the higher levels of State and Federal Government, while the
local council level functions better than ours -- and does much more.

All systems have problems and all systems have advantages. It's a question
of balance.  You can't just dismiss the many nauances of political
complexity with a blanket statement like this.



-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458