Australian Federalism in Need of Reform

Last October the Business Council of Australia brandished a report from Access Economics warning inefficiencies in the tax system and duplication between the federal and state governments in service delivery was costing taxpayers $9 billion a year.

“In many instances, Australia’s 20 million people face greater regulatory diversity, overlap, duplication and barriers to movement than Europe’s 457 million people,” the report, prepared by Access Economics director Chris Richardson, warns.

“Government programs in education, training, health, aged care and welfare are increasingly interacting with each other, creating more and more incentives for the states and the Australian government to try and push costs on each other. Our federation has never been so complex, and the dollars it churns have never been this large.”

From ‘Battle Lines Being Drawn over the Future of Federation’ by Stephen Lunn, The Australian, 26 April 2007, p. 26.