They were at it again yesterday, as they have been for more than 100 years. The “”leaders” of the states squabbling with the Commonwealth over money.
They need the money to buy things so they will look good in front of the voters, so they will get get voted back into power. Once again, it is about that most basic instinct, survival.
The Commonwealth is not much better. We witnessed the petty ego of the Education Minister David Kemp this week demanding that the Commonwealth’s contribution be recognised when school buildings it has partially funded are openned. It means that he, or someone he appoints, must attend the openning and be invited to speak or do the openning depending on the funding level. Kemp was making his demands against Victoria and threatened to withdraw funding unless they were met. In short, Coalition politicians must be seen to look good in front of voters rather than state Labor ones. Labor is no better.
Look at any major building, bridge or institution and there you will see a plaque big-noting a politician. I even saw one on an extension to a nursing home in a tiny town in Victoria saying it was opened by a local pollie on behalf of the Minister for Aged Care. There is no pettiness to which their self-importance will not sink in the cause of self-preservation.
And so to yesteday’s Council of Australian Governments.
In theory, the annual ritual and squabbling over self-preservation and vote-buying money was to have ended last year. With the GST, the states were supposed to have access to a guaranteed growth tax so the states and territories would not have to go cap in hand to Commonwealth for money. Instead, they could talk about long-term matters of national importance. It was a pious hope. Yesterday was supposed to be about salinity and reconciliation – matters destined to stretch beyond the next election, an horizon far beyond the vision of any of our state Premiers or Chief Ministers.
(Incidentally, why don’t the states abandon the term Premier and come into line with the territories and call their heads of government Chief Minister. Premier is a term inheritied from colonial days.)
So the long-term issues were shrunk on the agenda to deal with a petty struggle over the immediate issue that is exciting public concern – the price of petrol. Only the South Australian Chief Minister, John Olsen, wanted to discuss the long-term issue of salinity, but not because he is a statesman, but because in his state salinity is a major issue right now. Salt threatens Adelaide’s drinking water – though how it could become less undrinkable is hard to imagine. Salt threatens farmland now and is seen to be more threatening than petrol prices.