Comment: Newman answerable to the voters, not the PUP

The bitter public slanging matches between the Palmer United Party and the LNP in Queensland make it difficult to believe that the senate inquiry into ‘Certain Aspects of Queensland Government Administration Related to Commonwealth Government Affairs' is not part of a vendetta.

However, regardless of the motives for the inquiry – or its legal validity – the concerns with this Queensland witch-hunt run deeper to problems in our political system.

The masterminds of the attack have anticipated some constitutional hurdles; there are continual, carefully worded references to commonwealth heads of power in the terms of reference. However the very concept of the commonwealth senate placing itself above the Queensland government, and sitting in judgement on it, ignores the central tenet of federalism and undermines our democracy.

The three levels of government aren’t like the different levels of a court. You can’t appeal to a ‘higher’ one if you don’t like the outcome delivered by voters. While local government is lower than the other two, the commonwealth government and state governments are supposed to be equals, with power for different elements of government.

The problem is that decades of steadily expanding power by the commonwealth, and a significant mismatch in revenue between the levels of government, have seen the states become supplicants to the feds.

Indeed, it is this beggar status that is providing the fig leaf of legitimacy for the PUP led attack; the dependence of the states on commonwealth money encourages commonwealth ‘oversight’ of state service delivery.

However if this is really about better administration of commonwealth spending, why is Queensland singled out? Why not start with the constant drain on taxpayer funds from states like South Australia?

That the commonwealth government should be careful with taxpayers money is a given, but this doesn’t mean the commonwealth gets to appoint itself overseer or controller of state government responsibilities. Nor does the absence of an upper house in Queensland justify the commonwealth senate appointing itself as the de facto house of review.

It is ironic that while the commonwealth government is looking at ways to fix our federal system through the federalism white paper, the commonwealth senate is using its power to undermine it.

The significant duplication of state and commonwealth regulation is clear in many areas; health, education and the environment are obvious examples. This duplication expands the reach of government, adds cost and complexity to business, and increases the budget deficit.

Not everyone agrees the overlap should be reduced. For environmentalists and big government types, duplication of regulations at the commonwealth level gives them a much greater ability to intervene and stop projects they don’t like. As the terms of reference for the Queensland inquiry make clear, one of the motives for the inquiry is to attack mining and coal seam gas projects.

However the bigger issue with this overlap is the way it feeds into partisan attacks on the standing of other governments. Not content to argue their opponents are following wrong policies, one-eyed supporters on both sides of politics now seek to prove their opponents are illegitimately in power.

We’ve seen ridiculous calls for Tony Abbott to prove his citizenship, and continual attacks on the legitimacy of Campbell Newman’s government, Julia Gillard’s government and others.

This no-holds barred approach is not confined to the fringes, either. Labor senators opposed this attack on Queensland until they were assured the inquiry would largely exclude the Bligh government, then they voted in favour. On the other side, the Abbott government has been pursuing two royal commissions aimed at embarrassing the previous Gillard-Rudd governments.

These attacks on legitimacy mirror an increasing trend to appeal to unelected international ‘experts’ rather than voters to pass judgement on government policies. It is far easier appeal to a ‘higher’ authority who will tell you the other side is wrong than convince a sceptical populous.

Politicians and governments are elected to run the state or the country, not pander to international NGOs or pursue personal agendas. They must first and foremost be answerable to the public. Instead, at every turn the political instinct has become to ridicule, undermine or pull down the opposition and evade, ignore or cynically manipulate the voting public.

Whether or not this farcical inquiry fails on constitutional grounds, it should be opposed because it undermines state’s right, further damages politics and demotes the importance of democratic elections. This is not how the country should be run.

Simon Cowan is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.