Federation no longer appropriate

A barrister by the name of David Ash had a three quarter page published in last Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald (Free the Fourth Arm, SMH 23/24-8).

He sought to revive and restore Australia's dysfunctional federation, a further instance of meliorism that won't go anywhere.

This so-called Fourth Arm, the Inter State Commission, as he himself demonstrates "was mortally gored" by 1915.

Suggesting to now blow life into this "skeleton body", thereby claiming that "federation makes us a nation" instead of stopping us from being a nation, is to misunderstand the utter disconnect between the archaic federal constitution and the realities of Australian society.

In 1900, federation was appropriate and an achievement.

It has hardly been amended since then.

This is not only a result of its hopelessly inadequate amendment procedure but even more perhaps of the two-party tyranny and the adversarial nature of Australian politics.

Whatever the exact cause, federation is no longer appropriate for this land, which has become a nation in spite of its frozen federal constitution.

We need to be talking about replacing federation with a system of governance, which is much less costly, can react quickly to crisis situations and is truly decentralised.

The band-aids lawyers and economists come up with piecemeal tinkering that will create stinking wounds we can do without.

The political realities demand that "co-operative federalism" via the ineffectual COAG body be shelved forthwith and major surgery commenced.

A New Constitution Inquiry should be launched now to devise a set of ground rules that connects directly with today's society and is owned by the Australian people.

Klaas Woldring, Pearl Beach