Tony Abbott – Bring back work contracts – smh.com.au

Bring back work contracts
PHILLIP COOREY AND PETER HARTCHER – smh.com.au
December 3, 2009

TONY ABBOTT has defiantly flagged the reintroduction of individual workplace agreements and given notice the Coalition will oppose the Rudd Government’s next big reform – the federal takeover of public hospitals.

Mr Abbott also said Federal Parliament should have the same power to override state parliaments as it has to override the territories, and the states should be able to raise taxes to cover spending requirements…

Mr Abbott promised that now he was leader, he would respect the party’s processes and not unilaterally set policy.

He said the many policy ideas proposed in his book Battlelines, published this year, were OK to advance as a frontbencher but not as leader.

However, Mr Abbott maintained the system of federation was dysfunctional and he was keen to explore two ideas in his book. One was to give Federal Parliament the power to override the states like it can the territories and another was ”giving the states taxing powers commensurate with their spending responsibilities”.

via Tony Abbott – Bring back work contracts – smh.com.au

You wouldn’t have expected a monarchist to try to dismantle federation and go for a more centralised political system. One of the key aspects of our system of government – and a conservative system of government – is a series of checks and balances at every level of government and between the different levels of government. Conservatives should be wary of centralised power. Federation is not an archaic and multi-tiered system designed to frustrate sincere politicians who want to get things done, rather it should be seen as part of the checks and balances on the executive. Howard was not good at negotiating workable and complex systems with many actors. I don’t think Rudd would be up to it either. One result of a bullying executive government is that powerful players drag their feet and create inertia to resist imposed changes from the top. A dysfunctional federation is more a result of an overbearing executive during the Howard/Rudd years.