Page 2576 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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perceived from federalism are only just starting to be developed. Concepts like uniformity in transport, like getting a single rail gauge across Australia, a single rail network, like more logical interstate cooperation, are always perceived as benefits of federation, but for years have been bedevilled by petty, absurdly partisan rivalry between the State and Federal governments.
It has not been a question of Labor-Liberal. It seems to matter not whether you have a Labor Federal government and Liberal State governments or a Liberal Federal government and Labor States. There has been an instinctive reaction at the two levels of government to oppose one another's moves and to see always that a Federal government initiative is in some way directed against States rights. The cry of State's rights that for 90 years has prevented progress being made is fortunately no longer heard. Gough Whitlam once said that there is no such thing as States rights. People have rights; States and Federal governments do not. Their job is to just get on with the job of delivering services to people, and, if it can be done in a cooperative manner, so much the better.
The really pleasing thing is that the lead that has been given by the Prime Minister, the Premiers and the Chief Ministers at the Special Premiers Conference forum is carrying through to all the other forums at which Ministers cooperate. Projects that have been kicking around for decades in some cases are suddenly moving to a bit more progress. That spirit of cooperation that has been forged at the Special Premiers Conferences over the last 12 months is starting to lead to some real benefits.
I would like to just touch on three areas - disabilities, transport and housing. Mr Collaery, in his remarks, made some criticisms of the movement towards the disability services agreement. The disability services agreement, as I mentioned yesterday, was signed by the Chief Minister at the Special Premiers Conference in Sydney and the full details of that will be sorted out in November. The broad thrust of that disability services agreement is to provide some logic to the way disability services are delivered and to clearly delineate functional areas of Commonwealth responsibility; and functional areas of State responsibility; that is, the Commonwealth will concentrate on employment and training and the States and Territories will look after the rest.
That does involve an element of untying of tied funding. Mr Collaery was critical of untied funding. It should be recorded that the ACT branch of the Australian Labor Party did, at its recent annual conference, pass unanimously resolutions which echoed that criticism and caution at the concept of untied funding. There is always the risk of going back to the bad old days of the 1960s when social services were delivered in some States but in the far north, in particular, were regarded as a mere frippery that did not require the attention of the Government and
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