Page 4749 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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The next paragraph states:
This list could be extended indefinitely.
Madam Speaker, when I read those first few paragraphs of this article, you can imagine that I was rather concerned. Later it talks about "schools, prisons, Medicaid, welfare ... a structural gap that no-one has yet confronted, much less closed". Some of the most significant statements in this article go along these lines:
And contrary to what most Californians believe, a lot of damage didn't just happen to us: we inflicted it on ourselves by popular vote in a series of chimerical "reforms" going back to the 1970s and maybe earlier.
It was not just one reform; it was a series of reforms. The article continues:
Those reforms - most, though not all, by the initiative route - have crippled state and local governments with so many limits and mandates and so tangled responsibility that it is increasingly difficult for representative government to function ...
This is very interesting, considering that the Liberals always have a stance to ensure that they remove red tape and remove any restrictions on the operation of business and on the operation of government. I still want to put it in context. This article is about California; and there are certain problems about California and Californian people in terms of the way that they operate. This article is still describing specific initiatives. These are the sorts of issues that we have to deal with. I believe that they have never been discussed in this Assembly. The article reads:
... it is increasingly difficult for representative government to function at all and nearly impossible for even well-informed people to know who's accountable for what. In effect, Californians, pursuing visions of governmental perfection, have made it increasingly difficult for elected officials to make any rational policy decisions. And therein lies a cautionary tale for all those other Americans pursuing constitutional spending limits, balanced-budget amendments, supermajority requirements, term limits, and the various other mechanisms designed to replace representative government in America with government by autopilot.
What he means by "government by autopilot" is quite clearly the sort of thing that Mr Stevenson has been describing. Do not forget that in California they do not have compulsory voting. That is one of the factors that would need to be taken into account in putting this article in its proper context. It is still worth our consideration. The article states:
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