At the IPA presentation in Melbourne by Treasurer Hockey on 31st March, 2015 the emphasis was on taxation. Costs, reducing the size of the bureaucracy and efficiency were not discussed. Here’s my proposal.
The greens, social engineers and bureaucrat advocates all want to change our way of life. Well, so do I. My proposal does not take away your freedoms, would make your life easier, would save zillions and is based on spending much of my life in the outback. It is decentralisation. But with a difference. Decisions would be made at the coalface rather than in Canberra conference rooms (heated or cooled by coal-fired electricity).
Because many Australians live in rural towns, I can’t think of any reason why Canberra’s bureaucrats in today’s electronic age would resign rather than relocate. However, I suspect many would resign from the cocoon of Canberra crassness rather than live elsewhere. This would be a mechanism of reducing the public service budget without a hostile Senate stopping budget cuts. Thousands of tax-paying private sector workers relocate each year so what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
My decentralisation would force bureaucrats to become part of the community they serve and would give them a first hand understanding of the outcomes. If my decentralisation proposal did not work, it wouldn’t matter anyway because the bureaucracy would have been greatly reduced.
The sterling folk from Agriculture are concerned about eggs, fish, pigs, wine, cows, wool, grain, forests, horticulture, sugar, plant health and biosecurity. None of these activities occur close to Canberra. A suitable place might be Portland, Vic. It is a fishing town with an aluminium smelter and an export port, mainly for agricultural products. It is close to the prime agricultural areas of western Victoria, the Coonawarra wineries and plantation forests of South Australia. It is only the sugar industry that is not proximal but it is also a long way from Canberra. There are some wonderful scenic attractions in this part of Australia to be appreciated in time off. A weekend trip to the aluminium smelter would give a touch of reality about how the Australian economy needs large amounts of cheap energy to produce a taxation base for bureaucrats to put brie and wine on their own tables. Maybe befriending an abalone fisherman would show how individuals lose jobs from decisions made by faceless bureaucrats out of contact with reality.
The Attorney-General’s department administer the Federal police, administrative appeals, crime and corruption, national security, families and marriage and emergency management and oodles of other immensely important things. Maybe a former penal colony like Norfolk Island would fit the bill but for me the Tiwi Islands, NT is the pick place. This part of Australia is close to our northern neighbours hence they would be in the cauldron of borders, customs and native title. The regular battering from Category 5 cyclones would assist with emergency management training. In those idle evening hours, maybe a few violent sexually explicit DVDs could be classified. Weekends could be spent watching the up-and-coming AFL stars, fishing, waiting for the next cyclone or just chilling out.
The Department of Communications is ideal for Wilcannia, NSW. In the 19th Century, the broadband superhighway for the far west of NSW was the Darling River. Remnants of the port facilities still exist, phones work some of the time, morning newspapers arrive in the afternoon and, if it were not for a lonely repeater station, there would be no television or radio. Each day, one bus goes east through town and another goes west. The pick up point late at night is the one and only petrol station. Offices could have a panoramic view of the dry Darling River channel and long-term employees could see the floods every 30 years. Government workers could spend time off pig shooting, fishing, yabbying or noodling for opal at White Cliffs or maybe seeing the sights of Cobar or Louth, both only a short drive away (in outback mileage). A quiet lubricated weekend away from the stress of Wilcannia can always be had at the Emmdale roadhouse on the range.
The ideal place for Defence is Katherine, NT. Some 5% of Australians live in 50% of the country, the north. Huge wealth is generated from northern Australian mining, beef and agricultural industries yet the infrastructure is worse than in the Third World. Try using a mobile phone. Try getting television reception. Try driving from A to B in the wet. Try getting health care when it is needed. Try getting food or fuel. The productive parts of northern Australia have little or no defence. If Defence fanned out from Katherine across the north, infrastructure would follow, the wealth-generating assets of Australia would be protected and any invasion from the north would be stopped before it reached Canberra. Why a hostile force would want to occupy Canberra is beyond me but can you imagine the discombobulation of enemies entering the gates of Canberra only to find that all government departments had been decentralised. Moscow memories. Weekends in a place where there are sporting speed limits must surely be an attraction for the boys as well as a bit of barra fishing with spare ordinance or camel racing. I understand unbranded cattle make great steaks for Grand Final BBQs and, for military personnel promoted to desk jobs, a bit of weekend croc shooting would keep their eye in.
Where does one site the Department of Education and Training. Where it is needed, of course. Many people in the outback are functionally illiterate and hence unemployable. Far too many people in rural and outback Australia don’t have the employment and education opportunities of other Australians and Laverton, WA is proximal to mines, haulage roads, indigenous settlements and stations where education, safety and workplace relations are vital. It’s only a hop, step and jump to Kalgoorlie to see the School of Mines in action and workplace relations at the superpit, mines and smelters. Weekend activities are just too numerous to mention. Picnics at the Giles weather station, wind sailing on a salt lake, lost weekends in Hay Street (Kalgoorlie) or a visit to the White House hotel in Leonora come to mind. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it? One can even step back in time and feel the ghost of President Hoover who was manager at the Sons of Gwalia mine and who bought furniture for his favourite barmaid at the Palace hotel where it remains to this day. Hoover was educated and translated the classic mining text Agricola from Latin to English. What American president could do this now?
There is a real problem to site the Department of Employment. There are no jobs in inland Australia, ice has ripped out the heart and soul of people with little hope and few job prospects and most rural towns are kept alive by welfare. Many move to rural towns to guarantee that they don’t ever have to work. And who pays? Tasmanian greens for years have been very successful in creating unemployment and destroying industry and the logical place for the Department of Employment is Queenstown, Tas. Bureaucrats can see how the mining, timber and fishing industries that once created employment and infrastructure are now defunct and bureaucrats might learn that the income tax from one Australian individual pays half the welfare bill of Tasmania. Bureaucrats could walk from Gormaston, as folk did in the past, over the hill and down for work in Queenstown. This could be an energy efficiency KPI. Weekend activities could rotate around The Empire hotel and sightseeing at Zeehan and Strahan. The odd lobster from Granville Harbour with a Tasmanian pinot noir to enlarge the bureaucratic bulge would be a fringe benefit. Tullah and Rosebery are suggestions for a weekend away from the stress and pace of bureaucratic activity.
The Department of the Environment could be located anywhere outside a city. Rural folk live and work with the environment and understand how to be with nature, unlike city folk. Farmers do not destroy the environment that feeds them. Each year staff would have to shoot 100 feral animals on their staff development camps. The judges could not decide whether the location should be Coober Pedy, SA, Halls Creek, WA or Walhalla, Vic and have called for a popular vote. Coober Pedy is close to old atomic bomb sites, close to uranium mines and only a one day drive from the ghost town of Farina where wheat was grown until the climate changed naturally in the late 19th Century. Its added attractions are that many folk disappear without trace, don’t pay child maintenance and escape arrest warrants and a dodgy past. There are more John Smiths in Coober Pedy than anywhere else in the world. During long boring Land and Environment Court hearings in a dugout, judges could pick out a bit of colour from the walls. The Coober Pedy Golf Club has a “Keep off the grass” sign. How civilised is that? Halls Creek would sharpen up reality. In order to improve the rate of approvals, there should be two shifts (6am-3pm; 3pm-midnight). The 9-hour shift would be a compromise between the 12-hour shift that most in the private sector work and the arduous Canberra working day. Walking home after midnight might be a bit of a challenge. Spare time could be spent in the beautiful unspoiled Kimberleys. How could environmental bureaucrats resist living in such a paradise? Bungle Bungles here we come. Walhalla, in God’s cool temperate wet leech-ridden botanic gardens of east Gippsland, is where numerous large rivers source water that flows unused to the sea. It was only a few hundred million years ago that there were great barrier reefs in this area yet the area was part of Antarctica. Summer forest fires provide great sunsets and, on average, only a few houses and lives are lost each year to fires. Some are deliberately lit and others become uncontrollable because of a lack of winter burning off. Recreational activities vary from wood chopping to fly fishing and fossicking to bushwalking (although stumbling onto a cash crop hidden in the forest can be life threatening). Maybe a weekend trip to see the coal-fired power stations that keep SE Australia alive or even the Bass Strait oil and gas rigs would sharpen up decision making.
Again, the judges argued. This time for the home of the Department of Finance. The short list was Luina, Tas., Tennant Creek, NT, Roxby Downs, SA, Kalgoorlie, WA, Parabadoo, WA, Telfer, WA, Alpha, Qld and Weipa, Qld. All received a certificate of commendation and the rank outsider Gladstone, Qld was chosen as it is in the heart of wealth generation in Australia. In this area, proposed mining projects that provide thousands of new jobs are held up by red and green tape for years. Coal and copper-gold mines and cattle are inland and sugar farming, aluminium smelting, tourism and coal exporting are on the coast. Trainees would be required to work in mines, smelters, coal loaders and cattle stations before appointment to a senior bureaucratic position. There are endless weekend activities with visits to coal-fired power stations, dredging operations that keep the ships moving and Mount Morgan, the town that provided the wealth to start British Petroleum.
Asia needs to be close for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We need to continually shake hands and kiss babies with our near neighbours and if it were not for the daily shiploads of iron ore, coal, concentrate, refined metals and LNG to Asia, then we could not afford to buy our mobile phones, computers, tablets and Toyotas made by our neighbours. The ideal place is Port Hedland, WA. It has an international airport, is only a 3 hour flight to Singapore and one can day dream by looking out of the office window, watch the loading of ships and think how much towns like Port Hedland contribute to the GDP. Maybe one might look across the Indian Ocean and realise that, because of bureaucratic impediments, Australia is losing iron ore markets to West Africa and Brazil. Maybe one might try to understand why Australian companies have had a flight to the safety of deepest darkest Africa rather than trying to work in Australia. Over the horizon to the east is the new Roy Hill Mine. It needed 4,940 approvals to create thousands of jobs that didn’t previously exist. Restful weekends can be spent fishing, diving, sailing, viewing petroglyphs, train spotting or just chilling out in Cossack.
For the Department of Health, I go to my sentimental favourite. Broken Hill, NSW. It is no different from many rural towns with an ageing population, increased strains on the health system and a lack of health care investment. There are few jobs for young people, little industry and new industries have a huge bureaucratic battle to create new jobs. Rural populations don’t have the health care and longevity of city populations. Bureaucrats could run a book on whether their next child would be born in the Silver City, born mid air in a Royal Flying Doctor plane or born after airlifting to Adelaide. It all depends on whether an obstetrician is in town or not. Maybe bumpy spew-inducing summertime trips with the RFDS to outback clinics, stations and hamlets would improve decision making. And what a place for time off! Broken Hill has more art galleries than pubs. The first terrorist killings took place in Broken Hill on 1st January 1915, it is a town with a very rich history and, like so many other country towns, a place that was once wealthy and vibrant. Up the river is fishing and yabbying and sunsets over the Mundi Mundi Plain are so emotionally taxing that revival at Silverton is necessary. I’m told that the St Patrick’s Day and Silver City Cup race meetings are pretty good but I can’t remember.
The Department of Human Services handles all sorts of welfare and it should be combined with the Department of Social Services, which also handles welfare. Maybe this would stop double dipping. Many suburbs in capital cities come to mind as good candidates. However, the real problems are outside the suburbs and the judges have nominated Coen, Qld. The great attraction is that it has tropical foods, endless protein from the sea and land and a climate that would make Canberra bureaucrats wonder why they suffered Canberra winters for so long. Most of the people on the Cape would be clients of Human Services and Social Services and staff could get to know their clients personally rather than dealing with pieces of paper, endless spreadsheets, statistics and mind-numbing meetings. Imagine the joy that bureaucrats would have personally knowing welfare-supported drunks, wife bashers, drug addicts, fatherless children, ex-crims, serial rapists and STD-afflicted children. It would be educational to see how some unemployed welfare recipients are able to work the system to earn more than the average wage. The combined Department could have its walls covered with Darwin Awards for staff that went swimming in croc-infested waterways during recreational weekends. If an overseas weekend trip is contemplated, then I recommend Thursday Island.
There are some good possibilities for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. Christmas Island was short-listed as was the deserted Baxter Camp at Woomera, SA. The odds-on favourite drew the barrier. We should never have scuttled the HMAS Adelaide. It should have been moored off Ashmore Reef, WA, as a one-stop shop to meet-and-greet illegals. This would allow rapid on-site processing thereby stopping illegals hanging around detention centres for years and then, in a fit of gratitude to the Australian taxpayer, burning them down. Some would argue that the large guns would have to be dismantled as they could frighten off illegals and, with HMAS Adelaide moored at Ashmore Reef, naval patrols could do what naval patrols should do rather than answering mobile phone calls from people smuggler’s boats just out of territorial waters. If the mobile phone batteries died, then HMAS Adelaide would be visible for miles as would the fly-in-fly-out helicopters. Bureaucrats could do what tens of thousands of Australian do and FIFO, live without family in a dry camp, work 12-hour shifts for a couple of weeks and pay for part of their commuting costs themselves. Just think of the frequent flier points. Bureaucrats could also do what many other FIFO employees do and drop a line, watch the beautiful sunsets, read and eat healthy food. Now that is reality.
The obvious place for the Department of Industry and Science is Mount Isa, Qld. Mount Isa is the home of new smelting, grinding and flotation processes. Innovation and science are vital for deep high temperature mining, ventilation, smelting, underground safety and communications, novel transport systems and releasing wealth from fine-grained ore. It took decades of investment, innovation, engineering, science and risk before Mount Isa became profitable. It was the need for copper in World War 2 that allowed Mount Isa to diversify and expand. There were neither mines nor a town in the early 20th Century and everything had to start from scratch with little investment from Australia and most from abroad. Bureaucrats could understand first hand the challenges of living in an isolated industrial town that needs cheap power, clean air and water and cheap reliable transport. Weekend activities are fabulous with barra fishing, water sports, horse riding, supporting the impoverished Irish Club and the rodeo.
Infrastructure and Regional Development should be sited where there is no infrastructure and development. Apart from eastern, south-eastern and south-western Australia, this pretty well gives us a whole continent to play with. The choices are endless. Administration could be managed with conference calls, except in the wet season, during dust and thunder storms, when corellas have chewed through phone and electricity lines or when the poles fall over because of termites. This happens much of the time. An outback mobile- and email-free zone would allow staff to concentrate on work rather than spend up to 50% of their employer’s time on their social life. Why have endless meetings in a sterile room in Canberra? I know of a number of large deserted buildings at Rabbit Flat, NT, that could be used. Oh, and by the way, there is no social life in Rabbit Flat as the one and only pub is now closed hence the employer’s communication bill would be reduced. This Federal department handles rail, air and marine activities. Landing at Rabbit Flat has a distinctly heroic aspect and every landing would be a first hand experience of air safety. The north-south railway line is only a day’s drive away. And as for weekends….well, where do I start? The choices are infinite. What about an intimate weekend at Fitzroy Crossing?
We must retain defunct wind farms as memorials to our energy policy stupidity. For the same reason, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet must remain in Canberra, ACT. We need memorials surrounded by reality. We converted a perfectly good sheep paddock into the national capital. Sheep paddocks create wealth, Canberra consumes wealth and adds costs to the private sector. The ACT has the highest average wage and highest average housing cost in Australia. And what do they produce? Quelle scandal! The office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet administers all sorts of trusts, museums, galleries and libraries and maybe this department should work in glass offices so that tourists can stand outside and view first hand the frenetic pace of administration of our museums. And as for weekend recreational activities in Canberra, the best advice is to get out as I am at a loss to think of something. Maybe bureaucrats could visit their own libraries, museums and galleries as part of self-assessment.
The name Marble Bar conjures up a romantic image of a marble-lined bank with underground gold ingot-filled chambers, serenity and wealth. The Ironclad hotel at Marble Bar also suggests that there is a Fort Knox equivalent at Marble Bar. And this is the case. Many have entered the Ironclad and have never been known to leave. Marble Bar, WA is clearly the place for Treasury. The Australian Taxation Office would be well suited for Marble Bar, a huge tonnage of duplicate records could be stored securely in the old underground gold mines and the Australian Mint could make coins from local gold. A large amount of Australia’s wealth is collected from Pilbara activities so the ATO would be in the heart of its core business. If one is not an alcoholic, then all that is left for weekends in Marble Bar is contemplation. If one wanted a private dirty weekend out of town, then I recommend Nullagine (but you have to book well in advance).
The last department, Veteran’s Affairs should be near one of Australia’s past or present military bases. Most vets trained at one of Australia’s many military bases and hence visits to the department would bring back warm memories. My bet is Chillagoe, Qld. There were bases nearby in World War 2 and, as some bureaucrats change from one department to another, Chillagoe would give a breadth of experience. There are mines, smelters, railway line, railway station and marble quarries in and around town. All are defunct. Tourists come to say that they have been to Chillagoe, visited the caves, photographed the smelter and had a drink at the Post Office hotel with John and Donna before they retreat to Cairns for the night. Direct Perth-Cairns flights go 10 km overhead and agriculture around Dimbulah has been forced to change from tobacco to tropical fruits. Public servants must constantly change, as do those in the private sector. As for recreation, there is swimming and fishing in the Walsh, although the Johnson River crocs can give you a bit of a heart start. The Big Weekend rodeo and races is the social event of the year. No point in leaving Chillagoe at weekends, everything is there.
THE CHALLENGE: There is a bottle of good South Australian wine (d’Arenberg) for anyone who can suggest the best site for the ABC.