A "scathing assessment" of

 Downunder? Apparently a Swiss tourist was asked for his thoughts about how this country is run...and what could be done to improve it. He had some interesting things to say about taxation (much higher here than in Switzerland) and resources (we have many).

There has been yet another discussion elsewhere about how many levels of government we have.

We have three main layers of government here. There is the federal government which deals with matters that are outlined in the Constitution. There are state governments (one for each state and territory). These are supposed to deal with things not in the Constitution and in cooperation with the federal government where things overlap. There is local government -supposedly there for roads, rates, rubbish and the like. All these things are supposed to work with one another, to cooperate.

Of course it does not work like this, especially when the federal government is one "flavour" and the state or territory is another "flavour" and the local government "councillors" are there because it is a stepping stone to a seat in parliament. 

We need a shake up, a big shake up. We need to be rid of at least one layer of government. It could be done. It would save millions of dollars. It would speed things up. It would bring in much more uniformity. This state has only just gone over to ending primary school at the close of year six instead of year seven. It has finally been brought into line with the other states. People fought it, said it wouldn't work and much more. From what I can see it seems to be working rather well.

We are also being told that uniform "planning laws" won't work because the needs of various communities are so different. Oddly enough we have wide ranging needs here and it seems to work. 

Perhaps it all made sense when communications were so much more difficult. Decisions needed to be made locally. There wasn't always time to get instructions from the other side of the country. Now there is no such difficulty. There are multiple means of getting in touch, with holding meetings and the like. 

But of course the state governments do not want to lose power. The immense duplication of services does not seem to worry them in the least. I do wonder though what would happen if it was put to a referendum. What would people decide it they were told a leaner system of government would ensure decisions were made much more rapidly and that it would give them thousands more in their pockets?