By Julian Bajkowski
The future of the a referendum on whether to give financial recognition to local government in the Constitution is even less clear after the nation’s third Local Government Minister in as many months took to ABC radio to try and prop up the poll – despite an federal election date still not being announced.
Local Government Minister Catherine King told the ABC’s The World At Noon that the Rudd Government wanted to pursue to referendum, but that it remained contingent on what election date is called.
The latest headache for the now tortuous process of getting the poll up and running has been delivered courtesy of another Labor leadership change that reinstalled Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister and subsequently threw the previous election date of 14th September back into play.
"We want to go ahead with it. The only uncertainty is exactly when the referendum will be held," Ms King told ABC radio.
The quandary for Labor’s election strategists and date planners, including Bruce Hawker, is that a referendum cannot be held before 14th September because of how enabling legislation was written.
However Ms King has surprisingly discussed the prospect of a referendum being held outside the election cycle, a move that would cost at least $120 million.
Many councils are supporters of that idea because they feel that it will decouple the emotive issue of toxic federal politics from what is essentially a housekeeping tweak to ensure federal funding supplies to councils.
The prospect of an ‘out of cycle’ referendum has again had new life breathed into it after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reignited public discussion over another referendum on the formal recognition of indigenous Australians and Aboriginal people in the Constitution.
That referendum had been a contender to get up at this election but was unceremoniously dumped by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard after it was deemed to have insufficient electoral support to rate a chance of success.
One very clear option available to Kevin Rudd is hold over the local government referendum for a later ‘out-of-cycle’ vote that could potentially be coombined with formal indigenous recognition.
The Australian Local Government Association has so far been silent on the prospect of shifting the date, however its hand may soon be forced by undfolding events in New South Wales that go to the heart of Labor’s internecine factional brawling and the so-called NSW disease.
Over the last week Labor was forced to dump its candidate for Bennelong, Ryde Councillor Jeffrey Salvestro-Martin after he and Ryde’s mayor were both forced to front the Independent Commission Against Corruption over a sting of corruption allegations.
That incident was book-ended by branch stacking allegations for the Federal seat of Kingsford Smith, being vacated by Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, where Randwick Mayor Tony Bowen was forced to fend-off ambitious Senator Matt Thistlewaite who is eyeing off a move to the lower house.
Some inside Labor say Mr Rudd is increasingly disposed to allowing the ICAC inquiry blow over before putting a poll on local government recognition, especially given the potential ammunition it provides to the Opposition.
Officially the Opposition is still supporting the ‘Yes’ case for the referendum, however leader Tony Abbott has told people to vote ‘No’ if they do not understand it.
A comment from the ALGA is expected shortly.
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The Uralla Shire Council strongly supports a change to Section 96 of the Australian Constitution to enable financial assistance to local government bodies.
However, having a Constitutional Change coupled to an election means that the case both for and against a change is lost amongst the pure electioneering. Therefore the effort to convey the message (and the cost of distributing that message) will be lost amongst the general noise. That cost outweighs the cost of running a mid -term Constitutional Referendum.
Remember it is easier to run a NO campaign than a YES campaign as the default position of voters, if they do not fully understand or they have not heard the message will always be NO.
The effect to have Constitution Recognition of Local government in the Australian Constitution was ressurected in 2008, the expert panel handed down its findings in December 2011, and the ALGA will launch the YES campaign in mid august 2013 – the boat has sailed.
Under our current political system a move to amend the constitution for inclusion of Local governments would only make Local governments have to conform to some 4,000 Federally executed United Nations treaties and agendas, those which are not in the interest of Australians but for the interests of international powers. If it is an issue of funding from Federal government, there is no reason why this cannot be provided without amendments to the constitution. If the Federal Labor government can give $20m to Unions, in repayment of donations to the Labor government, there is no reason Federal government cannot provide funding to Local government.