Local government has been uncharitably described as a 'nest of vipers'. It has in modern times had the potential to be much more, and an active creator of civil society. Local government is, as I once described it, the most direct experience that most citizens have of 'democracy at work'.
Perhaps that is why, given many Australians' experience with local government in certain areas, they resoundingly voted down, in 1988, the first proposal to include local government in the Constitution as a third tier of government along with federal, state and territory governments.
And perhaps the rather impoverished history in Australia of councils and boards acting as sealers of roads, rubbish collectors and satisfying recognition (of councillors and other local worthies) to benefit property and business owners, it was a little early to expect a change in popular culture.
Some of us who lived in Fitzroy in Melbourne's inner north, for example, found it embarrassing to watch the shenanigans of its then (prior to 1992) council as personalities and egos ran riot.
And yet we have a softer view of local politics when it comes to cherished icons of a region to which we are attached: just four years after the referendum, the same people of Fitzroy arose as one and opposed the Kennett-Government-appointed commissioners' decision to shut down the run-down Fitzroy pool.
The un-valued element of local government is its capacity to lift the vision of its people from NIMBY-ism and road maintenance to a sense of community and attachment.
Australians are, however, now thoroughly disengaged from politicians at a state and federal level, a recent poll finding that only about a third of those surveyed had any interest in the behaviour of our elected representatives, compared with double that proportion just a few years earlier. We tend to be disgusted at 'politics' and bad behaviour, rather than the idea of collaboration in the common good.
But when it comes to constitutional change, we are very conservative indeed.
We have been offered another chance to raise 'local government' to the lowly status of 'no worse than the other tiers'. The referendum on constitutional recognition announced on Thursday by Prime Minister Gillard arises from the work of an independent expert panel appointed by the Government in August 2011, and a joint select committee established on 1 November 2012 to consider its recommendations.
Historically, local government was used in the early years of the military colonies, before the states gained their own status, to 'manage' the infrastructure of a growing, but sparse, settlement.
But since the property franchise was (gradually, and dilatorily) abolished, it attained — across the various states that created their own statutory versions of local government — for a short time (maybe two or three decades) an important quality of representative democracy in action, as well as a source of funding and activities that state and Commonwealth governments were unable to deliver.
Australia is already governed by often-deadlocked state and Commonwealth parliaments and public servants. Why would we want to add to that complexity?
In its discussion paper the expert panel looked at the likelihood of constitutional recognition being supported by the electorate. They decided that the options to be considered had to be able to 'make a practical difference; have a reasonable chance at a referendum; and resonate with the public'.
In its discussion paper it identified four kinds of recognition: symbolic, financial, democratic, and through federal cooperation, none of which were mutually exclusive.
And in the end the Panel came up with a horse designed by an uncooperative and non-unanimous committee (so very Australian!): a minimal scheme that would (a) recognise that only state and territory had the power to establish and manage local government bodies elected in accordance with their own electoral laws, and (b) basically, amend the Constitution to get over the High Court's decision in 2009 casting doubt on the Commonwealth's power to fund local government directly by providing (italics are the amendments required):
The Parliament may grant financial assistance to any State or to any local government body formed by State or Territory Legislation on such terms and conditions as the Parliament sees fit.
That's it. That's what the panel recommended. And it also said that there had to be bipartisan support for the amendment and an intensive marketing campaign to persuade the voters to support the referendum, because another failed one would damage the existing status of local government across the nation.
My question is, Why? Why now? Why focus on a teeny tiny constitutional change now, when the people are disengaged from modern parliamentary politics, disgusted by the way both major political parties and the mindless happily consign women and children seeking refuge in our country to indeterminate detention in gulags in other countries, and see access to justice frustrated by penny-pinching and short-sighted cuts to the institutions that are meant to reflect our national character and values of a fair go for all?
Will they do it? Will both sides of politics endorse this as a great idea? Will local councillors agree? Will the people decline to support such a referendum in the current social and economic climate?
Yes. And it makes my stomach turn.
Moira Rayner is a barrister and writer. She is the author of the now out-of-print book Rooting Democracy (1997 Allen & Unwin).