The Australian response to COVID-19 has focused more attention than usual on the
workings of the federal system. It's also prompted some unusual developments.
One is that four states have effectively closed their internal borders and
another which has proved critical is the establishment of a National Cabinet
consisting of the Prime Minister and the Premiers and Chief Ministers of all the
states and territories. This is no ordinary cabinet. Every Australian
government has a cabinet of its own comprising senior ministers drawn from
the party that has the confidence of the relevant parliament. Ministers in these
cabinets are collectively responsible for the decisions taken and they go out
of office together if they lose the confidence of their parliaments. The
national cabinet is quite different, its members are the leaders of Australian
governments around the country, they come from different parties and they have
their own cabinets and are accountable to their own elected parliaments on
which each of them depends for their rights to govern. These have been
strengths in dealing with the current complex situation.The Commonwealth and the
states and territories are responsible for different aspects of the fight
against COVID-19 all of which are essential to a solution. The nature and
extent of the crisis differs in different parts of the country so that
effective responses sometimes call for varied or innovative solutions and the
necessary medical supplies are often scarce or expensive or both, maximising
the value of coordinating procurement and sharing on a national plane. Against
that background, the National Cabinet is performing at least two important
functions. One is to coordinate the decisions made and actions taken across
all jurisdictions where that is necessary to effectively tackle the
pandemic, and the other is to bring to the table different ideas different
perspectives and different understandings of challenges across the
country so as to ensure that national decisions are as soundly based as
possible. National consistency does not mean
uniformity. A broadly consistent approach is necessary for coordination and it
also helps to make the message to Australians on whose cooperation so much
depends as straightforward as possible. But it's been clear from the outset that
each member of the National Cabinet may take different action where that is
useful in their own jurisdiction bearing in mind its status as a part of the Australian Federation.
So for example, New South Wales and Victoria where the virus
initially spread more rapidly moved more quickly to stage 3 restrictions than
other parts of the country. This was in order to protect their own people for
reasons that the respective premiers explained, but conversely other states
close their borders to further control the spread taking advantage of
distance from other parts of the country. Initially this raised some eyebrows
under a constitution that appears to guarantee free movement across state
borders, but the protection that those sections of the Constitution offers has
never been absolute and it's hard to imagine a more persuasive justification
for restricting free movement than exists at present. Broad consistency
without uniformity has also left room for innovation by particular states and
territories in the manner of testing, in ways of supporting health workers, in
approaches to distance learning and in supporting livelihoods to take only a
few examples. So far, the National Cabinet process has worked well. Refreshingly
it's also been accompanied by a lot of public information from all political
leaders about what is going on and why. Of course, it's also had problems
For example, the fracker in New South Wales over responsibility for screening
arrivals on the docks and in airports suggests uncertainty about whom was
supposed to do what and cause some unhelpful buck-passing
and there are occasional signs of tension between the Commonwealth and
individual states about where the line lies between national consistency
and local difference on which some media reports have pounced. So far these appear
appropriately to have been resolved by give and take on both sides but the
tensions may increase as the immediate threat to lives passes and governments
tackle the next challenge of reviving the economy. It will be interesting to
see whether the national cabinet experiment has lasting effects on the
ways in which Australian governments interact. Typically, Australian political
leaders meet in COAG, the Council of Australian governments, and that name may
be more appropriate for an intergovernmental body than the term
cabinet which has the potential to mislead. On the other hand, COAG as we
know it is an opaque institution. It often struggles to develop a genuinely
national approach to genuinely national problems, which all participating
governments can embrace. The National Cabinet process may have worked because
of the seriousness of the current threat. Australia would be well served however
if the spirit of inclusion, mutual respect and common purpose that appears
to characterise the National Cabinet, were to infuse a post-COVID COAG as well.