Although crime in Australia is not as “out of control” as some US based pro-gun rights sources will have you believe, there has been enough research since to show that the national gun laws that the ‘conservative’ John Howard administration enacted after the Port Arthur Tasmania shooting massacre have had zero impact on Australia’s homicide rate. See here and here (PDF) for a detailed academic study. Still the pro-gun law people and the government can claim “success” in that there have been no mass shootings of the Port Arthur type since.

Private gun ownership was common in Australia, athough probably less so than in the US, since colonial times. It’s interesting to see how partisan politics impacts all this. There are plenty of people on the left of Australian politics who are ever ready to condemn the Howard administration for it’s “war” on civil liberties, in particular, tough laws against illegal immigrants, support for the US government’s maltreatment of Australian Gitmo detainee David Hicks, tougher “anti-terrorist” laws and the “smearing of all muslims as terrorists” etc. Somehow or other the left failed to notice that Howard’s assaults on Australians’ liberties began with his gun laws. Not only was a right Australians inherited from the English Bill of Rights of 1689 tossed in the scap heap with hardly any political debate, referendum or serious parliamentary dust-up. Howard also road roughshod over our Federal Constitution to do it.

On this point the conservatives, who usually claim to be defenders of our Federal system, were deathly quiet. The Federals have no power over gun laws outside of the Federal territories of Canberra and the Northern Territory. The government used it’s social welfare powers to blackmail all the states into adopting identical legislation it had drafted. They imposed a national Medicare Levy (a tax on our national public health scheme contributions) to finance the “buyback”, States that didn’t pass the federally drafted legislation would be thus taxed and receive no funding. Since this piece of creative federal power grabbing Howard, who claims to be a federalist, has sought to centralise more power in federal hands, first under the guise of “uniform national competition policy” but more recently in the areas of industrial relations, rivers and water and university education. This makes him the greatest centralist in the century or so of Australian federalism, overtaking the leftist Gough Whitlam for first place.

All this is enough to make you give up on the idea of that any protection of personal liberty is possible from either the left or the conservatives. Also it is a warning to Americans too. Watch out for national health policies, they may be used for more than just extending public hospital care.

…except big government under the control of their tribe.

The Australian federal constitution was modelled on the US constitution and is probably closer to the US model than say the Canadian constitution is. Unlike Canada, the powers of the Australian federal government are specifically defined and “all other” powers are held by the States. The States preceded the federal government, having been self governing British colonies for decades before federation in 1900. New South Wales had been self governing since ~1855. The first ‘responsible government’ among Britain’s colonies had been Nova Scotia in 1848. The histories of Australia and Canada are actually closely intertwined despite the best efforts of inhabitants of both countries to ignore the other.

Australia has experienced the same pattern of increasing federal power that the US has experienced despite the founders obvious intention that the federal power would be constrained. The lesson would seem to be that “pattern” is not just a bi-product of a few accidents in American or Australian history but something more fundamental. Control over revenue seems to be the deciding factor. Australian federation came as a result of a series of popular referendums with the first couple of attempts failing. The pro-federationists argued that the cost of the new federal government would be nothing more than “a few shillings”. Today the feds control easily 30% (probably more) of the GDP of the entire country. Before federation the British Australasian colonies had the highest per capita income on the planet, higher even than the US at the time, a century of federalism has seen us slide down the pack in the comparative ratings. Not much of a bargain if you ask me.

The feds here have been more successful than even their US peers in controlling revenue. During WW2 income tax, very much the main source of all government revenue is Australia (more so than US), was federalised as a war measure. Since then the growth of federal power has been relentless. In order to change the constitution a popular national referendum is required. Australian voters to their credit have rejected each and every one. (About the only one that ever got through was a 1967 referendum on aboriginal rights). This has not deterred the centralists who now think only of working via the back door. They understand, but as ‘true democrats’ never admit that the people just don’t support them.

In the 1980s they used “international treaty powers” to get federal intervention on local conservation / land use issues, preventing the Tasmanians from building a dam in their own state. That piece of legerdemain was hailed by the Greens who otherwise claim to believe in decentralisation of power. The feds can now proclaim any tree stump they want “a world heritage area” and can thus intervene on matters normally decided by shire and municipal government. The Greens use this to bypass the tiresome chore of winning local elections. Eventually some smart arse will use the same power to over-rule local conservation decisions and I am sure the wailing will be heard from here to timbuktu when that happens.

The “conservative” Howard government uses bribery and bullying of state governments to get it’s own way. Note the gun law example, but it’s not the only one. A prominent political thinker here, Greg Craven, is correct when he says Howard has engaged in the greatest centralisation of power in Australia since WW2. They know full well any of it’s attempts to federalise competition policy, industrial relations, water or universities would not get to first base at referendum. This pattern of “conservatives” engaging in a political program the direct opposite of conservative principles is another one Americans would be familiar with. I’m tempted to say that the repetition of the problem on opposite sides of the planet indicates more than historical accident at work, so maybe it’s not “the neocons” (by that meaning the old Trotsky-cons and their various misbegotten progeny), but the temptations of concentrated power that is the real common denominator.

too much time in college. you get into the habit of rattling off stuff like that after a while…