States begin to defy Federal Government on professional issues

The states are finally standing up to the Howard Government, writes WENDY CURRIE.

In the face of increasingly coercive federal intervention in education and training, as in other areas such as health, state and territory governments are finally beginning to assert their right to determine the substance and nature of what happens in schools while not denying the inevitability of increasing national consistency.

They have done this in two ways.

One occurred at the meeting of the Ministerial Council on Employment Education Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) in Darwin in early April, where the state education ministers firmly rejected Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's performance pay plan, noting that since the employment of teachers is a state responsibility specific pay structures should not be tied to future federal funding.

It has been a matter for bewilderment that state and territory governments have not, until now, stood up to the Federal Government's blackmail where it tries to tie funding to the implementation of its policy agenda. They are all Labor governments and one would have thought they would understand the power of collective action.

That it took them this long to do so is a pity. That they have done so now is to be applauded.

The way was paved for their coordinated rejection of Bishop's performance pay (as well as her proposal for a prescribed national curriculum) by a decision by the premiers and chief ministers in October last year to establish the Council for the Australian Federation.

The rise of this council signalled a desire on the part of the states to return to the "cooperative federalism" that worked productively in the early 1990s to achieve national consistency in those policy areas where there was a perceived need to meet a changed international, economic, social and technological environment. At that time, achievements were made without trampling on state rights that are enshrined in the Constitution.

The Council for the Australian Federation has commissioned and delivered two papers this year establishing itself as an alternative to the Federal Government in the development of broad national policy directions.

The first, Federalist Paper 1: Australia's Federal Future, analyses Australian federalism in both international and domestic contexts. It argues that nations that have a federal structure, including Australia, enjoy economic success of a greater magnitude than do unitary states.

Regarding domestic success it argues that federalism offers Australia significant benefits including: "protection for the individual by checking the concentration of power; choice and diversity; the customisation of policies to meet local needs; incentives to reform and improve, in order to compete with other jurisdictions; greater scrutiny of policies as a result of the need to achieve co-operation; and incentive to innovate and experiment."

Interestingly, some of these are among the arguments the Australian Education Union has used in responding to recent Federal Government inquiries in areas such as curriculum, teaching standards, learning standards and benchmarks, and teacher education.

The paper explains that the increasingly coercive approach of the current federal government succeeds because of vertical fiscal imbalance, that is, where the tier of government that has the greatest capacity to raise funds in the form of taxes has the least responsibility in the delivery of services. It can therefore use its resulting financial muscle to demand changes in areas where it provides no services.

This begs the questions: Why is the Federal Government doing this? What does it hope to gain? The paper argues that federal control over traditionally state responsibilities is exercised not to gain efficiency, since such federalism rarely results in efficiency, but rather to realise its ideological goals.

The paper does not automatically support the traditional view of federalism as was envisaged by the authors of the Constitution, but suggests a number of ways of making federalism work better in a contemporary context and improving the mechanisms for inter-governmental cooperation.

The second paper, Federalist Paper 2: The Future of Schooling in Australia refines the 1999 "Adelaide Declaration of the National Goals of Schooling".

In reality it is a call to return to a cooperative approach in the face of the Federal Government's expanding use of its power to bludgeon states into submission.

In substance it departs little from the Adelaide Declaration. It reiterates the emphasis on cooperative approaches that allow for innovation and flexibility so that states and schools can use the methods that are best suited to the different needs of their students. It acknowledges the need for different and innovative approaches if we are to close the achievement gap that Australia's results in international tests clearly show exist. And while it talks of the responsibilities of schools, principals and teachers in achieving this, it might have given greater emphasis to the responsibilities of government.

It nonetheless recognises the need for national curriculum consistency.

In one area, however, it proposes more specificity than does the Adelaide Declaration. This is in the list of key learning areas where physics, chemistry and biology are specified in science; and history, geography and economics are specified in studies of society and culture (Human society and its environment in NSW). It refers to "an increasing focus on disciplines within the science and social sciences/humanities areas of learning".

None of this will worry schools in NSW, but it could well cause concern in other states that have a different approach to science and social science curriculum.

Overall, the paper proposes a revised national curriculum framework and curriculum standards with "flexibility in teaching approach and, in some cases, content in order to reach the standards in different settings". It does not replace the National Goals of Schooling, but is a clear signal the states have had their fill of being pushed around.

They are clearly flexing their muscles before a Federal Government that is polling badly.

The proof will now be in the extent to which they are prepared to back up their words with action. What happened at MCEETYA in April at least augurs well. Federal ALP announcements in these areas demonstrate, if nothing else, an appreciation of the need for an open and cooperative rather than restrictive and coercive approach to national consistency.

What remains to be seen is the role they all envisage for the teacher unions in this process.

If you would like a hard copy of these papers, please contact Teresa Chan on (02) 9217 2149. They're well worth the read.

Wendy Currie is a Research Officer.

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Last Modified: 03 May 2007