Reform of the Federation White Paper
Perth stakeholder consultation roundtable: summary of
stakeholders’ observations (18 and 19 February 2015)
Background
The Reform of the Federation White Paper Taskforce in the Department of the Prime Minister and
Cabinet undertook a series of ten consultation roundtables across Australia from 5 February to
5 March 2015.
The purpose of the roundtables was to listen to stakeholder views on the questions raised in the
issues papers published by the taskforce, and hear their ideas for potential reform.
In total, 50 organisations were invited to participate in the Perth roundtable held on 18 and
19 February 2015.
The following provides a summary of stakeholders’ observations expressed during that discussion. It is
not intended to attribute any particular views to stakeholders or reflect formal positions. Instead, it
aims to capture the key points of discussions or observations made.
The Australian Government thanks all stakeholders who participated in the roundtables for taking the
time to attend the discussions and share their view.
In addition, members of the Taskforce were invited to present to the Western Australian
Government’s Partnership Forum on 19 February 2015. The mission of the Forum is to bring together
leaders from Western Australian government agencies and the not-for-profit community sector to
improve outcomes for all Western Australians through a genuine partnership in the policy, planning
and delivery of community services in Western Australia.
The Taskforce appreciated this opportunity to engage members in discussion. However, it should be
noted that the views reflected below relate only to the Australian Government’s consultation
roundtable, and do not reflect the discussions at the Partnership Forum.
General session
Participants made the following observations:
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The key focus of reform should be on better services for citizens.
There is a balancing act between enabling maximum flexibility in decision making (which would
lead to more meaningful outcomes) and maintaining the necessary regulation for critical needs.
Meaningful outcomes would ensure that governments are accountable to citizens and that public
momentum for reform can be built.
A key source of uncertainty for service deliverers is the lack of direction around National
Partnership Agreements and other joint Commonwealth-State programmes. This affects certainty
in the continuation of services and staff retention. There is a need for better policy consistency.
States and Territories (the States) should be provided with maximum flexibility for effective
operational policy and service delivery, while involving the Commonwealth in public
accountability mechanisms and data collection to inform evidence-based policy making. However,
this only works if there is actually a consensus (within States as well as between the States) on
what the reform should be, which can be difficult. There may be a valid role in having the
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Commonwealth assist in getting all the States to the table to agree national standards for
performance, priorities and targets.
Where the States already have policy plans in certain service delivery areas, the Commonwealth
has previously come in with its own ideas as well. The best role for the Commonwealth is to build
capacity improvements within the system, as well as promoting best practice rather than
duplicating the activities of States.
A key question to ask around equity of service is whether we expect exactly the same level of
service when we move between States, or if some difference is acceptable.
Durability of funding is important, but so is the need for durability of policy direction, so that trust
can be built up between service deliverers and governments and that change can be given time to
take place.
Housing and Homelessness
Participants made the following observations:
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In housing, many of the significant policy levers are in tax and transfers, which is principally up to
the Commonwealth. Because of this, consideration of roles and responsibilities in housing is only
one set of issues in the sector that need to be considered alongside any changes in the housing
market that could flow from changes to tax arrangements.
While design and implementation of housing policy would be better at the local level, tax issues
are clearly the Commonwealth’s role. It will be important to talk about the tax issues side by side
with the expenditure and policy issues in housing.
One example of confusion between Commonwealth and State roles was in relation to the
National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). On introduction of the NRAS, one participant
recalled how their organisation was unsure about which government they should contact about
certain issues.
Dealing with supply-side issues should overwhelmingly be a State responsibility. The
Commonwealth’s role should be holistic direction and guidance, as well as providing incentives to
lagging States.
The Commonwealth has had a strong leadership role in homelessness, in terms of setting real
targets. It is unfortunate that there is ongoing uncertainty in homelessness funding.
Converting Commonwealth grants to States for affordable housing to extra Commonwealth Rent
Assistance funding would not necessarily be effective, given the rental market reaction to such a
move. Greater consideration needs to be given on the supply side, and making sure that planning
processes are not a restriction on housing development.
Even if the States were wholly responsible for funding and administering social housing, there are
still international conventions on social housing entitlements that might require Commonwealth
involvement in some way.
The WA ‘SharedStart’ initiative, where individuals may obtain a loan from Keystart (the WA
government lending agent) to purchase a percentage of a property from the Department of
Housing has worked reasonably well.
An Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report into international experience on
housing supply bonds and its effectiveness on expanding affordable housing is worth considering.
If more policy responsibility and funding for social housing were in the hands of States, there
cannot be an automatic assumption that States will treat the most vulnerable citizens the same
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way. There needs to be some baseline protection for the most vulnerable, as they cannot be the
“guinea pigs” for housing reform.
Health
Participants made the following observations:
 The main irrationality of the health system is that subsets of the system are predominantly the
responsibility of different tiers of government, with primary care the Commonwealth’s
responsibility and acute care and infrastructure the States’ responsibility. Increased hurdles for
effective service delivery are inevitable as a result. Reform of responsibilities in health is difficult,
but necessary to consider nonetheless.
 Ideally, the Commonwealth should be setting targets and benchmarking standards, but leave
service delivery and design to the States.
 When it comes to setting standards, a national approach shouldn’t necessarily mean involvement
by the Commonwealth only, but rather the Commonwealth and the States.
 In any reform, there is a need to ensure that the focus is on planning around the patient. That
should be the goal of any reform to health: empowering patients, and putting the control of care
into the hands of consumers.
 As a result of the split between primary and acute care, it is difficult for GPs to elicit information
about a patient’s activity in public hospitals. Timeliness is an issue when GPs elicit such
information, and medications can change in the interim. There is a general lack of trust from
hospital managers in providing this information to GPs, in case it ‘comes back to bite them’.
Disincentives could be removed if roles are realigned.
 The Ontario Family Health Network system is an interesting example whereby a large part of GP
income is no longer linked to volume. GPs are more satisfied in their work and are delivering
better outcomes for their patients. This illustrates the benefits of a competitive federalism system
whereby innovation and experimentation by sub-national governments is possible.
 There are examples of programmes in mental health that the Commonwealth set up to
‘coordinate services’. However, it merely made services worse. The Commonwealth’s initiatives
added to complexity, rather than reducing complexity through its own programmes.
 Australians with complex and chronic conditions have the greatest difficulty in navigating the
health system. A single funder and purchaser could be the start of a journey towards broader and
more coordinated care. However, it is important to use existing bodies and lines of
communication (rather than duplicating them). There is also a need to focus on prevention and
early intervention into chronic conditions – community providers would be vital in this.
 Important to any reform is the need to drive innovation. For example, better consultation with
individual hospitals could provide further ideas as to how to reduce waiting lists.
 Some argued that — ideally — a “single-funder” system should be at the centre of a long-term
vision for the future of the health system, as this would align financial incentives for better
integration of services and care coordination. However, others argued that such a system may
work for doctors, but won’t necessarily work for patients.
 There are issues around mutual recognition in the health workforce. One needs to look at the
effectiveness of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme. In nursing, efforts to have a
shared nurse accreditation council and national accreditation of university courses in nursing have
increased costs somewhat. However, it has led to a lift in standards and some consistency across
the nation, even if there is tension in trying to maintain this consistency. History of mutual
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recognition shows that there are benefits in national accreditation, and that such schemes are
now working well despite initial teething problems.
Early Childhood and Schools
Participants made the following observations:
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There is consistently strong evidence that investment in early years to tackle child vulnerability is
critical. There is still insufficient attention on early intervention. However, the child and parent
integrated centres in WA have been trying to address this need, by establishing collaborative
services across different functions (education, health, community protection) that operate
differently according to the needs of each area. There is both Commonwealth and WA
government funding for these centres.
The fact that child and parent centres in WA are like a ‘one stop shop’ with multidisciplinary
aspects is important in terms of service delivery. It needs to be coordinated at the State level as
there are other services to help vulnerable people that would be a State responsibility. However,
given the heavy involvement by both levels of government, it was argued that better clarity would
help citizens hold the appropriate level of government responsible for that service.
Regardless of where the funding comes from, there needs to be better coordination and longterm initiatives, particularly with Indigenous education programmes.
In considering the data collection needs and the Commonwealth’s role in this, there is a need to
consider the reporting burden that is already placed on teachers (e.g. in delivering MySchools).
There is a need to distinguish between universal and targeted services. Targeted services need to
be delivered in the right catchment areas (e.g. research in Canada revealed a substantial number
of vulnerable children in mid-range SES areas missed out on services which forced a rethink on
where services were delivered).
The Commonwealth should have a role when States cannot come together on a significant
matter, for the purposes of maintaining equity. One example is students with a disability in early
learning centres, with many disabled kids refused childcare because their disability needs could
not be catered for. This means that parents are unable to return to workforce. Such situations
could justify Commonwealth involvement, in order to ensure an equitable level of service. This
may be particularly the case where there are still gaps where States have not fulfilled a mutually
agreed minimum standard.
The argument for the Commonwealth’s catalyst role in innovation and system building is that it
grows capacity, with one such example in literacy and numeracy. While having a national
government to observe and spread best practice is important, there is a greater need for diversity
in States to allow experimentation. In some instances, a national government role may not even
be needed, if the States get together to initiate reform (e.g. as is the case for the education
system in Canada).
Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Higher Education
Participants made the following observations:
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A key issue is the lack of autonomy that VET providers have. There is a lot of bureaucracy for VET
providers that universities can avoid. This affects their ability and agility to provide effective
programs. A key part of this is the national standards that the Australian Skills Quality Authority
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sets, and the variations in these standards between States (in part because some States did not
refer their regulatory powers to the Commonwealth).
The view of higher education representatives was that VET in schools is inherently problematic
because it is difficult for schools to be compliant with the concept of VET.
While increased regulation of the VET sector might discourage “rogue” operators, it also
discourages universities and legitimate VET providers.
Although the differences between jurisdictions in the VET sector is argued by some to be too
messy, the advantage of diversity is that it allows States to decide where their workforce needs
are and nudge the market in the right direction.
The key intersection between the VET and higher education sectors is at the Australian
Qualifications Framework (AQF) levels 5 and 6, where you can obtain a diploma and advanced
diploma in the VET sector, as well as the higher education sector. Decision making of students
here is potentially skewed by the differing financial incentives they face, and what fees they are
required to pay up front.
The key industry threshold question is whether a qualification is one for work readiness or one for
a broader pathway. There is particularly a blurring of lines at AQF levels 5 and 6 , as many VET
courses at that level are delivered in a similar way to corresponding university courses.
In higher education, changes in reporting arrangements wouldn’t make any difference in practical
terms for student outcomes. There was no view that there was a ‘burning platform’ for reform in
this regard. One area of open debate about the role of the Commonwealth vis-à-vis the States
was in regard to decisions around the location of new university campuses and establishments.
The view of higher education representatives was that rather than giving universities the job of
implementing the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, the Commonwealth
should have worked with the States to implement the programme, focusing on schools.
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