Downer has his Say

Titled "An idea too remote' it seems that not only does David Penberthy not respect the work of local government neither does the Advertiser in again publishing an item written by Alexander Downer slamming constitutional change. What starts as a logical and well researched article makes such giant leaps of logic as to be laughable. His last logical line is '.. nothing can stop the Federal Parliament sending the money to states' grants committees which distribute it on an equitable basis to individual councils'. However, while they are able to do this they tend to make decisions based on winning elections and not need. The truth is that the constitutional change is about how funding occurs and not about how local government works. If your federal politicians have the time to worry about what type of wheelie bin you use I would be very surprised! Local government will not be under the thumb of the federal government with or without the change, but we might just be able to wrangle a better funding deal without the state government wanting not only it's share of the funding itself but  a say on where and  how it is spent.