The current government structure
Key ideas:
- The Northern Territory's Legislative Assembly;
- Current issues in the Northern Territory's Legislative Assembly;
- Relationship between the Northern Territory and Federal governments.
Northern Territory Government
With the advent of self-government in the Northern Territory, the political structures are now quite similar to those elsewhere in Australia. But the NT is still a self-governing territory rather than a state and there are some important underlying differences in the source of the Legislative Assembly's right to govern. All the Australian states are sovereign territories (they exist in a sense, as countries in their own right) federated as one nation. It's a subtle difference but the right to govern in the NT exists because of an act of federal parliament and in that sense we have government as an act of good faith by the rest of the nation. Legislation enacted in the Northern Territory Parliament is able to be over-ridden by the Federal Parliament if they should wish to do so. In the case of the legislation regarding euthanasia a few years ago, the NT Act was overturned by a Private Member's Bill in the House of Representatives in Canberra (approved by the Senate). So whilst we have similar rights to those people living in states, there are a few caveats that are placed by the Federal Government to ensure they still have the over-riding responsibility for the Territory. You may have noticed too that this jurisdiction extends to the management of World Heritage Areas like Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Parks.
The Commonwealth Government
The national parliament comprising both the House of Representatives and the Senate is responsible for national laws, such as: trade, taxation, defence and foreign affairs that are allocated to the Commonwealth in the Australian Constitution. The Northern Territory elects two members of the House of Representatives (a number in proportion to our population) and two representatives in the Senate. NT representation in the Senate is less than the states because of the Northern Territory's status as a self-governing territory. Every State and Territory has its own parliament which is responsible for matters including public health, education, roads, public land use, police, fire and ambulance services and local government within their own States or Territories, basically everything not assigned to the Commonwealth Government in the Constitution.
Relations between levels of government
The Commonwealth and State Governments co-operate in many areas where States and Territories are formally responsible, such as education, transport, health and law enforcement, although relations are not always happy where the two levels of government cooperate in this way. Disagreements have been mainly to do with the levels of funding that the Commonwealth Government provides to the states to administer health and education programs and to maintain roads and other infrastructure. You will often see on the television or hear on the radio about State Ministers for Health or Education coming away from meetings in Canberra with less money than they expected or needed. This is particularly the case for the high population states of NSW and Victoria, and the states like Western Australia that contribute through mineral royalties far and above the level of money they get returned to them. Places like the Northern Territory usually get far more money for things like roads than the population might warrant. This is because of the Commonwealth's Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation program that draws money from the high population states and the wealthy states to help provide services and infrastructure in the less wealthy and lowly populated areas like the NT and Tasmania.
Reflection
How fair do you think the process of Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation is? Is it right that those of us in the richer and more populous states should subsidise the provision of services for the others that live in places like the NT?