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The Forum > Article Comments > One water catchment: one regional government > Comments

One water catchment: one regional government : Comments

By Gavin Putland, published 11/9/2007

Regional government boundaries should coincide with watersheds and preferably should not cross metropolitan areas.

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I'm trying to envision a State consisting only of the Murray Darling catchment. I'm not sure how to account for coastal desalination nor pumping outside the catchment boundary, both of which will be affected by increasing energy cost. I suspect that governments also informally factor in welfare cost avoided as well as cash recoupment in assisting new projects. There must also be reasons of social and bureaucratic inertia why there has not been a population shift to areas of water abundance such as SW Tasmania and NW Western Australia. Perhaps because because they are not Perth and Hobart where the power brokers have their leafy suburban homes.
Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 11 September 2007 10:01:31 AM
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An article nicely articulated at the centre, decidedly woolly around the edges.
Caught up in the catchment, it stretches the mind to imagine the Goondiwindi Grey getting its Melbourne Cup riding instructions from Adelaide, or Cubby Station cottoning on to wisdom emanating from the good burghers of that same city. And, come the change, Tamworth’s country musical festival might never be the same.
On another tack, or tax, the rise and fall of market values could play a merry tune with Government income. Take the Gold Coast, where prime coastal-fringe values rule the roost for the moment. What primacy will they have when inevitable erosion fed by future cyclonic swells consumes the land/sand upon which they currently stand? Circumstance does not stand still, as Geoscience Australia’s City Hazards project indicates.
From the overall grasp of this article, Prosper Australia sets foundations appropriate for a house of cards.
Posted by colinsett, Tuesday, 11 September 2007 10:20:40 AM
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Good article making entirely sensible suggestion. Redrawing our system boundaries from those of 'first white guys here' to 'how landscape functions' is a necesary early step in learning to live in this place.

Feel the two previous posters are unfair: author specificly rules out One Big Catchment rule, and can hardly be required to account for geological change processes - no human lines on maps persist for anything like those timescales.
Posted by Liam, Tuesday, 11 September 2007 9:49:40 PM
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Concerning the Murray-Darling example:

A large catchment will be divided into subcatchments by internal watersheds, and any topology-dependent infrastructure system within the large catchment will tend to be divided into subsystems by the same internal watersheds. So if it is deemed necessary to divide the large catchment into multiple self-governing regions, administrative gridlock can be minimized by using internal watersheds as regional boundaries.

Even if regional boundaries follow watersheds as far as possible, it is inevitable that COASTLINES will also form boundaries. And if you divide a large catchment into subcatchments, the banks of some waterways through the main catchment will serve as "coastlines" for subcatchments. Even if a region is formed by joining two subcatchments on opposite sides of a waterway (which is desirable in that it removes administrative obstacles to the financing of a bridge across the waterway), parts of the waterway will usually have to serve as regional boundaries, because the boundaries of the subcatchments will usually not line up across the waterway.

So no, I don't envisage Goondiwindi and Adelaide under the same "regional" government. But I do concede that some riverbanks within the Murray-Darling system would have to serve as "coastlines" of regions.
Posted by grputland, Wednesday, 12 September 2007 2:56:15 PM
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Concerning colinsett's objection that fluctuations in land values would cause fluctuations in revenue:

The same objection applies a fortiori to the present stamp duties. These yield revenue not only in proportion to property prices, but also in proportion to frequency of sales, which is correlated with prices.

A similar objection applies to income tax and GST: during recessions, revenue from these taxes falls while expenditure on welfare increases.

Moreover, a holding tax on land values would stabilize land values in two ways. FIRST, it would provide corrective feedback. If land prices rise, the resulting rise in tax liability will deter buyers and counteract the price rise. If land prices fall, the resulting fall in tax liability will attract buyers and counteract the price fall. SECOND, it would impose a holding cost on land, making it less attractive to hold land for speculative purposes, and forcing investors to concentrate on current income. With less incentive for speculation, there would be less tendency for the market to form speculative bubbles.

A transfer tax proportional to the rise in the land value since the last transfer would also shift investors' attention from capital gains to current income, further reducing the speculative motive.

If speculative bubbles in the property market could be eliminated, this would not only stabilize income from property taxes, but also eliminate a major cause of recessions, namely the inevitable bursting of the bubbles; see http://grputland.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-australia-loses-1-trillion-year.html .

So the proposed revenue reforms, far from creating a "house of cards", would help to stabilize revenue and the wider economy.
Posted by grputland, Wednesday, 12 September 2007 3:07:16 PM
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“If speculative bubbles in the property market could be eliminated”. Now that is indeed putting the spotlight on something which needs attention. It wouldn’t be for the first time.
Chairman of the Grants Commission, Justice Rae Else-Mitchell, Professor of Accounting and public Finance (ANU), Russell Lloyd Mathews, and Chairman of directors of Lend Lease Corporation, Gerardus Dusseldorp, held a commission of Inquiry into Land Tenures which delivered its final report in February 1976.
Dusseldorp, though in the land development business, deplored speculative rather than earned profits, and did not indicate any dissent from the report.

From page 28 of the final report: “many planning issues need to be considered on a level below that of a State government or Territorial administration but above the level of a single local council. We also remain convinced that it is undesirable for local councils to make the final decisions on controversial development proposals. But we recognize that there is a major role for local government in developing non-statutory guidelines against which particular proposals may be judged.”

The whole business is a very woolly pup, difficult to come to grips with in any one simple way. Since 1976 we have progressed to such catchment organizations as that of the Murray Darling River Basin; various Landcare catchment groups. But, how to decide boundaries for Local Governments? Catchments - just riverine, or those of integrated industries, production, markets?

And rather than sorting out our great heap of unresolved problems first, our self-esteemed Treasurer exhorts us, now, to “have one for the country”. In effect expand the present Australian-born plus immigration catchment for increasing the need for infrastructure, social and environmental services (which include adequate rainfall).

I am concerned about proposals which do no more than jiggle extra seats into an increasingly crowded space. I welcome those which will lead to improving prospects for society in the long-term; and acknowledge there is no one-size fits-all. I admit, it isn’t easy.
Posted by colinsett, Thursday, 13 September 2007 10:40:54 AM
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