As former premiers, we have seen the benefits of states cooperating. Let's extend national cabinet
Australia is showing tremendous resilience in the face of Covid-19. The immediate task of surviving this health crisis is itself ferociously challenging but there is a second, nation-defining task that cannot be ignored: how to build back Australia for the better.
This is a test not only of management but of imagination. It may also require some serious reform of our federation.
Through the public health crisis we have learnt some important things about ourselves: the value of a strong public health system; a preparedness to make sacrifice for those more vulnerable and (remarkably for some) the way our governments, both federal and state, have worked cooperatively in the national interest.
Feeding into that process have been disparate interests from business to unions to the community sector, that have been given real access and influence as the national cabinet has had to resolve difficult problems in real time.
Government has been given permission to change tack to meet shifting circumstances, including evolving and sometimes reversing policy (wages guarantee, for example). And most opposition leaders are being productive while continuing to scrutinise decisions at all levels of government.
The public has responded: both in altering their behaviour for the common good and then, as polling has shown, by reigniting their trust in public institutions after more than a decade of decline.
Full credit to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, for establishing the national cabinet and to the premiers and chief ministers who have cast aside party lines and sectional interests to work in a collegiate manner in the best interests of all Australians.
As former premiers we have seen the benefits of a process which shares expert advice, provides space for difference, but ultimately agrees on ways forward. It stands in stark contrast to the painful inertia of so many Coag meetings where good intentions and grand ideas went to die.
We saw glimpses of hope, such as 2015 when Tony Abbott called a leaders retreat and we met, free of impending elections or departmental handlers, and opened a discussion on the future of the federation that centred on children, health and national prosperity.
But too often opportunities for real collaboration and change were ephemeral, meetings were rare, momentum stalled due to crisis or process, and it all became just another meeting.
The national cabinet process has been a stark contrast: leaders of different levels of government with different affiliations gathering as peers, looking for joint purpose and creating constructive ways of managing differences.
As we move to the next phase of the crisis, it’s not just what we do but the way that we do it that will be critical: can we learn from our success and continue a model of unified national leadership?
This should not be taken for granted: already there is pressure to “snap back” to the tired debates of deregulation, tax reform, welfare payments – and, of course, energy transition.
All of these issues are important and need to be confronted, but if they are confronted in the old ways, we fear we will fall back into stagnation. Public trust will decline and the opportunity of a new future will pass.
There is new hope for a brighter future if we learn from our successes over the past months and embed new ways of making decisions collaboratively.
We are calling for the national cabinet to be retained for at least the next 12 months as an ongoing model for real federal and state cooperation, and tasking it with building a federal (as opposed to national) economic plan, identifying state and regional priority industries and working across layers of government and civil society to identify need and distress.
The Westminster system is hardwired for vertical accountability, but it struggles with complexity, diversity and collaboration. A national cabinet that deliberately includes all leaders and external perspectives provides an opportunity to overcome some of these key challenges.
As Albert Camus suggested in The Plague: “What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well.” It helps us, he argues, rise above ourselves.
The current crisis provides the current generation of elected representatives, public servants and community leaders an opportunity to rise above gradualism and an aversion to risk and develop a more expansive, elegant approach to nation building.
Working together, there is the chance to reimagine a better Australia, one where we get better together.
• Former state premiers Mike Baird and Jay Weatherill will discuss these ideas further with Guardian Australia’s Anne Davies at 1pm on Wednesday in an Australia at Home discussion