Suchergebnisse

Abstract: The Commonwealth Grants Commission was established in 1933 to inquire into the payment of special grants to the States. It has retained this function to the present day, and has also conducted inquiries into grants to local government, the distribution of general revenue assistance to the States, and the financial position of the Territories. Although special grants had been paid for over twenty years before the establishment of the Commission, the principle upon which grants should be based had not been determined. The first members of the Commission, after debating the merits of grants based on financial need and grants based on disabilities due to federation, adopted in their third report the principle of fiscal equalization which the Commission still follows. Under this principle grants are assessed that enable each State to provide a standard level of service to its residents so long as it levies taxes at standard rates. The Commission operates as a semi‐judicial body, receiving written submissions and conducting public hearings at which witnesses from the States and the Commonwealth Treasury are examined on oath. It also conducts an extensive analysis of State government finances and other information in arriving at its conclusions. Over the years many distinguished Australians have served on the Commission, and their work has contributed to the high reputation enjoyed by the Commission in carrying out its task of maintaining a balance in the fiscal position of the States.

For more than a generation Robert Parker and Dick Spann have had a considerable influence on the academic study and practical exercise of the administration of government in Australia. To one who has known these distinguished figures for an aggregate period of more than eighty years, it comes almost as a shock to be reminded that Parker first began lecturing in public administration at the Canberra University College in 1938 and that Spann came from abroad to head the Department of Government and Public Administration in the University of Sydney in 1954.

In a federal system few subjects are of such fundamental importance as the financial relations between the Central Government and the States or Provincial Governments. Not only, as Professor Giblin observed in 1926,1 are those relations the chief determinant of the character of the Federation, but they also influence and perhaps determine both the political character of the union and the political colour from time to time of the governments of component members of the federation.

Abstract: The question of how a fiscal balance might be maintained between the Commonwealth and the States exercised the minds of the framers of the Constitution before 1901 and has been of concern ever since. Centralization of financial power in the Commonwealth has resulted from decisions of the High Court of Australia especially the two Uniform Tax Cases which in 1942 established, and in 1957 reinforced, the Commonwealth's hegemony in the revenue field. This hegemony enabled the Commonwealth to influence, if not dictate, State policy initiatives by the making of conditional grants for a wide range of specific purposes under Section 96 of the Constitution. The practice of making specific purpose grants as an element in what has been called "coercive federalism" was adopted in varying degree by the Commonwealth during the years between 1943 and 1975. The "new federalism" policies of the present government have as their objective the reversal of this practice and in its place the restoration of State automomy in the expenditure of a pre‐determined share of income tax revenues. Some of the problems entailed in the withdrawal of specific purpose grants are outlined, and the paper also suggests an institutional mechanism to maintain a proper fiscal balance between Commonwealth and States as part of the "new federalism".

Die Autoren beschäftigen sich mit der Verantwortlichkeit für die Geldtransfers zwischen verschiedenen Regierungsebenen in Australien und den USA. Im Vergleich werden Schwächen des australischen Systems deutlich und weisen die Richtung zur Änderung. Mit statistischen Übersichten. (DÜI-Plz)