NEWS DESK
ISLAMABAD: An online session to compare the Evolution of Federalism in Pakistan & Australia was organized by PILDAT with the support of the Australian High commission’s Direct Aid Programme. The session was attended by representatives from media and civil society.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President PILDAT, presented key takeaways from the background paper written by Sartaj Aziz, public intellectual, former National Security Advisor and Former Federal Minister for Finance, Foreign Affairs and a Development Economist. Sartaj Aziz could not attend the session. In is recommendations, Mr. Aziz believes that the call for revisiting 18th Amendment should be discouraged. Instead, capacity of the Provincial governments needs to be enhanced to deal with the devolved subjects of Education and Health. Duplication of efforts should be avoided between Federal and Provincial Governments in areas such as Health, Agriculture and Population Planning. The role of Federal Government should be increased in social protection, poverty reduction, higher education and health insurance by better utilisation of the CCI. Federal Government must show leadership by evolving through consensus & approval of CCI a model Local Government law which should also set time limit of holding LG elections and efforts should be made to increase the federal tax revenues to 15% of the GDP.
Speaking on the Evolution of Fiscal Federalism in Australia Dr. Moeen Cheema, Associate Professor at the College of Law, Australian National University (ANU), briefly shared the history of federalism and constitutional formation in Australia. He said fiscal federalism is key to robust federalism. However, Australia is somewhat anomalous amongst developed democracies as its constitutional system has deeply entrenched federalism but has at the same time evolved a vertical fiscal imbalance that leads to comparatively much greater centralization of power and policymaking in the federal government or Commonwealth of Australia. As a developed economy, however, and the over-sized revenue generating capacity of the federal government, the fiscal imbalance is cushioned through Commonwealth’s generous unconditional and conditional grants to the Australian States. The evolution of mechanisms of coordination between the Commonwealth and States through policymaking is also entrenched in practice that takes care of the centralization of power.