Hong Kong enjoys higher autonomy in comparison
Updated: 2014-12-23 09:17
By Xiao Ping(HK Edition)
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Editor's note: This is the first part of the author's article on Hong Kong SAR's high degree of autonomy as compared to local governments in Australia and New Zealand.
I recently visited Australia and New Zealand mainly to learn more about relations between the central and local governments in those two countries. Brief and limited as it was my trip afforded me quite some in-depth understanding of central-local government relationship in Western countries. Compared with those two countries, I must say Hong Kong enjoys much more autonomy as a special administrative region thanks to the central government's confidence in the SAR government. Such autonomy surpasses not only that of local governments in New Zealand, which is a unitary state, but also the state governments in Australia, which is a federation.
New Zealand's Parliament passed its Local Government Law in 1974 to ensure the authority of the central government over local governments. Its central government has the power to handle foreign affairs, national defense, education and public health affairs while local governments are in charge of municipal development and public services. Australia, on the other hand, maintained its federal system with a constitutional arrangement that gave the six states considerable autonomy while limiting the power of the federal government early on, but has since seen the federal authorities gain ground over state governments in terms of administrative power over the decades. Today, the federal government is without a doubt the "boss".
A closer look at the two countries' power structure shows that their national governments invariably strengthen their authority through the judiciary and taxation system.
As far as enhancing the authority of the national administration is concerned, Australia is more typical than New Zealand. Whenever the federal government was challenged by state authorities over "power breeches" in a court of law, the Supreme Court, which holds the ultimate authority to interpret the constitution, generally ruled in favor of the federal government over the state authorities. The "engineer case" of 1920 was the beginning of the process of reducing the power of state governments. The rest, as people say, is history.
Another example worth mentioning is the case over the construction of a dam in Tasmania. The Franklin River, where the dam is located, is in Tasmania. The construction of the dam was already under way when the federal government ordered it to be shut down. When the Tasmanian state government challenged the federal authorities, the Supreme Court maintained that the Franklin is on the World's Natural Heritage list and Australia is a signatory of the International Convention for the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. This was reason enough to rule in favor of the federal government. That case set the precedent where state governments must respect Supreme Court rulings over matters concerning Australia's compliance to any international law or convention of which the nation is a signatory. The precedent proved very far-reaching to say the least.
The increase of federal power means that the power of state governments is shrinking. This is necessary because the times have changed since the early days of nation after its independence and globalization requires more power for national governments to make decisions. In the process of redistributing this power, the judiciary played a vital role.
In tomorrow's edition this author will discuss the role of taxation in the power redistribution process.
The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.
(HK Edition 12/23/2014 page10)