It’s not so much that all politics is now local. That was always the case. What’s different is the Canberra overreach has exceeded its use-by date, something the Prime Minister, far more than most, appreciates.
To build modern Australia, the relative importance of the three tiers of government was inverted. We placed our faith in a top-down approach that, by its very nature, expects money, concentrated power and rules-based structures to achieve systematic outcomes. Though not made explicit, the quantitative was put before the qualitative, head before heart, ideology before people.
And while this has been worthwhile, a reckoning is now upon the West.
Read my latest article here, on the need to move decision-making down to the local government level, while still accepting the value of centralised power, where appropriate.
