Hi All
I’ve been closely following the progress of The Free State Project in the USA https://www.fsp.org/ and it has got me thinking about how we can affect similar Libertarian change here in Australia
I’m also impressed by the way in which they have been criticising by creating, but see a few roadblocks to doing so in the same manner as they have done.
Australia differs from the USA in a few very fundamental and key ways. Which makes it difficult to copy the playbook the Free State Project has shown us is possible.
USA
Due to their Constitution:
Australia
Due to our constitution
This presents a few challenges when looking at how the Free state project has performed and attempting to emulate that success here in Australia. Even if we were to find an ideal state to all move to:
That being said all is not lost, because on the flip side if we were to instead start hyper locally and all move to a single LGA (Local Government Area) we would have the opposite impact
The Free State Project from their planning and calculations estimated that they needed 20,000 people to move to make their goals a reality.
In Australia our LGAs are very small, in NSW, out of 130 LGAs the smallest 83 have populations less than 50,000 and the smallest 21 have populations less than 2,000 people
Which means to effect change at the local level there is a much lower critical mass of people required to get started. Even a group of 1,000 - 2,000 could make changes at the local level if it were in the right location. And working in our favour is the fact that these sparsely populated LGAs have control over vast swathes of land, so there are things that could be achieved that wouldn’t otherwise be possible in smaller pockets of land
It would still be difficult to begin with as Local Governments are even more impotent than State Governments in Australia, but:
In addition, although i’m not in favour of secession and trying to form an entirely new country, i’m very much in favour of starting at the LGA level and building up this LGA to the point it could become it’s own state. Once “the move” (if a similar process was adopted such as the FSPs) has been triggered, a speed run to 500K people would be the goal which would likely be the minimum needed to become a state (for context TAS has a population of 575K, ACT has 472K and NT has 254K)
Statehood would open up the ability to do much more under the rules set forth in our constitution, and then we’d really be able to kick into high gear
In addition, by taking some of the negative feedback on board from the Free State Project it might even be beneficial to instead of moving somewhere and taking over an LGAs council against some (even if just a vocal minority) of local people’s wishes, to instead start from scratch. Australia has such an abundance of vacant land that it would not be insurmountably difficult to purchase a significantly large parcel of land and move enough people there such that we can create our own LGA from 0 and just build from there.
Anyways, keen to hear other peoples thoughts
Scott
I’ve been closely following the progress of The Free State Project in the USA https://www.fsp.org/ and it has got me thinking about how we can affect similar Libertarian change here in Australia
I’m also impressed by the way in which they have been criticising by creating, but see a few roadblocks to doing so in the same manner as they have done.
Australia differs from the USA in a few very fundamental and key ways. Which makes it difficult to copy the playbook the Free State Project has shown us is possible.
USA
Due to their Constitution:
- Is very state centric, and decentralised.
- There are 50 separate states and 14 territories
- The states retain a high level of control and autonomy
- The federal government has a much narrower scope of control
Australia
Due to our constitution
- Is highly centralised
- There are only 6 separate states and 10 territories
- The states do not have much control or autonomy
- The federal government has a much larger scope of control
This presents a few challenges when looking at how the Free state project has performed and attempting to emulate that success here in Australia. Even if we were to find an ideal state to all move to:
- Due to Australia having such a small number of states it would take a significantly higher number of people to achieve a similar level of political prominence in any state other than TAS or NT
- Even if we did manage to enlist enough people to move and take control of a state government, it would not yield the same results, as this government would be unable to make the same level of changes as their USA counterpart could.
That being said all is not lost, because on the flip side if we were to instead start hyper locally and all move to a single LGA (Local Government Area) we would have the opposite impact
The Free State Project from their planning and calculations estimated that they needed 20,000 people to move to make their goals a reality.
In Australia our LGAs are very small, in NSW, out of 130 LGAs the smallest 83 have populations less than 50,000 and the smallest 21 have populations less than 2,000 people
Which means to effect change at the local level there is a much lower critical mass of people required to get started. Even a group of 1,000 - 2,000 could make changes at the local level if it were in the right location. And working in our favour is the fact that these sparsely populated LGAs have control over vast swathes of land, so there are things that could be achieved that wouldn’t otherwise be possible in smaller pockets of land
It would still be difficult to begin with as Local Governments are even more impotent than State Governments in Australia, but:
- If you've had a vote in your LGA and it shows you have overwhelming support of say >80% where the residents wanted to override a federal government ban, say on self driving cars, you could in theory show that you have democratic support to get this waived and an exemption issued for you LGA by the federal government
- Likewise for you could hold a vote and if you knew your community supported it you could court an industry to set up there, for example a nuclear power plant
In addition, although i’m not in favour of secession and trying to form an entirely new country, i’m very much in favour of starting at the LGA level and building up this LGA to the point it could become it’s own state. Once “the move” (if a similar process was adopted such as the FSPs) has been triggered, a speed run to 500K people would be the goal which would likely be the minimum needed to become a state (for context TAS has a population of 575K, ACT has 472K and NT has 254K)
Statehood would open up the ability to do much more under the rules set forth in our constitution, and then we’d really be able to kick into high gear
In addition, by taking some of the negative feedback on board from the Free State Project it might even be beneficial to instead of moving somewhere and taking over an LGAs council against some (even if just a vocal minority) of local people’s wishes, to instead start from scratch. Australia has such an abundance of vacant land that it would not be insurmountably difficult to purchase a significantly large parcel of land and move enough people there such that we can create our own LGA from 0 and just build from there.
Anyways, keen to hear other peoples thoughts
Scott
