Federation is not broken. The existing state premiers carry out their role as glorified mayors of the metropolitan entity reasonably well. Their dysfunctional attributes only come to light when they are distracted from their urban management role by issues of relevance to the regions, for which they lack both expertise and motivation to discharge properly.

Deliver full state level autonomy to the regions and the metropolitan mayors/premiers will have no choice but to focus on the needs of the urban voters who elected them. And the new regional state governments will be free to discuss the spending of their own share of GST funds on their own priorities in their own local parliament in consultation with their own federal MPs.

The key waste in the current system is the army of metropolitan middle men. See http://www.regionalstates.com/

Perseus, in advocating regional states, only answered part of the problem posed by Charles Mollison.
Perseus did not answer the facts relating to duplication, overlapping and the costs to taxpayers of our federal system and the cost to democracy of the confusion about who is responsible for what. The present allocation of powers have caused major problems in the solution of crimes, in health, in transport and many other areas. The middle tier is the problem, not just the middlemen of the metropolises. The federal system costs money, is inefficient, is unjust, is confusing and is anti-democratic. JimSnow

Jim, it is all very well to refer to, but not elaborate on, "the facts" of duplication in the federal system but the mooted benefits of a single system are never actually spelled out. The reason for that is because the claimed efficiency gains from larger scale operations never materialise in service type industries.

One doesn't need much exposure to any form of government to understand that the bigger the operation the less efficient it becomes and the more costly and sub-standard are the service delivery.

This is particularly the case at the senior management level where decision makers become more and more remote from the service providers and more and more involved in the internal corporate political games.

The smaller the organisation the more attuned the corporate culture will be to the actual service they are meant to be providing. And the data from the US small states indicates that they deliver more of the required service and get greater purchasing power for their budget outlays. A simple comparison of office rental prices between metropolitan and regional city office space proves the point.

But by all means, if Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane want to scrap their local autonomy and be run out of Canberra then be my guest. but you have no right to impose your metrocentric solutions on regional Australia.

I agree, the federation is broken and we do need a new constitution. But it's not only National Renewal and others which are working on a new constitution; individuals are too:
http://www.blognow.com.au/newcon21/

Charles Mollison has identified the problem and an excellent solution.

When local government is working under one coherent national law and recognised in a new constitution, we will see empowerment of communities across Australia.

It's not too hard to achieve. The Australian government can delegate to local government responsibility and funding for most of the service delivery formally neglected by the states. Regional organisations of Councils have a good track record in co-ordinating the services of groups of councils regionally.

It's worth reviewing our outdated structures. Empowering local communities will be the biggest benefit affecting every Australian.

But that's not all. The massive efficiency savings from removing the states is the other huge benefit.

Having a much greater say in how our localities develop and getting much more from our tax dollars at the same time makes the hard work of reforming our broken federal government worth the effort.

Thanks Charles for raising Australian political debate above the mundane and superficial.

I couldn't have said it better myself Quick Response...I'm with you! As a state bureaucrat for more than 20 years, I can only shake my head in disbelief and disgust at the shameful waste of taxpayers' dollars to support a level of public administration that has long since lost sight of and touch with the community it serves. The fact that today's Stae and Territory human services departments increasingly 'purchase' and 'outsource' service delivery from 'local' providers says it all. And we, the taxpayers consequently end up with insufficient and poorly coordinated local services that are funded by various levels of govt that have no way of knowing what service duplication and gaps exist in any specific area. That's why we would be better off if federal govt funded local govt (or strategic partnerships between local councils) directly to meet the human service needs of their local communities, and cut out the ridiculously expensive 'middle-man' that is State govt.