Get rid of state governments? Yes please, sooner the better. Should get rid of most local government as well, Australia simply cannot justify the size of its colonial bureaucratic conditioning system.

”..what about those (many) who have long argued for alternatives but were steadfastly ignored, often ridiculed, or told "this is too difficult”, "impossible", "cannot be done" and "Australians are too conservative"?

The right of course needs all those bureaucrats so’s it can effectively maintain the status quo and slow down any hint of progressive change – anti-racism, anti-sexism, social justice, education, health – while crowing about how it supports less government interference. Lol. In fact of course it has been the left that has the significant heritage of systematically and consistently calling for the community sector to be expanded and the government sector to be curtailed. Great article, thanks.

<< Around the nation we hear the joyful strains that the states are on the way out! So all Australians - let us rejoice. Instead of endlessly finding fault, as is often the Opposition leader's refrain, the time has come for the entire nation to move on and replace federation. >>

I agree. The states are colonial anachronisms that have passed their use-by date. Health and education are just two examples of areas of governmental responsibility that are bogged down in wasteful and inefficient duplication of bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, the removal of the states will require the kind of Constitutional reform that is almost impossible to achieve in Australia. I won't hold my breath.

Majority of People in the Majority of States. You only need to convince this many eligible voters and you can make any change to the Constitution you want. Yes, democracy is a messy business but the fail safe mechanisms built into the old parchment mean that we get to negotiate and compromise (a la the Hospitals "takeover") when we hit a constitutional snag. If this article achieves nothing else I hope it encourages a few more people to track down the document and read it.

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/comlaw/comlaw.nsf/440c19285821b109ca256f3a001d59b7/57dea3835d797364ca256f9d0078c087/$FILE/ConstitutionAct.pdf

The sooner the better - duplicated parliamentary systems and functions are astronomically expensive. State parliamentarians aren't going to give up self-interested power without a struggle. We might have to manage the public service - the Sir Humphries won't like it one bit.

And you'll have to convince people who will think State of Origin matches might become a thing of the past.

There was a time, when I too supported the abolition of the States but I was reminded of the associated risks, when the Howard Govt gained a majority in both Federal Houses of Parliament and assumed an effective-dictatorship.

I am concerned, over the potential for a repeat of the Howardian-style trampling of justice, freedom and democracy. With the likes of Abbott at the helm, I am particularly fearful of a 1950's-style return to rule, privatise, deceive, divide, conquer, reward and punish, with impunity.

Hint: think 'Regional Rorts', folks!

Australia: population 21,374,000

Two “Unitary” countries:

UK: population 61,399,118
France: population 62,048,473

I don’t see a one party state in either of them Equitist. I think you are jumping at shadows.

My concern is not so much the risk of a one party state - rather that, in the absence of State Govts, a cynical and self-serving Federal Govt may be unfettered, in rewarding and punishing voters in LGA's in a predominantly partisan fashion...

Are we not known as the most over-governed twenty-one million people on the planet? The current system allows for duplication and for the blame game, each jurisdiction wiping its hands of responsibility and pointing the finger at each other. New Zealand has one small chamber from which to run the country (not even an upper house, because their politicians voted themselves out of a job in the 1950's). What doesn't happen there doesn't happen, so there's no-one else to blame. We can still have the states for football games, but we don't need their governments or their bureaucracies.

Before we seriously consider getting rid of our State Governments, do you really want to give more power to your Local Council and would you be happy with one single government (ie Political Party) overseeing every aspect of your life?

Haven't any of you noticed how bad local government really is.

Sure with our silly Anna up here in Queensland we do know just how bad a state government can be. At least I hope they can't get any worse.

However, have a look at your local council, & ask your self, do you want this lot to have even 1% more power than they have right now?

Incidentally, with Beatties amalgamation, we have seen how much worse these councils can get, as they get bigger, so that's no answer, either.

Really, if you want good government, you'll just have to declare me KING.

Equitist - the situation you describe is called "politics" in the unitary countries. Rather than the mickey mouse factional bureaucracy and corruption that is running Australia now.

Wobbles - end local government as well, there is simply no reason for it, the rest of your point is simply paranoia. Unitary countries actually do have one party in charge every so often. Big deal. As I say, that's called - politics.

I response to E.Sykes

The UK has at least three levels of government - National Parliament, County Councils, Borough Councils (and that is not counting the regional governments in Wales, Scotland and Ireland).

Australia is really no different from other countries. I don't see the problem

and a further point.

Federal government has no ability to respond to local issues, and in Australia that is a big impediment - so many different environments, local issues, and different industries and economies. The same will not necessarily work in Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

It would be a recipe for disaster and dischord to try to manage only at a national level.

phil - straw man. we have a significantly smaller population..and you want larger government? of course there should be local representation for goodness sake. but not HUGE duplication.

Now that they have a socialist government with an imcompetent Prime Minister, they want to do away with the states.

A spendthrift and failed insulation installer running the whole of Australia?

Gawd help us!

Do we need to get rid of state governments or just the over-regulation we seem to be in.

We are so over regulated at all levels of government.

Do we just need to standardise our legal, education and health services, then just have the state government entities of those just act as regional hubs, without the decision making power beyond good service delivery.

I don't know how you distribute services over such a range of geography and climatic zones without nodes and sub nodes. The population size is not really relevant is it, it's the size of the country and the distribution of needs that cripples our delivery methods. UK and France are small geographically by comparison.

Taking away any part of it means other parts grow - the only real problem we have is standardisation (and over regulation) across all the states.

Maybe that's just an overly simplistic view though.

We live in a Democracy where each one of us has a Vote.

The Vote is worth money. I know it because, time ago, two people offered to buy my Vote, one in exchange for spaghetti and the other wanted to give me a live fish for it.

Many people do not know this and when somebody asks for their Vote, they do not ask ‘how much do you give me for it?’.

The person who wants our Vote (Politician) may say to us; “I promise that for your Vote I will do this-or-that for you”.

OK! How long does it take and how much money you want for doing this-or-that for us?

Lastly, what can we do if you are inept and cause us damage instead of service? Do you agree to perform menial duties to pay for fixing the damaged this-or-that until it is made right?

Democracy is where Justice is and we should be just to everyone including our Politicians.

E. Sykes,

If you lived in the unitary country of France (640,000 square kilometres compared with Australia’s 7.7 million), you would live under five tiers of government – the European Union, the national government, the regional government, the department government and the municipal government.

If you lived in the unitary country of the United Kingdom, you would live under at least four (and, in some parts of the country, five) tiers of government – the European Parliament, the UK Parliament, regional assemblies (elected in the case of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Greater London, unelected in the rest of the country) and unitary local authorities or, in some places, both county councils and district councils.

Estelles,

New Zealand has three tiers of elected government – national, regional and local.

Russia, China, Brazil, Canada, the USA and India, being all the countries anywhere near Australia in size, have at least one intermediate level of government. Australia is just one of 80 countries in the world with more than 10 million people, all of which have at least three tiers of government, as does every one of the 51 countries of more than 500,000 square kilometres.

Our states protect freedom by making power diffuse. They also allow decisions to be made closer to the people affected by them. We need more states, not fewer.

E.Sykes,

Can you really imagine the practicality of having a Minister soley in charge of collecting all the garbage every week or one for maintaining parking meters and how effective those would be on a national scale?

It would certainly make for interesting Federal Election campaigns where every aspect of our lives is addressed, debated and ultimately controlled by a single political party, especially one with control of both houses.

The problem with State governments in Australia is the small number of states (does any other nation have just six/seven/eight administrative divisions at the second level?) and the skewed distribution of population towards NSW and Victoria. Here are the figures:

New South Wales 6,926,990
Victoria 5,246,079
Queensland 4,228,290
South Australia 1,591,930
Western Australia 2,130,797
Tasmania 495,772
Northern Territory 217,559
Australian Capital Territory 340,818

How on earth can it be fair or feasible to govern a country when over a third of the population is in one state and less than a fortieth is in another? (It would have been a hundredth if the NT had voted for Statehood.) If federalism is to work in Australia, new states need to be made with roughly equal populations; but given the distribution of people in the country it is clearly better to remove the State level altogether and concentrate on amalgamating local government areas.

However -- as a previous poster said -- it's not going to happen in my lifetime.

Sounds like you all want a theocracy. All you have to do is ask Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour and follow his commands and you have what you all seek, for you personaly. One Kingdom, one government, one God.

wobbles: every aspect of our lives is addressed, debated and ultimately controlled by a single political party, especially one with control of both houses...

yes..its called "politics" everywhere in the world bar silly little australia. look it up.

It seems some are advocating what essentially could become a Single Party State. Despite the prospect of democratic elections these are still potential dictatorships.

There are only a handful of these left in the world today. The last one of these to go was the USSR.

Imagine Rudd or Abbott with total political control and in charge of both the Army and the Police Force. If they went too far and refused to budge or declared martial law over some contrived matter the only way you could shift them would be by armed insurgence or a military coup.

Maybe duplication and waste are the price we have to pay to maintain what we have.

I agree with Chris C and -to some degree- JonJ.
If we were fair dinkum about reconciliation, the answer is right in front of us. Re establish the borders of the original nations on this continent.
A federal assembly of around 500 nations would actually solve a few problems, starting with decentralisation and immigration/refugee problems; about 99% of new Australians I believe, end up in our cities.
More than a few of those 500 nations would probably welcome a few newcomers.
The larger the nation/organisation, the easier it is to justify the egregious disparity between richest and poorest.

Great article Klaas. We should have a 100 year sun-set clause for any new constitution. Future generations need to be given the opportunity to take a fresh look at the way the country is governed and have the freedom to chart better structures and processes for governing Australia for the next 100 years.

We are 9 years past our 100 year constitutional review!

Let's get cracking with a much better steamlined structure that will save us all over $30 billion each year.

Without the states we will see much more decision making, innovation, community engagement and empowerment at the local level. Local government and their regional organisations are happy to be held to high national performance standards and integrated reporting in return for more resources to satisfy local needs.

Nookn,

If we had a 100-year sunset clause on the Constitution, the Australian federation would simply cease to exist and we would go back to six states/colonies. The mind boggles.

I’d like to see the evidence that abolition of the states would save us $30 billion. According to Australia’s Federal Future, our per capita GDP is $4,507 higher precisely because we are a federation. That means we about $99 billion better off in total.

What needs to happen is that the tax-raising powers and capacity should match the responsibilities of each tier of government. States should have their own income tax and Commonwealth grants should be abolished. That way, state governments would answer to their own voters for their performance instead of the petty blame game being played out year after year.