How about we scrap local government? It has no constitutional protection and is arguably acting illegally by taxing households with wealth based rating systems. Councils are the creation of state governments but have grown far beyond what they were initially established to do and now act as a government when constitutionally they don't have the authority to do so. The constitution does not give the states or the commonwealth the authority to create a third tier of government. Only we the people should allow that and the referendums (1974 and 1988) asking for that endorsement were soundly defeated. The people have spoken twice and been ignored twice. We don't want local government.

Baz, your apocalyptic vision of the future is hardly the basis for constitutional change. Supposedly intelligent people, including many academics, have been telling me the capitalist system is about to collapse or lapse into structural stasis for the past 35 years. Your previous demand for a response based on your nine vague assumptions didn't get a response because none of them came anywhere near to a confirmed parameter. I hear the Mayans might be interested in an entirely imaginary constraint on their future.

The rest of us are essentially optimistic with a healthy caution for what has yet to make its presence known. And in that real world, real results come from careful changes to existing functions rather than revolutions and drastic reform. Just give us one new state that is not dominated by a metropolitan centre and we'll give you a workable constitution and a viable alternative to urban malgovernance. Either North Queensland or New North Wales would do fine for a start.

Lance said;
Baz, your apocalyptic vision of the future is hardly the basis for
constitutional change.

We are six years into the change now, or haven't you noticed ?
Surely if we are to make it manageable, just one of the considerations
for coping would be political change.
It will be apocalyptical if we do not manage it.

Six years into the apocalypse? Good one, Bazz, you sure know how to shut down a conversation.

Goodness me Lance,
2005-2006 crude oil production stopped increasing.
2007 US sub prime mortgage crisis became obvious.
2008 The big Bank Crash
US debt $16T and still increasing.
Europe in financial crisis and still there.
Growth declining everywhere.

And you never noticed ?
We at lest should be studying whether constitution change will be
needed to cope with a declining economy.
Maybe what we have now is the best way to handle it, perhaps just
shuffling the responsibilities around may be all that is needed.
Who knows, I don't, but I would like to think that our politicians
are studying what is needed, after all that is why we pay them.

Dear Bazz,

<<after all that is why we pay them>>

Really? do we have a choice in this matter?

<<Growth declining everywhere.>>

You have the facts right, but it sounds like a promise, not an apocalypse, for a more stable, less crazy life, where progress is measured by spiritual introspection rather than by being at each others' throats for material gain and outward expansion.