Thanks for your article Klass
I have at various times spoken to politicians on the abolition of state governments and amalgamating local governments into a more provincial size, representing geographical areas almost the same as tourism areas like The Pilbara, Tropical North Qld etc.
By doing this the recalcitrance of states on certain issues like Gonski and NDIS would be a thing of the past, by removing one level of government the savings would be immense, maybe give some of the minor parties an entry level to federal politics and start to dismantle the useless same but different 2 party system
In addition the problems faced by different regions would be attended to in a more efficient manner. I doubt many people can understand what it is like to live and work somewhere like Wyndham if you are in Perth or Cooktown if you are in Brisbane.
Mostly the politicians appeared to politely listen but never really had an opinion. The only politician that agreed with me was ( funnily enough ) a state MLA at a local market in Cairns one day and he confided that he had been told by his masters to keep those views to himself. Sadly he was voted out at the following election

Why is the abolition of the States the only solution ever offered by frustrated political scientists etc?
Here's an idea, why not return the major source of funding to the States so that they can fulfill their constitutional duties without having to answer to a duplicated federal bureaucracy?
In the USA 50 States manage to bump along without an all powerful central government duplicating everything that States and Local Government do, why can't we? Our system owes much to the USA Federal system after all.
It bothers me much too that some commentators assume that if the federal government does a thing it must be better than if the 'closer to the ground' state government does a similar thing. Have we not learnt from the Pink Bats and Education kick start of the first Rudd administration that a federally funded scheme is much more likely to be rorted than is a state based scheme?
Canberra is emotionally and physically too far away from most Australian's lives and so it seems it is alright to fleece 'them' without realising it is all of us who are paying the price.
Why does the federal government see a need to duplicate State bureaucracies? That would be abetter question, IMHO, than abolishing state bureaucracies. And anyone who thinks that doing away with the States will lead to less public servants than we have at the moment needs to look again at the life of public services around the globe, they rarely shrink and when threatened rise up as they did recently when they thought their numbers would be cut after the election.
Less administration, yes but not by abolishing States rather by taking money raising power from the Commonwealth and returning it to the States.

And if this is to be changed, it has to be by referendum. To which we will vote NO. The only referendum that I would support would be one reducing politicians' salaries.

Proportional representation is a much more achievable goal than abolishing the states. PR is already used in the Senate, so it's not as if we would be introducing a completely foreign electoral system.

As Klaas illustrates, the Australian public are more than fed up with the current electoral system and are ripe for change. We just need a proactive, high profile campaign to get the message out to Australian voters. It's a straightforward system, easily explained, and is in use in most developed countries - in fact, the US and UK are about the only other democratic countries NOT using PR.

Surely, an organisation like GetUp! could get a high-profile campaign going.

Oh god, can you imagine a political system designed by the academics?

Just a couple of seconds spent looking at the education system, & the mess the academics have made of that should send shivers down the spine of everyone, just thinking about it.

A nice return to first past the post, with no preferences would clean up the bloody mess letting them have input previously has caused.