Whispering Ted, if you truly believe "the actual EU is surprisingly light for 550 million people", you obviously haven't spoken to my 85 year-old mother about it.

Nor, it would appear, have you consulted the EU themselves, who summarise the situation in their own words as follows:

"The existing regulatory environment in the EU is overly complex and consequently represents an obstacle for growth.

The time needed to start-up a firm is dependent on the administrative situation in member states and sometimes takes months.

The cost of regulation, notably the cumulative impact of individual pieces is of understandable concern to those who must work their way through the complex legislative jungle: EU enterprises and industries.

Sometimes the impact of draft EU legislation is not properly assessed and the consequences on the business community unclear."

http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/areas/fiche03_en.htm

There is also the small issue of geography here. Many of the EU states have common borders, or are at most within an hour of their nearest EU "neighbour" by air.

I absolutely share your assessment that we are a "a piffling little nation state that is good at quarrying and cricket", but I am not sure that aligning ourselves with a) an even more "piffling" nation and b) one that is on the other side of the world will solve anything. We are still able to stand on our own two feet, and this will not change. However it could just be jeopardised by sharing our decision-making with others, who by definition do not have Australia's interests at heart.

Pericles I do not need to ask your 86 year old grandmother, although in fact her contact with the EU is likely to be minimal. I have recently returned from living in the UK for 4 years. Most for the regulation that impacted apon us was was national or local. It is true that if you want to set up a busines in EU you must do so in away that is safe and environmentaly friendly. Also you must not exploit your workers, well not to much and rightly so. These rules are weaker in OZ this is to our detriment. You appear to have a media inspired view of the EU. I refer you to "Why to EU will rule the 21st Centuary" by Mark Leonard and Jeremy Rifkins speach in Horizons 2020 at www.siemens.com/horizons. That things do not always run to plan is understandable when some thing new is being built. However one should remember that the EU has a surplus and US has a deficit and the Euro that was predicted to be toilet paper in 6 months now buys over a USD1.20.
The advantage of a union of piffling states is that they have seat at other tables such as Asean and the UN and votes can be used in a cohesive way. This brings more power to the powerless. In developement first there is dependance(colonies) then independance(federation) followed by independance(Network unions?) In this last stage everybodies needs are accomadated.

Oh dear, she wouldn't like that.

>>Pericles I do not need to ask your 86 year old grandmother, although in fact her contact with the EU is likely to be minimal.<<

For a start, she is still only 85 - you didn't take quite so long to reply as you thought.

Also, she has lived all those years in the UK, and has therefore had a great deal more contact with the EU than most people I know.

And if that weren't enough, for the past forty of those years she has been active in Party Politics, and is (and always has been) smart enough to spot when the electorate is being sold a pup at the expense of the bureaucracy.

>>This brings more power to the powerless<<

The underlying issue that she has always taken with the EU is that economic advances are one thing, losing control over your own destiny is another. Given the manner in which Brussels is gradually abrogating UK decisions unto itself, I see her point. Power actually has to be removed from the powerful in order to gift it elsewhere.

Where would that leave Australia in CANZ? Power giver or power taker?

Pericles, I see CANZ as an essentially different kind of beast from the EU because we are already part of one cultural family, whereas the EU countries have mutually contradictory values and institutions and are, in many cases, ancient enemies.

Our federation happened because the people of the different colonies recognised what they had in common. There would be no reason for a CANZ federation to happen unless we could do the same thing. No EU-style federation by stealth. Unless millions of people could look across the existing borders and feel that we all had something in common (something at present without a name, but based on being diverse, multi-ethnic societies built on British foundations), then we would have no reason to want to share sovereignty with each other.

Just as there is a certain power struggle between our states and our Australian federation, so there is between the Canadian provinces and their federation, and so there would inevitably be between the states / provinces and a CANZ federation. We would be part of a federation of 20-odd sates, provinces and territories instead of our current half dozen or so, but the principle would be much the same. The trick, as always, would be finding the balance so that decisions are taken at the most effective level: what the EU calls subsidiarity but fails utterly to implement.

You may be intrigued to know that a number of my British friends would dearly love to cut loose from Brussels and join us, forming a CANZUK federation, which would be another story altogether

Pericles it would appear that your granny is what is known in the UK as a eurosceptic. Eurosceptics run in opinion from those who would stop at a common market to the more rapid such UKIP, the fortess England mob. It is an opinion held by a number of people but rarely by business people. They know too well the benefits of the EU. If the UK pulled out of the EU they would still have comply with much of he regulation. Norway is one example of this. They decided not to join to EU, perhaps because they have not been independant long. But they still must comply but they have no direct input. Which brings us to Democracy very rule and regulation is voted apon by democracy elected members from the UK. Nothing is done by fiat. In fact the EU is constructed so that smaller nations can not be bullied. This makes them feel safe. To return to our own experience. The education system is totally run by bureaucrats with constant inspections. Expensive and an unaccounted for expense but little real result. The Health regulation Councils are bloated, over staffed and inquisitorial. Indeed some are of the opinion that they are doctor bashing paracyts. Both these are strictly National Gov concerns.
The network is the way of the future. We can rail against the like the city states railled against the nation states or not.

Ian has an interesting point, would the brits prefer to be aligned in a CANZUK. To have a union without common boarders is another but not impossible step. I think that UK opinion would vary a lot.For imstance the Scots have a warmer view of French. In South East England a large and growing group of people live one country and work in another. Because we share a language and some history with UK and Canada does not mean we would be a natural fit. There are a myriad of differences once one lives there. Still you have made me think about Unions with out a common geagraphic boarder, an interesting concept..

Ted, the Commonwealth of Australia has no problem including Tasmania, despite the stretch of water that separates it from the mainland states. There would be a somewhat bigger stretch in the case of a Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand, but the principle is no different. Including the Canadian provinces – or indeed the UK – would just mean that the distances were a little larger. If we think in terms of land transportation, Perth was extremely isolated from the Eastern states at the time of federation: the journey had to be made by ship. These days it is usually by plane, just as it is to Auckland, Vancouver or Edinburgh.

I don’t deny that there are cultural differences between the various elements of CANZ (or CANZUK), but we have to think in terms of the degree of difference and of compatibility. There are significant differences between Tasmania and Western Australia, between Sydney and Bourke, or between Toorak and Footscray, but our similarities are far more significant, and we deal with the differences. These similarities go beyond a shared language and include our basic values, institutions and expectations of the way a society functions: they are the essential similarities that we also share with New Zealand, Canada and Britain.

Most of the Brits I know are Eurosceptics, precisely because they see the EU as containing differences of culture, values and institutions that are far greater than the similarities. The issue is not so much how EU decisions are reached, as the fact that they do not want to lose their sovereignty to a body that sees and organises the world in a way that is fundamentally foreign to them. Similarly, I know a number of Canadians who hate the idea of drifting towards being part of the USA, precisely because of what they see as important differences of values and institutions. For us, the problem is being left in the corner. ANZ, CANZ and CANZUK would be a continuation of the process of our federation, based on compatibility, not mere proximity