It sounds to me like you are suggesting that we strengthen the regions by a central government.

How about empowering the regions by giving back powers from both the federal and state?

The day the ALP or Liberal stops trying to centralize solutions I would be more inclined to vote for them.

dickie,
"What does the Murray Darling Basin Commission do now?" Good question. From what I can see, not much. It seems to be little more than an auditing body with an advisory role to govt. It has liitle direct power over the states and merely provides management/advice.

Small irrigators should have nothing more to fear from reform than big irrigators. Entitlements are like shares in the system, any change will affect each propotionally. The only difference is that small irrigation enterprises may not be viable and end up being consolidated into larger holdings.

Simon I agree that regional social and economic issues need to be addressed across Australia. But who represents such "regions"? The fact is we are stuck with a colonial 3 tier system of government, local state & federal, none of which has regional economic issues as its focus/responsibility.

This ensures incredible inefficiencies for a nation with such a small population - for example sextuplication of water, road, police, transport, emergency, motor registration and many other authorities - not to mention the 3 levels of government. The unmeasured cost of adminsistrative and bureacratic duplication must be staggering.

I believe that until regional governments replace both existing state and local governments Australia will not truly become globally competitive

It is interesting to speculate on what an independent state of North Queensland would look like. For a start, it would have twice the population of the ACT and three times that of the Northern Territory.

Unlike the ACT and NT, North Qld would have an existing economic momentum that is not dependent on the government drip.

If it had a parliament of only 30 MP's then each electorate would still be half the size of the existing Qld ones. And these electorates would be more consistent with regional communities of interest. There would be two or three MP's from the ATSI community, elected on their merits in their own right. We may even see Noel Pearson take his place as a state premier at the COAG table.

And in any event, the new NQ State government would liase with the current five federal members as to how the full regional share of the GST cake would be spent on their own priorities.

The days when the residents of Cairns, Atherton, Townsville and Proserpine are compelled to be reluctant shareholders of the Tugun Bypass, the second Gateway Bridge, and this months grandiose urban monument to Beattie's ego, will be over.

GYM-FISH, this message below is from an interested party who contacted me, and asked me to paste this view, from Canada.

That junk food is bought because $207.00 (Canadian-the most possible) for a month can NOT buy the fruit and vegies unless we go without such foodstuffs for days.

Secondarily - How dare anyone blame tobacco.

Obviously when there is insufficient for both food and shelter discounting the toilet paper, transportation and hygienic cleaners - then people will take out their distressing duress against themselves - i.e. feel the choke physically (tobacco), as well as intellectually, emotionally, and spirituality--not to mention that a malnourished diet involving toxic processed foods spanning one meal/day and always otherwise hungry (regardless of age and health and work/educational/training potential to alter one's status) generates a laissez-faire attitude about one's health and everything else about oneself and one's community.

Over and above this - pension day - has nothing to do with welfare, which functions on a mandatory employment, totalitarian regimen (ss). You're confused with disability funding.

On welfare the punishment for lack of compliance/submission to self-harm is curtailment of subsidy. Why do you prefer to believe that lack of compliance is the victim's criminality, rather than dissent against the criminally enfeebled administering a brutal system?

Your statement is the product of ingrained, bigoted, government-sponsored propaganda inciting irrational callous indifference, fear, hate and denial against one group, which will expand to include your group tomorrow.

What goes around comes around - You're next!

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

”Upton Sinclair http://www.veoh.com/channels/selfdetermination
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Opps above is a Wrong Post.

See " When poverty means not having enough to eat " By Sally Babbington, Sue King and Christine Ratnasingham, - 30/4/2007

The debate about poverty definitions and measurement needs to be grounded in the actual experiences of people who are going without.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5794#79259

A MUST READ - Is a Top quality Article.
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