I note your comment, Ludwig, but it is not for you or I to decide the appropriate size for a "province". Our surveys show that many regional people prefer the greater sense of security from being in a state with 900,000 people rather than 300,000. Others value the increased localisation more highly than the security of a larger entity. Ultimately it must be left to the people of each region to determine their own governance.

This whole "eliminate the states" notion is based on the assumption that the existing state elites would calmly sit by while the very structure that reinforces metropolitan concentration of wealth and power is dismantled. This is naieve to the point of fantasy. And the persistence of this unrealistic option only stiffles more gradual and achievable reforms.

Regional governance is only an issue in the regions themselves. There is no need to engage metropolitan voters on issues that they have no interest in. They will remain in their city states no matter what reforms are made in the regions so why would anyone bother complicating the issues by devising regional solutions that make sense to metropolitan residents.

The stakeholders in this issue are the 1.4 million regional Queenslanders, 1.6 million in regional NSW, 1.2 million in regional Victoria, 0.5 million in regional WA and 0.3 million in regional SA. And clearly, it is up to each community to decide the character, and scale of their own government.

Some may opt for smaller states with no local government (as in the ACT) while others, especially those with small populations in a large area, may stick with three tiers, as the NT has done.

It is the very height of arrogance for me, or any other Australian to take it upon ourselves to impose a government model on people outside their own community. We all rightly have a say, as voters of one country, on matters relating to the whole country. But the moment a majority starts imposing its will on matters that do not concern them is the germ of malgovernance.

“…it is not for you or I to decide the appropriate size for a ‘province’ “

Of course it isn’t Perseus. But it is for me and for anyone who feels so inclined to make suggestions and express opinions.

My size preference is very loosely based on a compromise between the size of current local government areas and current states, and a workable number of provinces across the country.

Much more to the point is your assertion that “….the major advantage of regional states is that the proportion of state level per capita expenditure… that is normally spent on head office overheads… is currently taken out of the circular flow of the regional economy.”

I addressed this in my last post, but you haven’t responded to it at all.

Given that you see this as the major advantage, and given that I just can’t see any advantage here at all, this is the stuff we need to concentrate on.

Keep bearing in mind that I am not opposed to you on this subject, as I have been on some others that we have exchanged views over on this forum. In fact, I very much like the idea of better and fairer governance for rural people, or for all of us for that matter. But I need to perceive real benefits in whatever changes might be proposed.

Fluff, with regards to rainfall and evaporation:

Rainfall for a cropping area would need to be around 16inches a year to be reasonable cropping country. 12 inches would be enough IF the rain fell at the right times (which of course is NOT guaranteed). So 12inch country might be ok on a given year (opportunity cropping). It also depends on your soil type. Good heavy black clays hold moisture well and in some areas the retained moisture from summer storms can be enough to plant on without requiring rain at sowing time.

As for the evaporation rate, you are correct, BUT this is summer evaporation rates only (must of our cropping is winter cropping when the rates are much lower), and is from a body of uncovered water, not from the soil.

Ludwig, your comments on leakage from regional money flows mentions things that will continue but fails to quantify them. Interactions between regions and the rest of the country and will continue. But it should be the responsibility of a regional state government to maximise the benefits to the regional community. A centralised metropolitan government has neither obligation nor inclination, to do the same.

Most regional Qld public housing and new classrooms are not built in the towns where they are needed. They are all prefabricated in Ipswich and trucked into town. This creates no local jobs and all the economic benefits remain in the South East. But the budget figures list this outlay as taking place in the region where the building was trucked too.

Just imagine the protests if Beattie sourced all future public housing and classroom construction from Sydney?

But the impact on the regions is even more detrimental because the absence of local construction capacity then becomes a key factor in a mining company's decision to operate on a fly-in-fly-out basis. The regional community gets the adverse environmental impacts of the mine while the coast and metropolitan areas get the economic benefits and the royalties.

The WA government currently gets $1.7 Billion in mining royalties but there is no obligation to return any of it to the regions that produced them. The Kimberley/Pilbara region has over 135,000 people and their share of this revenue would be $115 million or $850 per capita. This money would create an additional 20,000 jobs and shift a total of 40,000 people to a region with abundant water and where the average commuting time is less than 5 minutes.

If the new state of Kimberley had all of its royalty funds the population would at least double and the residents of Perth would keep their city the way they like it, with existing infrastructure that serves their needs.

Instead the existing states actively pursue policies that make their urban problems worse while stiffling the kind of development that will take the pressure off the cities and lower our average ecological footprint

Welcome back Perseus. I trust you had a good extended long weekend.

“Ludwig, your comments on leakage from regional money flows mentions things that will continue…”

Absolutely they will. In fact I find it hard to envisage anything significant that regional government could do about this, short of implementing draconian policies regarding who is allowed to work and live where.

“They are all prefabricated in Ipswich and trucked into town.”

I don’t see what is wrong with this. It makes eminent sense to me that this sort of building would be made in one place, in a factory specifically set up for it, and then transported all over the place to small towns. It seems no more practical to cart materials into small towns and build things from scratch than it does to prefabricate them elsewhere. Either way, the labour needed for assembly would be sourced both from locally and from roving teams with the specific skills needed for that job.

I don’t know. Maybe there is some merit in that sort of argument. But I think it is up to you to quantify it and convince us, not the other way around.

I’ll have to strongly disagree with your point on population boosting:

“This money would create an additional 20,000 jobs and shift a total of 40,000 people…”

Yes, this sort of money would create new jobs and attract more people, which would create a mixture or advantages and disadvantages for the established population. It would also cause a definite loss for the regional natural environment and would not significantly alleviate population pressure in Perth or other cities.

If new states were to lead to large-scale population boosting, then I would be dead against them. A little bit of population growth, to the extent of revitalising existing or previously existing businesses would be fine. But big population growth the extent of changing the character of towns or regions would not be a positive thing.

Perseus

I hope this discussion has not come to an end. It is just starting to get interesting.