Oh Klaas, really - "If the ALP is elected federally there is an exceptional opportunity to restructure Australia. One would think that is where the ALP wants to move the public debate, soon. Thus far there is no sign of it."

That would have been to let the cat out of the bag, wouldn't it?

You don't seriously think, that as a believably prospective alternative government ten points ahead in just about all the polls, the ALP would want any dialogue with, let alone input from, the general public on such a subject at this juncture, do you? Be serious. They wouldn't want that any more than the present encumbrances!

You describe the present situation as ".... the federal-state crisis Australia had to have." You then ask " What are the underlying causes of the situation and what is the ALP planning to do about it, if anything?"

I would say the ALP plan is foreshadowed in the (failed) Commonwealth Powers proposal of 1942. (See this link for a reference to location of the content of that proposal: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=950#16904 ) Prospectively the currently anticipated landslide win (on the basis of the polls) for Labor at the upcoming Federal elections will result in a situation where wall-to-wall Labor governments in all States and Territories will, with 'Federal' Labor, do 'whatever it takes' to completely restructure the polity of Australia.

All of this, of course, without the inconvenience of any referendum process. As a guide to a likely referendum outcome, in the undesired circumstance of one being held, the 1944 Constitution Alteration (Post War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights) referendum is as good as any. It, too, failed.

The cat is, of course, now out of the bag. It will now be doubly interesting to see the present Prime Minister, committed centralist that he is, pull a rabbit out of the hat and make political capital out of this feline escape.

You're right Klaas, it is a crisis. Let us all hope the Governor-General is getting ready to act. Decisively.

In this "federal - state crisis Australia had to have." the " What are the underlying causes of the situation ...." part of the question was not addressed in my post above. I shall now attempt to remedy that deficiency.

Dr Livingstone makes the observation, in the third post on this thread, that "Australia has more politicians per person than any other country in the world."and seeks to explain it by the tyranny of distance. Assuming that to be true, perhaps a better explanation for it is that the whole concept of Federation has been used as a means of substituting an entirely different system and philosophy of government throughout Australia, for the native British governmental heritage of the several States. Hardly surprising, then, that we appear to be overloaded with politicians.

Federation always was a covert plan to rob Australians of their British constitutional heritage and get us out from under the protection of the Crown. The major obstacle to this covert plan's success always was going to be the Constitution, an obstacle that was emplaced by far-sighted people, many of whom, although not recognising the covert objective of Federation, could not fathom the need for this extra layer of government over an already well-nigh perfect functioning system.

I put it to you, Klaas, that this (covert) intention of substitution has been accompanied over nigh on a century by deliberate and sustained attempts at electoral tampering and manipulation in order to bring it about. I contend that this tampering has been accompanied by misrepresentation of a number of the Constitution's provisions, and perhaps in some cases of the outright ignoring of them, as they may relate to matters electoral. One such instance, that of the misrepresentation and misapplication of the provisions of Section 128 relating to determining referendum results, is highlighted on the current OLO topic "The last refuge of the intellectual weakling", see:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=950#16604 , which is to the post where it came up, but a reading of the thread from the start puts it in better context.