Don't see a real problem with the existing boundaries or the people:pollie ratio. The problem seems to lie in the quality of our elected representatives.
I can't recall when a pollie fronted up to an election and ran on the basis of what they had achieved. Instead, they run on recantable promises.
If the elected officials were in office for the real reason of providing us with the things that are necessary to support a functioning society; things we can't provide for ourselves as individuals, then what we have now would be fine. Instead what we see is local council slavery to land developers and landscaped vanity sites, state raking in more money to spend on themselves and the feds being blatantly and transparently dishonest with everything they touch.

Quite agree Country Gal, I would not support a single house arrangement in Canberra.

But we do need change there too, a move to involve a greater range beyond major parties, perhaps a Tasmaniac system that allows minor parties...and multi member electorates.

No need to stick with what we currently have, just because it suits political parties that have very few actual members.

Save 30billion...now thats a surprise...wanting to reduce government administrative costs...

It would seen there are duplications in federal and state governments...Australian government.a.k.a. crown the corporation...runs both...so literally two employess doing same federal/state work...and mix fact that female government employees far outnumber males suggesting crown a sexist employer...hard to get official statistics...and on top add the factor crown doesnt allow any form of transparent monitoring and accountability of its actions...and we have entrenched system corrupting of what should be...

which is we the common public...each have a power over our own selves, our needs and happiness...come together to bring this power under a common control...ieparliament/government/judiciary...to administer this power for betterment of us the common{ie...commonwealth}...note 'us' and not any other body/corporation linked to it...so government/judiciary should be common employees not crowns...and crown does not really care how many employees it has...it pays them and bills reserve bank with mark up...so we pay through our taxes...

when we have such deviation of administering governing from what it should be...talking about removing state governments without addressing above fundamental issue is...yes...different designed cover for same old same old...and our fault for not keeping close monitoring of 'own' governments using our powers, and acting quickly to correct...after all corruption goes hand in hand with any organized administration given power...just human nature we all have to be aware of...and giving our power brings our duty to ensure its applied in balanced force...

I would think...state government made all powerful over its ground and people, for theres more direct link between people/state government action/accountability than at federal level eg ir laws controversy...[ie law the people dont wont passed and administered by crown...now monitored by ombudsman who is yep...crown...so all power and no accountability leads to...forseeable trouble so why create it?]...and federal stick to foreign affairs...as designed to do...so lot of federal employess will get fired...but hey we will save $30billion right?...

Sam
Ps~to achieve this we the common have to clean up the high court...which has continually been removing the existant power of states and giving it to the federal for years...without a solid legal basis...

"As long as we have whackos over here in WA who are still advocating secession, constitutional change to abolish state governments will never happen."

BC2, well thats great news! Whackos like me happen to think that
whilst the feds are screwing billions out of WA in royalties and
other taxes, they could at least give a bit back to help finance
the infrastructure costs, due to these projects.

Clearly you have no problem with WA taxpayers being given the
rough end of the pineapple by Canberra. I happen to disagree and
I think that we are suckers to put up with it. We need Canberra
alot less then they need us and they should be reminded of it
constantly.

There are 80 countries in the world with more than ten million people. Every one of these 80 countries has at least three levels of government. Far from being redundant, having states (or provinces or regions or some other intermediate tier of government) is standard practice throughout the world.

If the states were abolished, the intermediate tier would be created as an internal arrangement of the national government. The only difference would be that it would be unelected.

Every country of over one million square kilometres (on eighth the size of Australia) has at least three tiers of government. Every country with more than 10 million people (half the population of Australia) has at least three tiers of government. Every country with a GDP of more than $US200 billion (less than one third of Australia’s) has at least three tiers of government. The figures supplied to show that Australia is “over-governed” are wrong.

The campaign to abolish the states simply has no justification.

Chris it is not the levels or tiers of our Govts that is a problem, but the lack of level heads that run it.

We can achieve far better results with two tiers.Make local Govt more professional and get the community more involved.Basic services can be delivered more effectively at a local level.The complex part is working out the finances between Federal and Local Govts.

It can be done via a slow evolutionery process.Our dysfunctional State Govts have brought it upon themselves and we the electorate are looking for better results for our hard earned tax dollars.After all,are we not a democracy?