Not having being taught at school the finer points of our parliament and all it stands for, I have the following question for those of us who are well versed in this subject:
I have always wondered why we have state governments. This is even worse when we have a state government that is a different political party to the federal. Would our country work just as well if not better if we were to remove one layer of governement? This would entail the country being run by the federal governement of the day, the state goverment would be a department of the federal goverment and all the laws would be uniform throughout the country. No more different rules for such things as vehicle registration as one example.
Can we have some educated comments on this that make sense.
Thank you,
Larry
dING said
11:42 AM May 24, 2014
Cause the state Were here first
They federated 100 odd years
Back and created the Federal
Government for defence and tax
Purposes since then the tail is
Wagging the dog get rid o the feds
Would be more sense IMHO
-- Edited by dING on Saturday 24th of May 2014 11:42:41 AM
D and D said
07:00 PM May 24, 2014
You've asked a pretty big question there Larry, probably to big to be answered on this forum. Here's a link to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Australia and you can get more info from your search engine using the term Australian Federation.
Dave
Landfall said
06:53 PM May 25, 2014
That is always an interesting subject with many opinions.
If you got rid of the feds, and states could run their own race, then the poorer states would become third world states. Tasmania where I am, would be the first to go under.
For that matter a few years ago, WA would also have been a basket case.
IMO the state governments should be gotten rid of and a larger representative of equal number from each state should be in the federal parliament. This would balance out the sharing of resources and money.
Local government would be then more accountable for projects and money from a federal budget.
Never gonna happen though.
Ken
rockylizard said
07:50 PM May 25, 2014
Landfall wrote:
That is always an interesting subject with many opinions.~~~ SNIP
IMO the state governments should be gotten rid of and a largerrepresentative of equal number from each state should be in the federal parliament. This would balance out the sharing of resources and money.
Local government would be then more accountable for projects and money from a federal budget.
Never gonna happen though.
Ken
Gday....
HMMMMMM .... sounds a bit like the Senate
Cheers - John
Landfall said
07:45 AM May 26, 2014
rockylizard wrote:
Landfall wrote:
That is always an interesting subject with many opinions.~~~ SNIP
IMO the state governments should be gotten rid of and a largerrepresentative of equal number from each state should be in the federal parliament. This would balance out the sharing of resources and money.
Local government would be then more accountable for projects and money from a federal budget.
Never gonna happen though.
Ken
Gday....
HMMMMMM .... sounds a bit like the Senate
Cheers - John
True John, but as I pointed out, or meant too. The "senate" would be the ONLY house of parliament and no state parliaments as we know them. While we are on the subject, we could also get rid of the majority of spin doctors that they employ.
Cheers - Ken
wendyv said
03:49 PM May 26, 2014
The basis of representative democracy is that the vote of one person is equal to that of all others (as near as is feasible). The House of Representatives and most State lower houses operate on that principle. If you bring in a Senate type system for the House of Reps, then the smaller number of people from states like Tasmania would be electing equal number of representatives as those from more populated states like NSW. i.e. unequal voting power.
The Senate was not meant to be a democratic house - it had equal representation from each state, in order to safeguard the interests of the smaller states against Vic and NSW. Otherwise the smaller states would not have agreed to federation.
As said above, the State governments came first - and were set up as self-government was gained from Britain (at different times). In late 1800's, it was not envisaged that the proposed new federal government would come to have the dominance it does today. It was only meant to deal with things like raising an army and navy, where it was obviously silly to have them from each state; run a postal service and the like. But one of the powers ceded by the states to the new government was the - then totally insignificant - power to levy income taxes, and the rest is history. As the federal government's control of the nation's money increased, so did its overall powers. One could be a cynic and say that these days it suits the states to be this way - they can always blame Canberra for their own poor administrations and claim that Canberra does not give them enough funds - and most people do not know that the States have the powers to do a whole lot more taxing and revenue raising for themselves - but they don't want to be unpopular!
In this age of modern communications and decreasing differences between the states, I view our federal system as wasteful. Should have Canberra government and agencies at local level - which would not correspond to current states, necessarily. We would save a lot of money on duplicated State Parliaments and their admin and elections, and MP's salaries.
Off my soapbox!
deverall11 said
07:48 PM May 26, 2014
Thank you to all that have contributed to my question. I have always wondered why we have state governments. Taking Wendyv's comments, could this country be run without state governments. The federal government would be responsible for allocating 'resources' to the states on a need basis.
Larry
wendyv said
08:57 PM May 26, 2014
It could be that the federal government would allocate resources on something other than a State basis. For example, it may be decided that areas with a certain percentage of people above 70 years old, receive extra funds for geriatric units in their hospitals. Schools with a certain percentage of aboriginal students get extra funding. Such policy decisions would make the old State divisions redundant. Back in the early days, they were just arbitrary lines drawn on a map - with the exception of Tasmania, not much logic to the boundaries.
deverall11 said
05:43 PM May 27, 2014
Wendyv, at last someone on the same page. When I brought this up the last time we toured parliament house, they threatened to throw me out on the pretense my idea was outrageous.
Larry
wendyv said
02:53 PM May 28, 2014
Yes. If you think about it, back in the 1890's, when they were hammering out this federation thing, things were so different, in terms of communication and contact between different parts of the country. There was the telegraph, trains (but different rail gauges between states), horse travel, or coastal steamers. In elections, candidates travelled around the area by train, or horse and cart. State differences were very pronounced. The NT was effectively still part of SA. WA felt very different to the eastern states and very fearful of being neglected in favour of Sydney and Mlebourne interests. Qld was very "rural", and sparsely populated, compared to the more intensively farmed Vic and NSW. The fear and suspicion between the states is exemplified by the decision to locate Canberra half way between Sydney and Melbourne!
Under those circumstances, states were still relevant - but today? No.
Hi to all,
Not having being taught at school the finer points of our parliament and all it stands for, I have the following question for those of us who are well versed in this subject:
I have always wondered why we have state governments. This is even worse when we have a state government that is a different political party to the federal. Would our country work just as well if not better if we were to remove one layer of governement? This would entail the country being run by the federal governement of the day, the state goverment would be a department of the federal goverment and all the laws would be uniform throughout the country. No more different rules for such things as vehicle registration as one example.
Can we have some educated comments on this that make sense.
Thank you,
Larry
Cause the state Were here first
They federated 100 odd years
Back and created the Federal
Government for defence and tax
Purposes since then the tail is
Wagging the dog get rid o the feds
Would be more sense IMHO
-- Edited by dING on Saturday 24th of May 2014 11:42:41 AM
You've asked a pretty big question there Larry, probably to big to be answered on this forum. Here's a link to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Australia and you can get more info from your search engine using the term Australian Federation.
Dave
That is always an interesting subject with many opinions.
If you got rid of the feds, and states could run their own race, then the poorer states would become third world states. Tasmania where I am, would be the first to go under.
For that matter a few years ago, WA would also have been a basket case.
IMO the state governments should be gotten rid of and a larger representative of equal number from each state should be in the federal parliament. This would balance out the sharing of resources and money.
Local government would be then more accountable for projects and money from a federal budget.
Never gonna happen though.
Ken
Gday....
HMMMMMM .... sounds a bit like the Senate
Cheers - John
True John, but as I pointed out, or meant too. The "senate" would be the ONLY house of parliament and no state parliaments as we know them. While we are on the subject, we could also get rid of the majority of spin doctors that they employ.
Cheers - Ken
The Senate was not meant to be a democratic house - it had equal representation from each state, in order to safeguard the interests of the smaller states against Vic and NSW. Otherwise the smaller states would not have agreed to federation.
As said above, the State governments came first - and were set up as self-government was gained from Britain (at different times). In late 1800's, it was not envisaged that the proposed new federal government would come to have the dominance it does today. It was only meant to deal with things like raising an army and navy, where it was obviously silly to have them from each state; run a postal service and the like. But one of the powers ceded by the states to the new government was the - then totally insignificant - power to levy income taxes, and the rest is history. As the federal government's control of the nation's money increased, so did its overall powers. One could be a cynic and say that these days it suits the states to be this way - they can always blame Canberra for their own poor administrations and claim that Canberra does not give them enough funds - and most people do not know that the States have the powers to do a whole lot more taxing and revenue raising for themselves - but they don't want to be unpopular!
In this age of modern communications and decreasing differences between the states, I view our federal system as wasteful. Should have Canberra government and agencies at local level - which would not correspond to current states, necessarily. We would save a lot of money on duplicated State Parliaments and their admin and elections, and MP's salaries.
Off my soapbox!
Larry
Larry
Under those circumstances, states were still relevant - but today? No.