Id go the other way and get rid of states ( I understand that it is near on impossible though) and would have local governments or shires based on federal electorates. Two directly linked tiers of government, with perhaps the "mayor" being the federal representative. you would need some protections like any political party only being able to run one candidate and thus hold only one position in each shire.
like anything there are potential downsides, but i reckon this would eliminate a lot of the doubling up and waste of the current system, but still leave a localised form of government to address specific needs and issues for local constituents.
Unfortunately due to Australia being a federation of states and the states being unlikely to give up their power, this is about as likely as true world peace.
Either way would probably work Al but the only reason I would talk against removing the state governments is to ensure state 'nationality' is retained. In our country's political system we have the Senate as a very important "check and balance" against the potential stupidity of a House Of Representative's action (and I'm cutting across all party persuasions here - both have history and potential to make some howling blunders), and I wouldn't like to see that circuit breaker removed.
you could still the retain the senate on a national level and i agree, it is an important cog in the system, most of the time.
I think that the state Nationality that talk you talk about is more of a hinderance. we often see the case of state v state or state v feds, often based on some dogmatic stubbornness. I know it occurred a long time ago, but different rail gauges up the east coast is one such case of that sort of stupidty.
I think it is imprtant to have representaive on a local level. could you imagine someone in cairns/broome/alice springs having to rely on a bureaucracy based in Brisbane/Perth/Darwin for their day to day issues such as rubbish collection, animal control, park maintenance etc. The differences in rural councils to urban councils would make it near on impossible for one central body to administer fairly competently.
I see the states as the middle man in the system, and they are normally the best ones to give the boot when streamlining and cost cutting.
