From The Sydney Morning Herald

Barnaby Joyce May 25, 2009

I had a naive belief when I entered the Senate that it was a house protecting states' rights and to this cause I would fervently attend the barricade and fight on behalf of Queensland. I have come to the conclusion that this is a unique and nostalgic view in the Senate. When was the last time senators voted in state blocks? Never in living memory.

To be honest, hardly anyone else in the Senate gives a toss about states. They are very enamoured about sectional issues, factional interests or in lockstep with their leaders in the lower house. For some their Senate position is more a reward than a passion. I should not - but I do - get uptight with the lack of passion for the states in the Senate. It is actually the view of the Australian people. From my discussions the public seem to be over the states and can't see the relevance of them any more. Their region is more relevant than their state and this is what the upper house should now represent. Six regions in what was a state, with two senators per region elected at each election, would give geographic relevance back to the Senate, its actual purpose, while maintaining a bicameral system with the current numbers in a better representative spread.

Rather than Queensland having nine senators from Brisbane, one from Townsville, one from St George and one from, well I don't know, somewhere else, there would be two each from six regions. In NSW, there are eights senators with offices in the Sydney region; in Victoria 12 are based in Melbourne and suburbs; Western Australia has 12 in Perth and its suburbs; and in South Australia there are 12 based in greater Adelaide. In Tasmania there is a better spread, but it is a small state. Rather than looking after the geographic dispersion of the nation, the senators accentuate the representation of the metropolitan capitals.

What are the states? They are lines on the map that were drawn at an arbitrary point in time when a boat turned up on the coast and its occupants created a settlement that grew to a colony that became a state. And in 2009 that is about as relevant as they are. With the borrowings of the Federal Government on a morbid journey towards $300 billion and the borrowings of the states in excess of $150 billion we have to cut recurring expenditure and three tiers of government would be a good place to start, especially when two of them do basically the same job. Given their cost of about $30 billion a year, as pointed out by Dr Mark Drummond in his thesis, Costing Constitutional Change: Estimates of the Financial Benefits of New States, Regional Governments, Unification and Related Reforms, the removal of state governments should be considered.

We can no longer be romantic about what we desire, for what we desire is irrelevant; it is what we can afford or, more to the point, what we can borrow money for, as we have no money. We have duplications of departments at federal and state levels but unfortunately we have different rail gauges. At Mungindi, at Albury and on the Tweed nothing really changes either side of the river that needs a separate state.

Sporting parochialism and complaints about failed delivery of basic services would be the highest form of relevance that people would link to the states. There is no reason why there could not still be Queensland/NSW football games or Sheffield Shield cricket without it costing $30 billion a year to name the teams or hoping that you never have the dismal experience of going to an outpatients unit.

To avoid the danger of over-centralisation of government there must be constitutional validation of local government with direct appropriation of funds from the Federal Government for the delivery of basic services under strict national guidelines. To the extent that the issues do not affect the nation, let local governments look after themselves. If they are no good, let the people of the area vote them out of office. At least bad management would be quarantined to a local government area rather than spread across the whole area that was previously a state.

One of the latest examples of unnecessary oversight has been seen in Toowoomba, Queensland. Toowoomba comunity sentiment was vehemently against a brothel operating there, the council did not want a brothel, but Brisbane decided it had to get one and so a brothel it will get. A state law overrode the community of interest.

North Queensland is more North Queensland than it is Queensland. New England and north-west NSW have wanted to rid themselves of Sydney since the 1967 referendum. Regional Western Australia went to an election talking about a fair deal from Perth. Our nation should reflect that the geographically based communities of interest within it have evolved far beyond the meaning of states in 1901.

The course of the political stream for the past 108 years has been that the states have only been too willing to put themselves out of a job. When responsibilities become too great, they are handed over or bought by the Federal Government. National interests are covered federally, local interests should be covered locally, and what else is there to cover? Road test it for yourself. The next function you go to, ask people how do they feel about the relevance of states.