Originally Posted by
Arapiles
I agree to a degree - I think that we need to go in one of two directions: if we are to be a country first and foremost and not some loose currency union then we need to remove the State boundaries altogether and do what the Japanese did and create new provinces that don't reflect the old political boundaries. For example, it would make sense for the cities along the Murray to be one region, ditto the Mallee areas in SA and Vic.
The alternative is that we have more of the last 100 years, where there's cycles between centralisation (where the Commonwealth is stronger) and regionalisation (where the States are stronger).
Edit: early on it looked like our Federal model was working, because, unlike the situation in the UK with the regions, the States had the resources to deal with Covid and we weren't at the mercy of the failure of a single national government. Similarly, the Cth had enough power that the situation in the USA where the States could effectively ignore the Federal government didn't arise. And then the Cth failed to deliver on their two areas of responsibility, quarantine and vaccines.