On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Andrew McGlashan < andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
On 5/03/2013 9:23 AM, Lev Lafayette wrote:
When it comes to referenda, Australians seem to be, well, not very smart. They've voted yes in 8 referenda out of 44 since 1906; as Menzies accurately quipped: "to get an affirmative vote from the Australian people on a referendum proposal is one of the labours of Hercules."
Times have changed Lev, 25 years ago, more people had greater education of matters related to our constitution. Media has grown far stronger and more influential as well as focusing on "issues" that many see as agendas.
Personally, I've long been an advocate for the abolition of state governments. Now there's an institution well passed it's use-by date.
The current situation with state governments is causing so much grief in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and NT with what they are doing.
In some respects, state vs federal adds some checks and balances, but they still fight over things, rather than getting good things done.
Certainly our Victorian constitution is invalid today as has been previously detailed -- that needs to be fixed ASAP, before we think about abolishing state governments. Local government must go first, there is no place for them, they should NOT exist and definitely not in their current form as corporations.
Cheers A.
Andrew, Can you please explain how Victoria's constitution is invalid. The federation was created BY the states and the FEDERAL constitution requires a majority of votes in a majority of states, for a referendum to be passed. The Victorian constitution only needs a vote of state parliament to be changed, if I recall my year 12 legal studies correctly. Again, if I understand it correctly, it's the states which give the federation its powers, not the other way around, so the federation does not dictate how the states can change their constitution. Lev, While I agree that I'd like to see the states abolished, from the point of view of having too much government, it's less likely to happen than abolishing the federation. As I said above, the states give the federation its powers and states like Qld and WA are less than likely to allow the federation to take away their powers. Michael
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