Are we not tired of hearing of State and Federal governments blaming each other (regardless of who is in power) for whatever is wrong in our country? 

But on a more practical basis, surely State governments have had their time. 

As we are aware, State governments were set up progressively after British colonisation. Each state was pretty much autonomous and made its own rules. Then Federation took place and great changes in technology, transport and commerce took place, but there are plenty of examples of where this system is no longer appropriate. 

Isn’t it stupid that a criminal can cross a border, but the police have to apply to the other state where they are for an extradition order through that state’s courts to bring them back to where the crime took place? 

Just recently I have found out that some housing tenant agreements are not able to be fully endorsed if the owner of the property lives outside of NSW. Not very helpful to the renters. 

Over the last couple of decades they have tried to standardise road rules. However, in Victoria you can do ‘U-turns’ but not in NSW. What if you live in one of the border towns and cross the border often and maybe forget which state you are in. 

Why can you get a car registered for 10 years in Queensland but not here? Why also are there different fuel taxes between states? 

Why is stamp duty on houses different from one state to another? 

Different states teach different things in their schools, which makes it difficult for children who move interstate. There is no HSC or ATAR in Queensland but there is in NSW. 

There are different rates of pay for teachers, nurses, police etc between the states for people doing the same job. 

States cannot agree on the carve up of the GST revenue. 

These are just a few examples without boring people with a whole lot more. 

We are paying for one extra level of government we can probably do without and have one less lot of elections we could do without.

Our state politicians won’t support this idea as it will do themselves out of a job. The Federal pollies probably won’t support it either, happy just to leave things the way they are. 

However, maybe the people should at least be asking the question about the need for state governments. 

Neville Castle

Lithgow