state level of government???, page-8

my two cents worth:

for:

* state govts have long bitched about the fiscal inequality between the c/wealth & states ie the c/wealth has most of the revenue raising powers while the states are mostly responsible for service delivery eg police, education, health, etc.... getting rid of state govts would get rid of this issue of fiscal inequality for starters, which preoccuppies an inordinate amount of state & c/wealth time.

against:

* wouldnt this just mean a bigger c/wealth govt? i suppose voters are in favour of more decentralised levels of govt (& hence decentralised service delivery), which in theory should be more representative & tailored to individual states/regions.

* local govts are probably too decentralised to fill the gap left by state govts. you would have hundreds of local govts all running their own police, education, hospitals fiefdoms, etc. big headache for c/wealth to co-ordinate funding to all these local govts (who will all have their own individual policies on how to run things)? existing duplication of services would only multiply if local govts were to take the running of things.