This article is authored by a comedian, but some things noted actually make sense.
From coast to coast, our society can tend to differ a lot in attitude, tradition, and the way life works on a day to day basis between towns and regions.
Sydney these days tries to match Melbourne with its progressiveness, but as a country, our ability to evolve can be hampered by the establishment of industry in the Western states which the East coast now consider undesirable, but for Westerners it’s their way of life.
I personally am a believer of having a nation-wide government, and abolishment of states governments, but the amount of division in all facets of things managed by government laws and legislation can create division between states, such as the way highway signage is written, differences in types of train carriages (cars?) between NSW and QLD and maybe other states, and other more personal things like weapons possession legalities, public holidays, medical procedures, the housing market and Education.
With us as a nation not be able to make up our minds on what we want on a whole basis on all things, would it then be more appropriate for States to become their own countries, like European countries, and the establishment of “Australia” to change into the equivalent of the European Union?
It could then make it easier for NZ to become part of us (if they want to) or at least water down or cut out current restrictions, as they’ll be categorised in the same way as Tasmania, being an off-shore country in this context (if it was to happen).
This could then act as a compromise for states to become their own republics.
Australia already is a Federation of States. Calling a state a “country” and a “country” a union won’t change anything in practice, but I do like that it would make it an easier pill for NZ to swallow to join us
Harmonising laws which are duplicated across States makes sense and letting NZ be part of it is a good thing
My argument is not specifically about the identification of “Australia”, but more to do with the 6 states being classified as countries instead, akin to NSW, SA and WA being like Germany, France and Spain respectively. My knowledge is that the EU allow some basic universal things like needing only a driver’s licence to cross borders, but otherwise all countries are their own identity as far as government is concerned.
I’m not saying that this MUST happen for us, but with the amount of difference of status quo between states, we might as well adopt this. Each “country” state would then be able to cater better for the micronations that exist within their jurisdictions, because discontent is how they came to be anyway.
Due to politicising, there are State Issues being run/funded by the Federal Government, and Federal Issues being run independently by each State. It is more efficient to lump similar things together - ie. Road Rules should be universal country-wide rather than work on the same thing 8 times.
That should be a main focus, is putting the laws into where they belong.
Making States into Countries only works from a cultural pride perspective. Some would say that you are dividing the country, turning States against each other in an us vs. them mentality rather than a unified approach. It’s a dangerous game to play and the EU is not without it’s issues.
I think that we should be looking at alternative structures to improve the efficiency of government without changing cultural identities.
What I would suggest is keeping States as States, Countries as Countries, and introducing a third overarching unifying body which States or Countries can be a member for the purpose of unifying existing similar laws, by no actual power structure and states can opt-in or opt-out of particular laws in that body as they see fit in case they don’t agree.
A good example of an inter-government agency is Food Standards Australia New Zealand, a single department which currently has to manage legislation across multiple jurisdictions for a common issue (AU + AU States + NZ). This agency is involved in state level. If there was a structure to share laws between countries more effectively , it would be easier to have more agencies like this without such a paperwork burden.
I’d imagine that some Pacific countries would be interested in such a structure as well.
Less duplication = Less cost and more stakeholders to provide funding.
More countries = Better alliances.