Rudd got into power promising to end the 'blame game' between the states and the federal governments. How far should he go and what should he change?

I think it qwould be a good start to give the GST directly back to the states it came from, rather than making state governments squabble over the carve up every year. Either that, or take responsbility away from the states for some services. Having one branch of government collect taxes then share it out to other branches of government to spend is a recipe for never ending blame shifting. Only by getting that issue resolved once and for all can COAG move onto more cooperative issues. Real cooperation will always take a back seat when people have to fight each other over and over again for a share of limited funds.

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Qld to do audit of state-fed relations

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Qld-to-do-audit-of-statefed-relations/2007/09/04/1188783207706.html

The Queensland government will audit its agreements with the federal government, leading up to a constitutional convention in 2009.

Premier Peter Beattie announced the move in state parliament.

He said the audit would examine cross-border arrangements and identify inefficiencies.

A public awareness campaign would inform a debate on federalism, and a discussion paper would be commissioned.

In any case, I think that the GST cash flow to the states shoud be streamlined(or at least be distributed at an ammount relative to the population of each state)

FD you make a good point though, to trully end the "blame game" and all the "buck passing" between the states a simple solution to the problem would be the answer you discribed, that being, that the GST every state makes individually be channeled back to them. Sounds like a good solution, we can only hope that Rudd fullfills his promise and delivers on this issue. He's allready begun to work with the states anyway, with an initial move to increase the ammount of COAG meetings between the states (Why JWH had it set at once a year is absurd to me? Was it allways held once a year?)