Vulcan wrote on Dec 4
th, 2017 at 7:51pm:
I can see where BigOL64 is coming from. Talk of Queensland splitting into two is being taken seriously. There are other parts of Australia that could go it alone by themselves. While others would suffer as they would be less self sufficient.
So which way to go? Make Australia into One Nation?
Or slice it all up into smaller more compact States?
The issue is, Vulcan, that the more States we have, the more politicians in Canberra we need to have. The Senate has be at least half the size of the House of Reps, according to the Constitution, so 12 senators for each new State would put the Senate at more than 100 senators, and more than 200 members of the House of Representatives. This would just simply give more power to Canberra at the expense of the States.
Unless of course, we're willing to amend the Constitution to remove the so-called 'nexus' which was tried in 1970s. But, I don't think the people would want that.
This is the issue with having more States. What is the better option, given our unique Constitution, is to have greater decentralisation within the existing States.