Abolish Queensland ... the government, that is

albe says:

07:45am | 24/06/09

the state governments are such a waste of resources. The big issues should be federal, then merge existing councils into regional councils for service delivery and local planning issues.
It does make a lot of sense. But what party would propose it considering it undercuts job opportunities in that all-important industry - the political machine.

Leo says:

08:14am | 24/06/09

I live in Brisbane and blame the media for a great part for the troubles in Queensland.Look at Peter Beattie.al he ever did was look goed at TV,and thenewspapers and TV let him get away with it.I know it is the task of the media to report,but they also should ask the hard questions.The mess he made of the health system.and now james Patel is lving in a motel on taxpayers cost so I have been told.The money his government took of the profits of the electricity,to prop up what? I know ,it is the task of the opposition to question the government,but the media treated him as their pin-up boy who could do no wrong.My problem with the government is to many bullshit artists [spindoctors] there.If Anna Bligh can get rid of them,I think that she will be a good leader of this ,the most beautifull piece of the country

Brett Debritz says:

08:14am | 24/06/09

It’s true; we are overgoverned, and the duplication, inefficiencies, inequities and waste in areas such as health and education verge on the criminal.

iansand says:

08:40am | 24/06/09

Why pick on Queensland?

Mark Nicholson says:

09:09am | 24/06/09

Get rid of the senate, and local councils first. Make the states responsible for state wide issues and move health, policing etc back to Canberra. Laws to be consistent across the country.

OMC says:

09:13am | 24/06/09

Careful David. If we start examining the relevance of elderly QLD institutions that have seen better days the Courier Mail might well make the short list.

Ben Payne says:

09:14am | 24/06/09

This is a problem faced by the whole of Australia, and yet, regardless of the overwhelming majority in favour of change, the politicians have a conflict of interest between what the people want, and their own positions of power. 

This will, of course, result in nothing at all being done about the problem, showing the true ineptitude of our ‘democracy’.

stu tickner says:

09:22am | 24/06/09

I do not think you are referring to Queensland, but rather the ‘leeching’ capital of Brisbane. I am a resident of Brisbane and love it. It is a leech though. Theoretically if the western and northern areas broke away to form a state then Brisbane is screwed. How can such a large area survive off another areas resources and complain? What if the companies in mining moved to the mining area? The same goes for farming and industry.We pillage our resources to give ‘survival’ to a ‘bum’ lifestyle. We even want somebody else’s water to subsidise us. We are centralised and hence the perception of over governing when really we are just confused.

JackL says:

09:24am | 24/06/09

First we have to clean out the federal gov, tighten up their lurks and perks and bring their super into line with reality. Then abolish all state governments, run a federal election and hopefully we can get a decent representation from amongst all the state and federal candidates.

Simon Gilbey says:

10:02am | 24/06/09

The Queensland Government is a Disgrace, the fact they cannot be voted out due to the lack of an alternate is a tragedy for this once great State. Getting rid of the Queensland Government should be our top priority to save us from the mountain of Debt our children are going to inherit.

G says:

10:23am | 24/06/09

Ha..!  You’re the editor of The Courier-Mail…  You don’t actually think you’re going to be taken seriously.

Where’s the evidence for your argument.  Sure, lets just abolish the state government and hand over essential services to a central bureaucracy with no direct connection to the area.  Or even better let it be handled by a local council (hit head with palm).  I assume you do have a basic understanding of the ‘actual’ services that are provided by state, the Legislature, the Judiciary.  sigh…

You poor thing, it’s going to be o.k., I know it hurts your head to write sometimes.

Paul Martin says:

10:32am | 24/06/09

I think everyone agrees we are over governed by having a state government but can you see those governing us doing away with themselves? The reality is I think when Australia becomes a Republic all we will see change is that Premiers will become known as Govenors and members of our state parliament will become known by another title thats the only thing we will see change.

MattC says:

10:39am | 24/06/09

I think the problem has come about because of the desire of politicians to be all things to all people.  Why are both federal and state governments involved in the delivery of health and education?  If the federal departments of health and education were closed down then the states could assume all responsibility and accountability for their management.  No buck passing.  The size of the state governments should be drastically cut back and along with it the number of programmes that they run.  Infrastructure should be a nationally funded and coordinated activity and removed from local council and state control.  Dispersal of taxes raised is complex in administration and there will always need to be coordinating bodies to deliver it.  It is important however that they be lean, transparent and answerable to the people they represent - not their political parties.  My solution would be;  reduce the house of reps to 100 and make the position of speaker that of an independent public servant.  Weight each members vote to the number of electors in the constituency, ie 60 000 voters = 60 000 votes.  This would ensure that electors are represented individually in a vote and not as as single politician which enables smaller constituencies to carry more weight.  Remove the whips from the senate to make it a truly independent house of review.  Remove all duplication from federal and state govt.  Expand local government to create larger service delivery operations and remove duplication from the state governments.  State government should then be removed completely over 10 years, which could coincidentally coincide with the new republic of Australia.

Peter_Griffin says:

10:40am | 24/06/09

Doesn’t the United States have 50 states and one federal state or district, all with federal, state and county services? They cope with that unwieldily situation, not without significant duplication or associated issues mind you. From that perspective, doesn’t the US administrative model make the interpretation of over-governance in this article look somewhat of an over-statement?

G. says:

10:42am | 24/06/09

David.  In addition, I think you’re confusing ‘the executive’ the actual public service, with the politicians ‘the legislature’, they are completely separate.

sally says:

10:55am | 24/06/09

Why doesn’t anyone other than these bumbling dickheads ever run for government? None of them have ever worked in private enterprise or know how to even start running a business. I tell you why - because everytime anyone with half a brain enters the realm the uneducated and ill informed public still vote for the bumbling dickhead - maybe we get what we deserve! What we have at the moment is revenge of the nerds. Its like a big school yard - lets all call each other names, pretend we know what we are doing, walk with a swagger and deal with the fallout later…..when will it end. Probably never.

Ron Mc says:

11:01am | 24/06/09

Joh, knew how to run a state, the current idiots only know how to bunkrupt a state.
If we could get rid of the labor fools in federal politics, abolish state governments.
Have the Lord Mayor of Brisbane as a spokesperson for all the regional Mayors, we would save billions and have a far better system.
A small hand full of state public servants could co-ordinate matters to do with the state, between the Federal Government and local shires.

However, it cannot work whilst we still have incompetent fools running the federal government.

Daryl Roe says:

11:23am | 24/06/09

I believe that not all politicians are inept or stupid, and some are truly motivated by the desire to serve the people.  However, we have a real problem in this country, as seen by the responses to this article.  We are overgoverned, and have been turned into a nanny state by well meaning or self interested politicians.  Where has the “Aussie spirit” and get up an go attitude gone?  Maybe it was never there, because we have permitted bumbling politicians at all levels to impose their will on us and slowly take away our rights, including that of making our own mistakes!  We make choices in life, and we must be responsible for those choices.  One of our choices is in voting, (albeit compulsory!!) and we have not voted wisely.  I don’t suggest Qld had a viable politicial option at the last election, however we did know what the previous government was like and we accepted and voted for it to continue.  How do we change the system?

stephen says:

01:37pm | 24/06/09

Agreed OMC. (Has anyone recently tried to read that silly rag)?

P.S. And we’re doing just fine up here bro’ : plenty of water !

Jonangel says:

02:46pm | 24/06/09

Mr Fagan your article treats this issue as a joke. This is not about Joh or the
political parties, it’s about the best interests of this state and our country.
Currently, all the states are in a mess and our federal government has a huge debt. But again this is not the issue, what is, is the future of Australia
and three tiers of government for twenty million plus people is one tier to many. One set of laws, one parliament and one voice for Australia, it’s that simple. Local government can, with the right resources look after local issues, the feds can handle the rest.

R says:

04:08pm | 24/06/09

First of all get rid of the British monarchy as our head of state.  This should be followed by the Governor General. The state governments are basically a waste of time and in particular money.  Let the Federal system do the lot except forwhat the local councils presently manage.  The particular problem areas are those of health, water, education and police.  Have uniform laws throughout the country!

I know it’s a big country but here in the Far North of QLD, we are largely ignored anyway.  Have a look at the pathetic road system - so the so-called Pacific/Bruce Highway!

Let’s minimize the duplication of government & hopefully get a better system than what we have, currently, in QLD

Baffled By Bulldust says:

05:11pm | 24/06/09

When myself and family first came here to live in 1992, we were immediately struck by different States having different licensing, traffic, sex and gambling laws etc and even different time zones when only a single street was the border. We thought then ( and still do ) this is counter-productive duplication, confusing, wastefully costly and actually stupid. Also it seemed to strongly engender a ” them and us ” negative mentality and a chauvinistic parochialism. Aren’t we ALL Australians ?
We gained Citizenship ASAP .Whenever we talked to our good Aussie friends about all these anomalies, all we got was blank looks as if we were slightly brain-damaged. But no-one could advance a rational or convincing argument in favour of the States. So we shut up and lived with it. Funny, in the fullness of time the worm appears to have turned. But I wonder if the GFC hadn’t come along and the present QLD State government hadn’t had to take such drastic economic measures - would the argument ever have been raised - or the stunning percentages for abolition shown in the Courier Mail’s on line poll or Galaxy sampling be the same? Mmmm ...
To read the CM’s blogs, Bligh and her government is loathed and detested to the point one wonders how on earth they ever got re-elected. Mind you - the overwhelming majority of the more vicious and vacuous ones blogging can’t even spell ...I think there’s a message there for all of us.

Rex says:

06:16pm | 24/06/09

At last some Queenslander’s are showing common sense.  England got rid of their provincial governments as did New Zealand because of the cost. With today’s modern transport and communications, just keep the states for sporting fixtures. Surely we are mature enough to think of ourselves as one country. I have heard that if funds are given for a project by Federal Government, the amount received can be halved by the time it reaches the project as it filters through state government hands. Federal and Local government levels are all that are needed

Andrew says:

07:33pm | 24/06/09

By all means get rid of the state government, a hangover from colonial days. It made more sense when it took weeks by horse to get from one to the other.

Can we keep Origin?

Dallas Beaufort says:

10:14pm | 24/06/09

Fitzgerald and Competition policy reforms only resulted in the public service and their rent seeking agents increase their public cost and influence. Queensland’s Institutional, local and state governments unsustainable planning merry go rounds abound. Hence the failed on time delivery of any tangible results and inflated prices are always the result. There are no real political desires to solve the broblems. The lack of effective decisions by Labors, Wayne Goss, which include infrastructure decisions on roads, railways and water when needed, started the rot, and was continued by Beattie and Bligh, until failure and congestion broke its banks many years ago.
Labors green nimby pandering continues failures which hold public needs to ransom and treat performance as a public sector play thing, with no financial limits whatsoever. As the arrogant “them and us” attitudes prevail, the plebs in the private sector cry. Queenslands political and public service believe that they are the creative font of all planning wisdom and any creative other, is outside their square.
Regards
A creatively belligerent, private sector applicant.

Darryl Price says:

07:19pm | 17/07/09

Make the states nothing more than lines on the map (I actually typed lies there - Freudian slip?) Even with increased Senate and Lower House representation, the lack of duplication of departments and opportunities for self seeking liars and bastards must give us a better chance of selecting people who will truly serve the constituents.