We must consider moving toward a two-tiered system, perhaps a regional and a federal government, in the interests of a more cohesive and united Australia.

Parliamentary secretary Pat Farmer decried Australia being over-governed, suggesting it might be time to take up the campaign to abolish the states.

The other major issue affecting people in the regions is health and the state of the hospitals. The Nationals released a Regional Health policy at the Federal Council in Canberra in August that calls for a Regional Health Minister and the return of local hospital boards. The health of regional hospitals will continue to ail while decisions are made at arm's length. Local knowledge is the best cure for bad spending decisions that are made by incompetent state governments.

Queensland federal Liberal MP Peter Lindsay, whose seat of Herbert includes Townsville, said state governments should be abolished and replaced with stronger local governments.  Responsibility for education, health and main roads should be passed to the federal government, he said. "If you have strong local governments in the regions then you find you are responsive to whatever the local problems are," he said.

The mention of State parliaments brings me to my third and final theme: my desire to see the abolition of State governments.
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The honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard) was even quoted in the Australian about 18 months ago implicitly suggesting that it would be a good idea if the State structure were done away with. I suspect the honourable member might have changed his mind in recent times, but time will tell. In its publication `Government in Australia in the 1990s: a business perspective', the Business Council of Australia described the existing structure of government in this country as `archaic, inefficient and in urgent need of reform', and called for a two tier system of government.

The model of enhanced regionalism that will work best for Australia is a matter for debate. We could pursue more states created from existing ones, stronger regions with more widely devolved powers created within states or, of course, the even more radical idea of abolishing the states altogether and moving to a two-tier system of governance with many regions. All are possibilities. We can debate these options in due course. For the moment, we have a far greater challenge—that is, to imagine a new federal future around a stronger, more sustainable regionalism. Perhaps we should be concerned that the Australian people have no interest in such things. On this matter, I draw the Senate’s attention to the Constitutional Values Survey in Queensland and New South Wales undertaken by researchers at Griffith University. They showed a remarkably high knowledge of the problems of federalism among the public and a willingness to embrace reform.

His objective of strengthening the Federal branch against the State organizations led him to consider seriously national unification in place of Federation.

An Australian nationalist, he preferred unification to the Federal system

Chifley was a strong opponent of the Bruce government’s approach to Commonwealth–State powers. SM Bruce and his coalition partner, deputy Prime Minister Earle Page, saw the States as the proper holders of contested powers. Chifley was an avowed centralist. He not only wanted to make the Constitution easier to alter, he proposed to abolish the States altogether. To Chifley, only then would the ‘seeds of national unity have at last come into flower’.