FOUR in 10 voters favour abolishing state governments, seeing them as the least-effective level of government and increasingly looking to the federal government to fix health and other problems.
The findings of a Newspoll survey conducted last month for Griffith University's federalism project and reported exclusively inThe Weekend Australian today point to what constitutional lawyer George Williams calls "a crisis of confidence in state governments".
Federalism project director A. J. Brown, a professor of public law, says that unless the structure of government is addressed seriously, the inevitable result of current trends is that the states will continue withering away as effective partners in the federation.
Support for abolishing state governments has jumped from 31 per cent to 39 per cent in two years, based on the system of government that people would like to see in 20 years.
Disenchantment with the states runs so deep that only 17 per cent of voters regard them as the most effective level of government. In NSW, the figure is down to 9 per cent and in Tasmania 11 per cent.
Despite their traditional hostility towards Canberra, Queenslanders have the next lowest opinion about how well state governments do their job, with only 16 per cent saying they are the most effective.
The findings are a measure of voter unhappiness with state Labor governments in NSW, Queensland and Tasmania.
Confidence in the effectiveness of state governments was highest, at 37 per cent, in Western Australia, the only state to have had a change in government in recent years.
Professor Brown said the results also suggested long-term structural problems with the federation.
"NSW and Queensland are the states that really struggle with administration because of their size, both in terms of geography and population and being forced to use big, cumbersome bureaucracies," he said.
Figures for South Australia support the conclusion that more than short-term factors are in play.
Despite the disillusionment with the Rann Government that produced a swing against it in last month's election, 26 per cent of South Australians still see the states as the most effective level of government, the second-highest after Western Australia.
The survey findings support the two-track strategy Kevin Rudd has adopted on health: to seek the co-operation of the states for his plan to become the dominant funder of hospitals and run them through local hospital networks but, if the states do not agree, to ask for voter approval through a referendum for a federal takeover.
