CCF – States
Wow! What a week for federalism in action. We even saw a bit of verbal argy bargy.
Most of us would think that our country is called ‘Australia’. Although, with our penchant for shortening words, these days you often hear us being called ‘Straya’. But if you flip open a copy of our Constitution you’ll notice that our official country name is the ‘Commonwealth of Australia’.
So One Nation Senator Rod Culleton is out. Senate President Stephen Parry has notified the Western Australian Governor that Mr Culleton’s Senate seat became vacant as a necessary and automatic consequence of his bankruptcy.
Over the summer break a member of the CEFA team visited New Zealand. After touring around the Auckland Museum a question came to mind: why didn’t New Zealand join with the six other British colonies at Federation and become an Australian State?
Is the rule of law fairly applied to children in the justice system in Australia?
The discussion about splitting Queensland into two States has received some attention lately.
This week’s announcement by the Prime Minister about a possible change in income taxation might have come as a surprise to many people.
Last week Dutch MP Geert Wilders arrived in Australia to help launch a new party, the Australian Liberty Alliance. Wilders is described as a controversial global figure.
At the July COAG meeting in Sydney it was announced that the Northern Territory would push towards becoming a State in 2018. Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles said that the Territory was a “second class citizen” that had a “second-tier status in the nation”.
