There has been a lot of public debate this year in Australia about the federal system of government, in general, and, in particular, the system of payments between the national level of government and the sub-national level. Australia has a federal system of government similar to countries like the USA and Canada. Like the U.S., there is a national government and sub-national governments called the states and territories. Like Canada, these sub-national governments are a relatively small in number and population compared to the U.S. and include territories. Australia has six states and two territories compared to Canada’s ten provinces and three territories remembering of course that the U.S. has fifty states plus sixteen territories. The Australian national government is called the “Commonwealth”.
Three Aussie states are strongly complaining that it is largely unfair and unreasonable that they respectively and collectively do not get nearly enough revenue back from the … Read the rest