An Essential Research poll published today on Pollytics blog is one of the most interesting I have seen on federalism:

Question: Do you think the following services should be mainly the responsibility of the Federal Government or State Governments?

I suggests that the Australian public is not quite as centralist as other polling can lead us to believe. The federal government does not have majority support for exclusively taking over any of the areas of traditional state responsibility – though they are ahead of the states on all but water supply. The interesting point in this poll is the significant support for joint state and federal responsibility. Continue reading “Are overlapping state and federal responsibilities a good thing?” →