Hold a Royal Commission in to the Australian Federation – Petition EN2349

Terms:

• Reason: While recognising the partial success in terms of social cohesion and adaptive health of the National Cabinet in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the harsh reality is that the longer the existing arrangements are in place, the more a dangerous form of PROVINCIALISM will take hold in Australia. In elementary terms, the National Cabinet is an unconstitutional beast and is seriously undermining Section 92 of the Australian Constitution. Unwittingly, the Federal Government is fostering untrammelled PROVINCIALISM whereby State Governments have been and are continuing to act in their own State interests by-passing and even mocking the NATIONAL interest and the Constitution itself. There has been no Inquiry of any kind in to Australian governance since Federation. The Australian Federation is palpably broken is in need of urgent review and indeed, it is in dire need of reform. This matter we bring before you Members of the House of Representatives, we earnestly believe is timely and enjoys bi-partisan support in the Australian Electorate-at-Large.
• Request: We therefore ask the House to hold a Royal Commission in to the Australian Federation to investigate both how over-governed and under-managed the nation is – reminding the incumbent Federal Government that the 6 former British colonies federated for four key reasons: Defence + Foreign Affairs + Quarantine and the maintenance of Free Trade between what would become the States. We concur that our Federation, per se, is failing in ALL four areas.

Your petition was considered by the Standing Committee on Petitions at a recent meeting, and was found to meet the petition requirements. It is now available for signature online.

Signatures open: 17/02/2021
Signatures close: 17/03/2021

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