The States: Their Part in Federal Australia (The Australian Systems of Government)

The Australian states came into being as six colonies of the British Empire. Between 1788 and today they evolved into an integral part of the Commonwealth of Australia. This book follows the development of the individual states from their colonial beginnings to today. We examine the way each colony gained self-government and how each eventually agreed to become part of a federal Australia. The often confusing relationship between the Commonwealth, the individual states and Britain is explained and we see how each state remained, legally, a colony until 1986. This is also the story of how the states gradually lost their economic power and the Commonwealth government became supreme as taxation was centralised. The States is the story of how a group of six individual states works together, usually in harmony, with a powerful central government and how it affects us all.