Comments on 'issues in commonwealth-state funding' by Ross Garnaut and Vince FitzGerlad

Horizontal fiscal equalisation is fundamental to the Federal system which is the only efficient means of governance for Australia, and effort should be put into establishing a true operational partnership between the Commonwealth and the States. The article highlights some of the complexity, inefficiency and lack of transparancy in federal-state relations, but it could be argued that this is really consistent with a refusal, almost from the beginning, of the concept of partnership that is the base of a federation.