Lower House of States

This is the formal outline of an idea for Australian government, first sketched up in this G+ thread:

“	This model we're devising incorporates state government into the primary mechanism of federal government which gives the states back a lot of power without sacrificing the more efficient management of federal government	”
—Alex Unreason

It is arguably based on the CascadeGovernment idea proposed elsewhere on this wiki, but somewhat turned on it's head.

Summary of idea

The government is formed not by local representatives, but by senators from the states. 20 from each state (including NT), and 10 from other territories (including the ACT). It's up to the states to determine how they select 20 members from their numbers. (and QLD? Well, I guess they miss out till they get an upper house again!)

The federal senate is proportionally elected across the WHOLE country, and is no longer based on preserving states' rights. (states are now represented within the lower house). The result should be a federal government that is a better 'commonwealth of states' than what we have now.

“	Basically. It means you initiate federal policy from a cross-state perspective, and then check it against a reasonable representation of the overall population's views.	”
—Alex Unreason

But wait, there's more!

Be sure to check out the discussion at Talk:Lower_House_of_States. It's much more detailed than here :)