>Even so, they are united States (as opposed to, say, Australia where the so-called "states" are for all intents and purposes merely administrative subdivisions of the continent, and could be remade by passing a law in the federal parliament)
I don't think this is accurate. Prior to federation there were no Australian states, there were 6 independent colonies.
The status of the states are part of the Australian Constitution to make changes (such as creating a new state) would require amending the constitution and thus a referendum.
The Australian States have quite a bit of power its one of the "challenges" we have here because of the way our constitution is written in order for a referendum to pass it requires a double majority you need an overall majority as well as a majority in a majority of states (i.e 4 out of 6 states must also have majority support) this is one of the reasons constitutional amendments are so difficult and rarely pass here.
Similar thing with our senate (Upper house) each state has equal representation in the senate so both Tasmania and New South Wales have 12 Senators despite much smaller population in Tas. This is in contrast to House of Representatives (our lower house) is not equal (there are 5 seats in Tasmania vs 47 in NSW) this has a lot of implications in our political process.
As far as people not feeling loyalty to their state that's mostly true but there is still a lot of friendly (or not so friendly rivalry) especially in sporting events.
I actually learned this when visiting Parliament House last year (though it was part of an off-the-tour side discussion +). Having lived in both countries I think the independence of the US states is radically and fundamentally stronger than that of the Australian states, especially since (and because) income tax was federalised 75 years ago.
The only place I know that even comes close to the US independence of the states is Germany.
+ I was visiting a friend who works there; later went out to dinner with him and a colleague who is a constitutional lawyer and who was quite familiar with the American system as well.
I know nothing about US system so I can't really compare the two. The only reason I know anything about our own constitution is I had to do a school project on Sir Henry Parkes way back in high school.
Personally I kind of have opposite view about the states I do think there needs to be a trade off between federal and state power our current system is flawed but probably strikes a good balance. I'm sympathetic to fact that someone living in say Regional QLD has different needs to Melbourne or Sydney and I don't want a system where power is consolidated in the big population centers and no one else's vote really matters but at the same time I'd like voting power to be more proportional as it stands someones vote in Tasmania holds a lot more weight federally then voters from many of the other states due to equal (rather than proportional representation) of the states.
> The only place I know that even comes close to the US independence of the states is Germany.
Canada has pretty strong provinces as well. The Swiss cantons are also more powerful than the central government. I imagine Bosnia and Belgium are also similar, but that's more "the country is made up of two statelets who hate each other's guts" than a true federalist perspective.
> I actually learned this when visiting Parliament House last year (though it was part of an off-the-tour side discussion). Having lived in both countries I think the independence of the US states is radically and fundamentally stronger than that of the Australian states, especially since (and because) income tax was federalised 75 years ago.
It's a mixture of factors, but vertical fiscal imbalance enabled by the First Uniform Tax Case is certainly part of it. As I'm sure you're aware Australians generally have fewer objections to centralised government.
Culturally Australia has historically been significantly more homogeneous across the different states than the US, even our accents are more similar between different states.
> The only place I know that even comes close to the US independence of the states is Germany.
I don't think this is accurate. Prior to federation there were no Australian states, there were 6 independent colonies.
The status of the states are part of the Australian Constitution to make changes (such as creating a new state) would require amending the constitution and thus a referendum.
The Australian States have quite a bit of power its one of the "challenges" we have here because of the way our constitution is written in order for a referendum to pass it requires a double majority you need an overall majority as well as a majority in a majority of states (i.e 4 out of 6 states must also have majority support) this is one of the reasons constitutional amendments are so difficult and rarely pass here.
Similar thing with our senate (Upper house) each state has equal representation in the senate so both Tasmania and New South Wales have 12 Senators despite much smaller population in Tas. This is in contrast to House of Representatives (our lower house) is not equal (there are 5 seats in Tasmania vs 47 in NSW) this has a lot of implications in our political process.
As far as people not feeling loyalty to their state that's mostly true but there is still a lot of friendly (or not so friendly rivalry) especially in sporting events.