I've mentioned previously the issue of constitutional protection. By saying that a unit of government is constitutionally protected I mean that it is not subject to arbitrary and unlimited interference from some other unit of government. In our present federal system, states have constitutional protection and local governments do not. A federal government cannot vary the Queensland-New South Wales border, or deprive Victoria of its budget (well, not all of it) or dismiss the government of Tasmania and call fresh elections.

The definition I've given above makes constitutional protection sound a good thing, but it's worth remembering that governments are not people but tools. They don't have a moral right to protection, and if they'd serve us better without it then they shouldn't have it. The next slide discusses some of the reasons why I think constitutional protection for sub-units is generally a bad thing.