Even if popular interest in the evolution of Australian federalism appears to be confirmed as a broad phenomenon rather than a maverick or fringe one, we need to know what sustains this interest, and what differentiates those convinced that change is desirable, from those content with the status quo. Are there particular features of these groups that would indicate their concerns might be addressed in other ways, not involving change to the federal system? Alternatively, even if institutional change provides a relevant part of the answer, are arguments for and against change deadlocked in a way that renders productive debate unlikely?

One of the most important questions is whether opinions differ significantly between rural and urban respondents. In NSW, as in Queensland, the history of regional agitation for political autonomy in the form of new states suggests that any interest in change should be concentrated in rural areas, remote from the State capitals. If there is rural interest in change, history also suggests this should take the relatively conservative form of a preference for more states, within the existing federal tradition. However as already discussed elsewhere, and demonstrated in Figure 3.9, the data show little difference between the major urban and rural regions in terms of preferred scenarios, as well as on other indicators (see Brown et al 2006: 292-7). This picture defies most previous political stereotypes. Interest in change is spread across urban and rural situations, and rural respondents were strongly in favour of a constitutional overhaul in which state governments were entirely replaced by new regional governments. As shown when the strong preference for a ‘two-tiered’ system is split between the two options mentioned earlier, rural respondents do appear to place a slightly higher value on existing local government, and on the option of retaining it as the basis of regional government. Again, however, the differences are marginal. Expectations and preferences for reform clearly span any urban-rural divide.

To look further for what distinguishes citizens’ views, it is worth more closely examining the people who appear to have made up their minds, as indicated by those holding the apparently strongest views. In the New South Wales data, this is best indicated by looking at the 26 respondents (5.2%) who indicated they were ‘very satisfied’ with the existing system, as against the 54 respondents (10.7%) who indicated they were ‘not at all’ satisfied (Table 3.2 above). While the numbers in each group are small, they do help to identify a pattern. These groups were compared in Table 3.5, in respect of their rating of the performance of state governments. By further comparing two groups across a range of variables, we can look for or exclude various explanations of conservatism and radicalism with respect to federalism.

Firstly, strength of view does not appear to be related to gender (Table 3.10). The 26 most satisfied and the 54 least satisfied are equally divided among males and females. Tables 3.11 and 3.12 similarly indicate that period of current residence and level of education are unrelated to attitudes to federalism at their extremes. The only potentially significant indicators appear to be location, and age (Tables 3.13 and 3.14). As noted above, city-dwellers appear slightly more likely to prefer the status quo rather than scenarios involving change, and Table 3.13 shows that even though those expressing least satisfaction with the current system are divided equally between urban and rural locations, most of the ‘very satisfied’ are urban residents. Even more clearly, age appears to be a strong predictor. It is notable that a radical attitude appears to come with advancing age, rather than the more common notion that younger people are more radical and older people more conservative. This begs the question, whether there are particular aspects of life experience that lead to increased dissatisfaction with the federal system. From a demographic perspective, it is significant that as older age groups increase as a proportion of the Australian population, the proportion of citizens interested in supporting change to the system can also be presumed to increase.

Given the insignificance of most of these differences, however, another means of exploring the demographic basis of citizens’ views is to compare those respondents who support the more radical scenarios for the future, against the remainder of the sample. In this case, we can compare the 57% of NSW respondents who preferred the scenarios involving new ‘regional’ governments, either instead of (scenario C) or in addition to (scenario D) the current states, with all other respondents. In particular, we can look to these respondents as favouring institutional options that explicitly reflect an alternative concept of ‘regionalism’, by strengthening public institutions of governance at this regional level – however defined, and irrespective of other implications for the political system.

Nevertheless when it comes to location, gender, and education, similar results prevail. As already noted, there is little geographic variation in preferences, with rural respondents only slightly more likely than urban ones to prefer the ‘regionalist’ options. The ‘regionalists’ were also only slightly more likely to take a poor view of state governments than the remainder. Table 3.15 suggests that those choosing a regional option are slightly more likely to be male than female. Table 3.16 shows that the ‘regionalists’ appear slightly better educated, being equally divided in education levels whereas a majority of the remainder have only school education – but the difference is slight. On the question of age, unlike satisfaction with the federal system, there is no significant difference between these groups (Table 3.17). This again tends to reinforce the assumption that that the capacity to envisage or support change is not dependent on active dissatisfaction.

With views of the federal system and different constitutional preferences so evenly spread throughout the population, it is necessary to drill even further into the demographic data in order to identify clearer potential determinants of which citizens are likely to hold particular preferences. Other data collected included the nature of respondents’ employment, and their level of civic engagement either through some form of government-related committee or certain types of community organisations. One clue that these data might finally reveal more information is contained in the findings above, that dissatisfaction with the current federal system appears to increase with age; and that preferences for ‘regionalist’ options might increase with level of education. If it is true that citizens’ views of the federal system are determined by particular aspects of their life experience, some indication of this should also emerge from the data on employment and civic engagement.

Table 3.18 compares support for the ‘regionalist’ options and the remainder, according to the nature of respondents’ employment. Immediately differences emerge. The two sets of options are equally likely to be supported by private employers and the self-employed, and by those in private sector employment. However, the ‘regionalist’ options are significantly more likely to be supported by the 112 respondents employed in government; and significantly less likely to be supported by those not in any employment at all. These data also reveal an even more specific and surprising result – the government employees most likely of all to prefer the ‘regionalist’ options were state government employees.

This is further demonstrated by Figure 3.19, showing the spread of support for all options according to employment type. Overall, the 112 government employees captured by our sample are the most likely to have a view (with the lowest rate of ‘don’t knows’), but the least likely to believe that the federal system should remain the same. Directly contrary to the expectation that employment by state government would be associated with an opposition to change, and especially to change to the role of state governments themselves, 50 of the 75 state government employees in our sample (i.e. 66.7%) preferred the option most consistent with total abolition of their own employer – the single highest identifiable source of support for this option. The capture of a sizeable group of state government employees in the sample was somewhat accidental, since this was not a determining feature of the way the sample was drawn. It is clearly not a representative group – only 22 of these 75 respondents were from the urban zone, and their support for the ‘two-tiered’ option was lower (56.5%, as against 71.2% support among rural state government employees). However, even the result from urban state employees was well above the state mean. The views of state employees overall seemed less likely to have been determined by temporary party-political factors, with 53.3% of these respondents indicating they would retain ‘exactly the same’ or ‘much the same view’ of the relative performance of different levels of governments in the event of electoral change (as against 46.4% of all respondents), and only 10.7% indicating they would have a ‘completely different view’ (as against 15.1% of all respondents).

Table 3.20 and Figure 3.21 set out the equivalent results for the 57 respondents who indicated they were ‘an active member of any organisation involved with regional development or resource management’, and the 29 respondents who indicated they were an ‘active member of any official government committee or advisory group’. Examples given of the former were Landcare and other local environment groups, and Chambers of Commerce and economic development groups. The latter included federal, state or local committees, or a committee involving a combination of governments. There is almost certainly overlap between these groups, as well as overlap between the second group and the government employees noted earlier; but as shown, the results do differ. Members of organisations and committees are typically around twice as likely as non-members to favour one of the ‘regionalist’ options, notably the option of a ‘two-tiered’ restructure. Like government employees, members of organisations and committees are also more likely to have a view, with very low rates of ‘don’t know’ responses.

These differences tend to confirm that while support for change and adaptation of the federal system is widespread, it is particularly associated with life experiences, including not simply age but different types of employment and levels of civic engagement. The logical question to ask, highlighted by the surprising response from the majority of state government employees, was whether particular types of employment and civic engagement would be more or less likely to lead citizens to favour institutional change. In particular, returning to the overall question of whether change based on a greater recognition of regionalism has a basis in Australian political culture, it is sensible to ask whether those citizens who say they would prefer such change are speaking from a position of naivety or relative ignorance about the existing federal system. The results based on age and education, explored further above, tended to suggest otherwise (Brown et al 2006: 297-298). So did results from the earlier Queensland survey, which revealed that at least some groups of citizens with heightened direct experience of the workings of government – officials and employees of local government – were more rather than less likely to support reform than the average, less involved citizen (Brown 2002b: 29).

These results confirm that, whether or not related to active dissatisfaction with the federal system, preferences for change that are consistent with some of Australia’s longest-running federal political debates form the views neither of a small fringe minority, nor of citizens with any particularly uninformed or simplistic basis for their opinions. As well as being held very broadly across the community, these convictions about the desirability of reform are strongest among those we would expect to know most about the practical realities of how federalism works, even when reform (if it happened to them) would require upheaval of their own professional world.