It could hardly be disputed that the fundamental issue in Australian constitutional law and theory is federalism. Federalism is the keystone of the Australian constitutional system, and is the battleground over which most of the great conflicts in Australian constitutional law have been fought. Nor could it plausibly be denied that the absolute basis of Australian federalism is the continued existence of the States. What makes Australia ‘federal’ is the presence of two separate spheres of government, each with its own organs, powers and functions, the Commonwealth and the States. Whatever other features of the Australian constitutional system might safely be dispensed with without endangering the title ‘federal’, there can be little doubt that the abolition of the States would involve the termination of federalism within Australia.

The present article, then, is concerned with an issue which goes to the heart of Australian federalism — the abolition of the States which collectively go to make up the federation itself.

The possibility that an Australian State might one day seek to unilaterally secede from the Commonwealth has always held an ambiguous position in the political and constitutional folklore of Australia. On the one hand, such a notion conjures up visions of rampant political idiosyncrasy so ludicrous as to provoke little more than amused disbelief. On the other, even to pose the conceptual question of the disintegration of the painstakingly constructed and laboriously maintained Australian federal structure is to raise an issue almost too distasteful to contemplate. The status of secession as both a political and constitutional topic has thus essentially been that of a joke, but of a joke which, when fully considered, might be regarded as being in thoroughly bad taste.