MRC Report: State of the States

state of the states

Published: October 2024

Authors: Nico Louw (Menzies Research Centre Policy Director and Chief Economist) and Christian Zurakowski (Mannkal Scholar)

State governments play a significant role in Australian life. They are primarily responsible for most direct services that affect our lives such as hospitals, schools, major transport infrastructure, public housing and law enforcement. Despite this, the level of scrutiny on state governments pales in comparison to the media and political focus on the Commonwealth. This is to our detriment.

Our understanding of, and debate surrounding, public policy outcomes in this country would be significantly enhanced by more regular, detailed examination of the outcomes in state services over time and the lessons that could be learned and applied nationally.

In the spirit of supporting competitive federalism, this paper highlights the performance of the states, using recent data, in selected key areas for which comparative data is available: economic performance, health, education, community safety and housing.

We found there is considerable potential to improve the scope and quality of reporting on state governments’ performance and recommend that the collection and reporting of state data should be enhanced with an overriding objective in mind – understanding the drivers of different outcomes across the states in order to improve public policy outcomes.