According to Peter Martin today, who was summarising Dr Ken Henry's testimony to a Senate Inquiry:
"Unless the proceeds of the mining boom were shared across state borders through taxation there was a risk the Federation would break up.
"That is partly a political judgement, but it is also an economic judgment and I think there is evidence in the Eurozone right now of the difficulties of managing a common currency without a comprehensive system of horizontal fiscal equalisation."
"You wouldn't want to see those sorts of tensions play out in the Australian federation. It's a point about national economic performance in a vast land area that happens to share the same currency."
