Orphir & Mott on new states

Mitch Ophir has resurrected his blog with two interesting posts in support of New England statehood.

In Becoming Australia's 7th State - New England, he looks at ways of achieving statehood, suggesting that New England might make things easier for NSW by buying assets. This drew a dusty comment from Ian Mott suggesting that it was a bit like a battered wife being forced to buy her way out of the marriage!

In his second post, Managing New England (7th State)'s Assetts - Police Force, Mitch takes the police force to look at what might be done. Central here is that New England would not have to duplicate all infrastructure but might use existing NSW assets, in this case the Police College at Goulburn, on a fee for service basis, thus helping both sides.

Ian Mott picked up the second post in Policing in New North Wales. Ian prefers the name New North Wales to New England, and also uses different boundaries to this blog, excluding the Hunter. That's another story. For the moment, Ian's arguments are relevant to New England however named or defined.

Ian's analysis suggests that policing costs would actually be similar to NSW. No gain there. However, New England or New North Wales would gain from the transfer of certain positions from Sydney. In economic terms, New England would be better off.