Member for New England Barnaby Joyce has once again raised the issue of changing the state boundaries - or adding new states.

Mr Joyce said the White Paper on the Future of Federation was “a chance for Australia to move on from the bog we got stuck in in 1901 before cars and telephones, let alone computers and wireless broadband”.

The White Paper is due to be delivered to federal parliament by the end of 2015.

Mr Joyce said he remembered the 1967 referendum for a new state in northern NSW, a move that was “lost by the tactical move to include Newcastle”.

“The opposition to the proposition knew Newcastle would never swallow being run from Armidale,” he said.

“But the question northern NSW was posing was why should they be run from Sydney?

“In the Pilliga Forest, a timber resource which supports around 60 workers is being closed because of an edict from Sydney. The effect is a clear disenfranchisement of the constituency in the country from the legislature in Sydney on an issue that would be, at best, a  peripheral interest to the commuters in Sydney but a fascination of those who have extra time on their hands in the inner suburbs. 

“On the Breeza Plain, farmers who had their rights over coal under their property taken in 1983 without payment from a state parliament based in Sydney, now have the imminent threat of the same land being mined regardless of their property right to water or farming operation.”

Mr Joyce said across Australia, federal Senators overwhelmingly lived in capital cities.

He said in Western Australia, 12 out of the 12 senators lived in Perth, Adelaide had 11 out of 12 senators, Melbourne had 10 out of 12, and Sydney had 9 out of 12.

Eight of Queensland’s 12 senators live in Brisbane.

“We have become not so much states as city states with a secondary hinterland,” Mr Joyce said.

“We need true competitive forces such as a state that does not believe in payroll tax. Additionally private land ownership should actually mean you own something without continual additional caveats for the community good, such as vegetation laws, being placed over you.”

He said in their “maddest dreams” the federation founders would not have believed the “progression to new states had stopped for eternity in 1901”.  

“The opportunity to drive for these changes comes once in a lifetime or less. Now after 47 years, there is the chance for New England to caucus with other regions that have a similar desire for greater self-determination. I believe we should take it.”