The Australian states came into being as six colonies of the British Empire. Between 1788 and today they have evolved into an integral part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

This book follows the development of the individual states from their colonial beginnings until today. We examine the way each colony gained self-government and how each eventually agreed to become part of a federal Australia.

The often confusing relationship between the Commonwealth, the individual states and Britain is explained; and we see how each state remained, legally, a colony until 1986.

This is also the story of how the states gradually lost their economic power and the Commonwealth became supreme as taxation was centralised.

The States is the story of how a group of six individual states works together — usually in harmony — with a powerful central government, and how that affects us all.