1jasonoz said:
No it is not possible for them to leave at any time.
Why not?
How is, say Western Australia, which has threatened to secede at various times, during its' history, essentially different to Quebec in Canada?
In spite of the nationhood achieved by the Federal government, State governments essentially retained the status of colonies under the British Crown until the passage of the Australia Act 1986.
At a referendum in 1933, 68 per cent of voters in Western Australia agreed to secession, but this was opposed by the Labor Party which won government on the same day, and was later rejected by the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. A Joint Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons advised the Imperial Parliament that the petition of the Western Australian Government to amend the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act should not be received unless supported by the Federal Government. Of course it was not supported.
This could be done under existing law, because although Australian federation was essentially independent by an Act of the British Parliament in 1901, essentially the States were still colonies of Britain until 1986. As Britain determined that the Australian Federal Government should decide whether Western Australia should secede, the move failed.
State Governors still have the exercise of all of the powers and functions of the Queen except the power to appoint and terminate the appointments of Governors. However, the Queen is not precluded from exercising any of her powers when she is present personally in a State, although the British parliament no longer has any power in an Australian state. This would still occur even if the federation of Australia became a republic. Should a State referendum agree to secede, could the Federal Government prevent this from happening?
Upon what grounds could secession be achieved?
Harry Hiller a Canadian sociologist who has studied secessionist movements in the Canadian province of Alberta during the 1980s, and the State of Western Australia in the 1930s and 1970s believed there were two:
1. the effects of discriminatory redistribution on the residents of a state
2. secession prompted by the unilateral breach by the central government of the constitutional arrangements that established the federation, to the detriment of the rights of self government of the residents of the State. An attempt to abolish the states by the Federal Government would definitely be an attempt to deny the rights of self-government. Hence on those grounds any state would have moral justification to secede. A move to abolish the states could therefore see the Federation broken up.