Abstract
This paper will trace the growing financial dominance of the Commonwealth government over the past century and its implications for the federal balance in Australia. It will argue that such an economically dominant central government was never intended by the Founding Fathers, and indeed that it undermines many of the protections they sought to establish through the adoption of a federal structure in the Constitution. Finally, it will go on to briefly highlight a number of possible reforms that, if introduced, would go some way to restoring the fiscal position of the States relative to the Commonwealth government.