THE Minister for Northern Australia says statehood for North Queensland is a matter of time, but a Cairns MP wants to go the opposite way and abolish states all together.

Queensland Senator Matt Canavan told reporters at a Queensland Media Club lunch that, in time, a new northern state capital would have to be established.

He said statehood for the north “would make some sense.”

When asked whether he thought the move would ever happen, Senator Canavan replied: “Yes, on balance, I do”.

He went on to say that the creation of new states was “almost preordained” in the inception of federation.

“There are three different parts of the constitution which deal with creating a new state,” he said.

A bloc of regional MPs, including Katter’s Australian Party members Shane Knuth and Rob Katter, last month attempted to reignite the age-old statehood debate with a motion in Queensland’s hung parliament.

The KAP members had previously called for the move to be decided by a referendum, but their motion, gained no traction.

Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said Senator Canavan “had to be dreaming” about statehood for North Queensland.

“I agree that the lines on the map need to be changed, but some of them need to be rubbed out,” he said.

“We need to be having less states, instead of more.

“What we should be doing is expanding our authority and our local government, and have less states, and eventually get to a system where you’ve abolished the states completely.”

He said any economic benefit to be derived for North Queensland out of statehood would be absorbed by the new government.

“You’ve got to have all these new departments, all the politicians, all the bureaucrats for a relatively small population in Northern Australia,” he said.