True to some extent. I still think that NSW and VIC could have talked the other states around if they decided to play hardball about it. If necessary NSW Vic and Tasmania could federate and leave it open for other states to join later. I say Tas as I was reading about the conventions held leading up to Federation and it seemed that strangely given their small size Tas was less concerned about equal representation than the other small states.
Well WA & QLD would have never agreed to it. In fact, & do note, that there are special provisions for QLD in the Senate: see the
Constitution Section 7. So I can't see QLD changing their minds, whilst WA simply didn't want to join period. So I doubt either colony would change their minds either, except for WA being forced to join the Federation by Britain.
Meanwhile SA were radical fundamentialists of democracy, during the latter 1800s, so they certainly won't go for an appointed Senate, in the first place, whilst demanding equal representation there through elections.
TAS, though, was willing to go along with any plan for federation as they had serious financial woes & needed to link up with someone in order to not go bankrupt.
NSW, however, wasn't overly keen on Federation, regardless what Parkes declared, although it is true that having such a federation would open markets for their products, which was being constantly frustrated by the likes of VIC.
So, in other words, there's a lot of competing interests going on, six basically, & thus there's a lot of PODs required all over the place in order to have a Canadian style Senate instead of the one we've got.
If the 3 states had federated, I can see SA fairly quickly entering (on the terms already settled between the original states). Qld may join too. I think the 'difficult' one will be Western Australia. Under the conditions Ive laid out I can see it remaining independent until the learning experience of the Japanese WW2 threat changes its mind.
If only three states federated it's going to be difficult for them to survive in the long term. In the OTL, after the failure of 1890, there were indeed moves by VIC, TAS, & SA to get together, until they realised that NSW membership was essential if such a federation was to succeed. Well NSW came with major demands, which the other three colonies weren't willing to budge on at first. This later changed, obviously, & we got what we got as a result. It's probably fair to say, though, that Australia was created in New South Wales' image moreso than anything else. Having said that, the structure of the Senate was the only way to get the smaller states included. That was something which they wouldn't compromise on, besides which NSW overly didn't care about the issue anyway as they got everything which they deemed important.
On the other hand it is quite possible that another solution could be figured out: malapportionment in the lower house. At present the 'tolerance' for electoral districts is 10% either way, but before the 70's it was 20%. I can see the small states tolerating a weak upper house, if their is significant malapportionment in the lower house.
NSW would never go along with this. I'd dare say VIC wouldn't either, nor ironically SA & TAS as they'd both view it as undemocratic. QLD, on the other hand, would love the idea...
As I said in an earlier posting, I think the best way is simply have most of the colonies enjoy similar sized populations. Thus none would dominate meaning the Senate doesn't need to be the "State's House".