If it looks like a state, and it acts like a state, then why shouldn't the Northern Territory become a state?
So says Attorney-General John Elferink, as the NT government prepares to take another tilt at statehood.
"We are treated as a state now, we are financially operating as a state," he told reporters in Darwin on Friday.
"If we're treated as a state, and funded as a state, then we should have the rights as well as the obligations of a state."
Last week's Council of Australian Governments meeting was the first with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and featured a brief discussion on progressing statehood for the NT.
"There's only one way to become an extra state and that's by the approval of the Commonwealth parliament," Mr Elferink said.
"I would be hopeful we'd make a tilt for that as soon as we can."
He said "positive noises were made" by other state and territory leaders at COAG, and it would be discussed at future meetings.
"One of the challenges of becoming a full state with full state equivalencies is the fact that a full state would have 12 senators in the current arrangements," Mr Elferink said.
The Australian Constitution demands there is a 1:2 ratio between the Senate and the House of Representatives, so adding 10 senators to the NT would mean an extra 20 seats in the House of Representatives.
"This is the sort of challenge we would have to face whilst convincing other jurisdictions we're deserving of full statehood," Mr Elferink said.
In 1911 the responsibility of governing NT was transferred from South Australia to the Commonwealth, and the NT wasn't granted self-governance until 1978.
A 1998 referendum on statehood was voted down by Territorians.
