Hang on Tim, "If Australia had industries propped up by the false foundations government regulation and protectionism provides we would have struggled to adapt."

The car industry survives with props, as does the road transport industry and just about every other industry.

Mining gets subsidies from our backpockets and is never satisfied.

Religion is a tax free industry.

You are blinded by your 'private is best' ideology and your pretend 'free market' support.

Without government handouts and a lax tax system, your statement here, "Broadly speaking, the private sector is fine" could not be made.

Of course, that means the private sector is not 'fine' at all. It is on life support, paid for by the few of us who do pay tax.

Didn't I read a plan to retsart the Australian shipping industry, after Brereton sold it all off to private industry and they took it all offshore and wrecked it?

Yet another glaring failure of both ALP free trade policy and 'free trade'.

I very much like the idea of individual "health accounts" similar to super, although there is obviously a lot of detail to be worked out there. I already do this, rather than feed money into an insurance policy. Health insurance is for suckers.

Not so sure on the education vouchers idea, seems a bit vague.

"Substance does not seem to matter".

What better example of this is there than the implementation of the carbon (dioxide) tax by the Gillard Government? There is no substance in the ideology that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions cause dangerous global warming.

The IPCC has been masterly in conning the media, certain climate scientists (or should that be pseudo-scientists) and gullible politicians into accepting the ideology that it then backed up with asserted 'science'.

Blue Cross has it right...lets see the "private" sector survive without taxpayer props before handing more health finance over to them. There is already a highly profitable health insurance "industry" that relies on taxpayer funded corporate welfare.
The banking sector also has survived the GFC unscathed largely due to a the free government guarantee on deposits and massive RBA funding...free insurance (what would that insurance policy cost normally?) and cheap liquidity through money creation which we all ultimately pay for through inflation.
We already have a mechanism for private health saving...bank accounts. Just because many folks have forgotten about the necessity of saving for a rainy day and retirement with debt is insanity doesn't mean we need more coercive "private" profits.