Some of us know all this. It's unfortunate that the average Australian does not care - in fact encourages big government by demanding more and more services, including having their children reared for them - and we will continue going down the gurgler.

Add two tired old political parties with barely discernible differences in policy, and know that Australia is rooted.

It's a false assumption that the optimum figure is a fixed percentage of GDP. That approach will be counterproductive if you fail to take the economic cycle into account, and even if you do is likely to lead to false economies as long term thinking is abandoned in pursuit of short term spending goals

Instead we should focus on what needs to be done, the cost of doing it and the cost of not doing it. Initially that will lead to higher government spending, but the benefits will outweigh the costs and less government spending will be needed in future.

Also we shouldn't make the mistake of just considering the direct financial cost; we should also consider the secondary effects. Spending to employ people who would otherwise be unemployed increases GDP and cuts the social security bill, but competing with the private sector for workers adds inflationary pressure. So it makes sense to spend more in regions where the employment rate is low.

Lets tell the truth here.

The bigger the government, the bigger the corruption. That’s just the way it is. The temptation is bigger because there’s a bigger pile of taxpayer booty to spread around. This in turn attracts more cronies who then write crony regs and pass crony laws to further enrich themselves via taxpayer money.

Philip S,
That's what the bankers would have us believe, as less government oversight would let them get away with more.

If you look at research into the link between government size and corruption, such as http://www.researchgate.net/publication/274520052_Government_Size_Nonprofit_Sector_Strength_and_Corruption_A_Cross-National_Examination you'll find there's actually an inverse relationship.

AH well I failed on that one.

We are the most over-governed nation on the planet, bar one. And could save the taxpayers of this nation somewhere north of 70 annual billion, by removing the one tier of government, we'd all better off without.

Namely, highly counterproductive state governments. And without ever once losing a single existing service or public amenity provision. Moreover, the rollout of genuine regional autonomy, complemented by a needs-based, means-tested, direct funding model, could if intelligently implemented reduce service-related social compact spending by as much as a further 30%.

And more than adequately funded from garnered internal revenue supported by a stand-alone, unavoidable 15% flat tax that kicks in above a variable threshold indexed for inflation.

This combination rolled out pragmatic policy, will do several things if it also includes the outlawing of middlemen profit taking. More than halve the cost of living or doing business in this nation!

Moreso if we give more than lip service support to cooperative capitalism that then stops us from competing with each other and instead with the other trading nation of an increasingly, dysfunctional world.

We need at least one island of sanity in a world not only clearly gone mad and teetering on the brink of going to war with itself, but lead, in far too many cases, by refugees from the lunatic asylum?
Alan B.