Tristan,

Given that government expenditure is 40% higher than in 2007 whilst delivering very little extra, the "smaller" government under labor is actually already very bloated in comparison to that of the Howard government.

If Labor actually demonstrated that it could deliver more for the taxpayer than simply more public servants, the electorate might be prepared to listen.

"Where would Australia have been had the Conservatives been in government with the onset of the Global Financial Crisis? (GFC) Most likely a Conservative government would have implemented deflationary policies which would have sent the economy into freefall, with an ever-escalating toll of human misery."

Incorrect. The Coalition always supported stimulatory policies, just not of the same nature or scale of the government's policies. Turnbull for instance proposed bringing tax cuts forward.

Given that Labor wasted billions on school hall rip-offs and pink batts, it would seem the Coalition's less ambitious approach was in fact the better one.

There are other errors in this article, but perhaps the biggest is the main thrust: that we should increase expenditure in all of these areas and raise taxes in order to fund bigger government.

The article does not take into account the fact that higher taxes are bad for econonomies, nor the fact that the private sector is generally more efficient than the private.

In short, this spending wish-list is a recipe for low economic growth, rising unemployment and higher inflation. It basically strangles the golden goose in order to try to make it lay more golden eggs.

Hey, here's a solution.
Why not get the government to produce everything and employ everyone!
Yippee!

Oh...

Menzies supported a mixed economy; Yet the Conservatives today can't tell the difference between a democratic mixed economy and a Soviet-style command economy.... (for that matter neither can some people in the ALP)

The conservatives would have sent Australia into a free fall, get Off, Green labor has never offered tax cuts or real savings and never will as they rule to determine who should get the sPoils which from the mess they only create,stagnation anyone.

I agree with the principle that I'd rather pay more tax for a more broadly subisidized society in public infrastructure, medical services and scientific development;

Of course, we definitely wouldn't need to if we actually stopped allowing stupid novelty events to occur in the city (WYD, cycling marathons, APEC etc which each cost hundreds of millions in tax dollars and costs much more hundreds of millions in lost revenue for city businesses), cut funding for rubbish like School Chaplains and laptops for every child, Conroy's filter, Desalination plants etc.
Oh, and I almost forgot- Politician's travel and living perks, and pensions.
We'd draw in a massive windfall.

Tristan

Are you going to be as congratulatory of Swan's performance when the $50 Billion deficit is announced officially in the next budget?
That's more than the $43 billion to be spend on building the NBN(if they can find someone to built it!)

Did you miss that snippet leaked last week?

Too busy watching the royal wedding ... were you?

How are you going to address that?

You can leave aside for later how exactly you are going to explain where all the money has gone ... during a resources boom?

We know where it went after the Liberals had put money aside ... the stuidity of pink bats and an idiotic school buildings waste. Neither could be said to have got Australia through the GFC. Stuffing up the savings stratagies of people who did not invest in the 'guaranteed' major banks was hardly the stuff of magnificient policy.

Keith, you won't find me defending the management of the home insulation debacle. Though on memory the amount was in the vicinity of $2 billion. It was very bad - but it was a once-off.

re: BER - Abbott beat that up a lot; I guess he thought if he said the same thing again and again people would revert to the old prejudices. In reality it provided stimulus when desperately needed, and with BER specifically waste was minimal. The total program was over $16 billion; within which about $2 billion could have been saved. Perhaps if the public sector had its own construction capacity profit gouging in such circumstances could be avoided? The infrastructure provided is socially useful as well - and will be for decades.

The problem is that many people will never realise now what would have happened without stimulus. The Conservatives revert to type with talk of 'waste', but what of the hundreds of thousands who otherwise would have lost their jobs?

You say there will be a $50 billion deficit. If that's true link to your source. And even if it was true - consider the context of the government's plan to return to surplus in three years. If anything the government is moving too soon - as the disasters in Japan, Queensland etc - are impacting on growth.

Tristan Ewins:

Your proposals in this article for improvements to “Social Infrastructure” are laudable; but ignore the fragile nature of the economy at present. I think there is a need for Governments to acknowledge the causes for the GFC gone, and prepare for a future possibility of further financial collapse on a more grand scale than we witnessed.

The realities current are the witness to whole of countries in the EU collapsing into bankruptcy: And of numerous states in the USA going the same way. Our own economy is struggling along in two speed. Extract resources and the banking industry from the equation and the balance is losing the plot at a rate of around 3%pa. Unfortunately that sector contains the larger portion of tax payers from which to draw the “goodies” for funding your proposals.

One thing I do whole heartedly agree with you on, is the need to eliminate urgently middle class welfare such as you suggested with the medibank rebate among many others. Other areas of savings could easily be drawn from industrial welfare, such as subsidies to aluminium smelters for cheap power, and many more examples too numerous.

Gillard and Abbott both will not win on welfare reform. It is already reformed. Short of standing back and watching wholesale starvation and homelessness as an alternative, welfare must be left to the bureaucracy to defend, in its current state. Already enough persecution is on the official books for welfare recipients