And -- to answer the alarmists' frequently-asked question -- THIS is exactly why governments support and promote AGW hysteria; because a fearful public allows them to extract far more taxes and arrogate far more power than a complacent one. Before AGW it was terrorism, and before that the Y2K bug, and before that the Cold War, each one used as an excuse to impose more taxes and more laws. As each fear fades, a new one needs to be adopted -- or manufactured.

Big government is ultimately a product of fear: feed the fear, and government will grow. Luckily there are hopeful signs that more and more of us are refusing to be intimidated.

From the article:"a government deep in the pocket of Big Bureaucracy, with a blithe disregard for public money."

And you've just worked this out? The Greens/ALP coalition Government knows that public servants are firat and foremost concerned with their own jobs and with anything else much later. A massive increase in bureaucracy is a massive investment in future votes for a Greens/ALP coalition.

Furthermore,l since the vast majority of graduates in environmentally-based topics are female, it fits in well with the desire to create more jobs for women that don't actually need doing in the first place. After all, they've got to do something now they're not looking after children or maintaining a good home environment. What better than helping to build a new bureaucratic empire, complete with comfy featherbeds for all?

No Adam, there aren't actually many good economists around, i.e. those who understand that the neoclassical/neoliberal abstractions have nothing to do with real modern economies. In the real world, markets need to be managed or they might drive us into a divided, declining society and a wrecked planet. Oh ...

Have a look at http://betternature.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/nature-of-the-beast/ and leave your CIS fantasies behind.

So we should be less like Sweden, and more like India and China? We must be playing limbo.

And our beloved treasurer still insists that the budget will be in surplice shortly. Fortunately, the Labor/Greens coalition will have gone after the next election and some semblance of sanity will return to our government.

David

VK3AUU

I have lived to see tens of governments but not lucky to have seen any of them with a semblance of sanity.

Australia's government is too big but that is not the same as wishing for small government - only 'smaller'.

It is not just about the size of government but what services are being provided. The plethora of new government agencies to deal with climate change and energy is OTT when these functions could easily be dealt with within relevant existing portfolios. A climate change division could easily service the needs equally as well as a whole department with it's own bureaucratic infrastructure and extra costs.

However, to propose that AGW was a conspiracy of big bureacracy is stretching the truth just a bit. Much of the response by government was from growing pressures from the public and increasing evidence by scientists. Indeed ignoring climate change was as much of a vote loser as taking it on board, in the end the government had to make a choice. Howard did the same thing and went for an ETS at the end of his leadership.

The Public Service is too big, of that there is no doubt and alarmingly much of it is at the middle to top end, not at the service delivery end where services are often declining to the public. The current Clayton's Efficiency Dividents are contributing to the problem as politicians wipe their hands of it once they gain brownie points for 'reducing' government. It is a joke.

Hear hear, Skeptic.
Speaking of 'hysteria'... Jon J suggests that 'Government' likes taxing people, and more, looks for excuses to tax people.
I would suggest that if by 'Government' he refers to politicians, of any stamp, that is pretty hysterical. Politicians love Popularity and Power; popularity because it gives them power. It is largely for this reason so many governments have preferred to borrow (or print) money, than increase taxes.
I suppose if we are talking about the permanent public service, they might be in favour of raising taxes, as -from their point of view- matching taxes to expenditure equals 'living within our means'.
Perhaps the first step to reining in bureaucratic growth would be to swap from a growth economy to a static one.
The more we grow, the more they grow.

There will be a few winners who will become multi millioniares, whilst most of us will be a lot poorer for it.

Grim,

You certainly have not forgotten the “Be alert but not alarmed” of Bush-Howard vintage.

Well, a couple of times, I made a very suspicious looking parcel and left it on a well visible public bench.

In minutes a bomb disposable crew was there going through their scary rigmarole.

The whole country was well in the grip of fabricated fear.

The Egyptian driver of the bus I often take, was telling me that, after all, under the King, life was more relaxed, less stressing than when the politicians Nasser, Al Sadat and Mubarak took over.

Now he cries for his homeland under the heels of army Generals