From the Grattan Institute yesterday:

http://grattan.edu.au/publications/reports/post/budget-pressures-on-australian-governments/

"Australian government budgets are under pressure. Our analysis of the budget positions of the Commonwealth and the three major states shows that rising costs, a shortfall in tax revenues, declining minerals prices and big political promises could see a combined annual deficit of around 4 per cent of GDP by 2023. The greatest single pressure comes from growing health spending. Balancing budgets is difficult but it can be done – provided governments are prepared to make tougher choices than they have made over the past decade."

I hate to say I told you so, but I did.

However, blaming health spending is actually begging the question. Health is a large consumer of resources, but it is arguably an essential service. The real problem is that the resources that could easily pay for it are being consumed in a circular whirl of "hanging out each other's washing" that doesn't produce anything at all of genuine value. It simply generates heat and noise and an appearance of prosperity that is based not on needful work, but on make-work and government borrowing premised on trying to buy the votes of women.

It cannot last. There is a really large economic collapse coming within the next few terms of Government that will be unprecedented and I really doubt that there is now anything that can be done to stop it, for the reasons given in my last post. There are now so many people who are reliant on Government subsidy to maintain their existence that Government spending reductions would simply accelerate the inevitable crash.

My kids have been badly let down by their forebears in this society. Their generation will suffer mightily as young adults because of the egocentrism of a relatively small group of people who have pursued influence within politics and media and made good, prudent policy effectively impossible, because of their intentional desire to construct a society in which those who generate the wealth are not those who decide how it should be spent.

Poor fellow, my country.

Antiseptic said;
There is a really large economic collapse coming within the next few
terms of Government that will be unprecedented and I really doubt that
there is now anything that can be done to stop it,

This exactly what I have been warning of, although it is not my
original thought. The oil field engineers and geologists have been
warning of this for years and years.
The increase in the cost of fuel and its supply constrictions simply
cut back on GDP and growth.
Unfortunately the politicians don't want to know as they can see no
solution to restore business as usual.
This condition it is believed is permanent.

We do need to return to an economy that once again makes things, our future depends on it.
Not too far ahead in time, we will have depleted our mineral resources.
Oxide reactors consume less than 5% of their total radioactive material!
Whereas, thorium reactors consumes as much as 95% of theirs!
The waste from thorium is vastly less toxic, and is eminently suitable as long life space batteries.
We have more than 10 times the amount of thorium in comparison to uranium, and enough to power the world for 600 years.
There's is no doubt that thorium power is cheaper than coal and has the added advantage of being smoke stack and carbon free.
We also need to get away from the concept of a national electricity grid.
The first effect is prices at least double what they need to be, and an electrical supply system that is far too vulnerable; and far too expensive to adequately maintain.
Future industrial parks ought to also include an onsite publicly owned and operated power supply.
Publicly owned, given no private operator comes anywhere near the much lower price paradigm of the public model.
And a lower profit model that more than recovers all actual costs, is not subsidised, as claimed.
It's just a lower cost model, where the social and economic benefits vastly outweigh anything privatisation can ever produce.
There are other energy provision paradigms, that ought to be included in the mix. Including biogas> electricity and algae> bio-fuel production!
Imagine, what could hold us back if we had the lowest real tax impost in the world!?
Very possible with a single stand alone expenditure tax; and, the lowest energy prices in the world.
Other pluses include, we live on an Island continent, and share no common land border, with any other neighbour.
We are a stable democracy, with a highly educated workforce.
And we punch well above our weight in many areas of R+D.
Every component would then be in place, to encourage the mass migration to these shores, of the world's premier high tech industries.
Rhrosty.