The author ignores the long term effects some industries can have on the balance of payments and having too many such industries can spell disaster.

Australia has almost exhausted its reserves of liquid fuels. Ten years from now can Australia afford to import all our liquid fuel needs together with all our cars, trucks, rail rolling stock, TVs, washing machines, shoes and clothing, refrigerators, fasteners, etc.?

What will we be able to export to pay for those imports? Hopefully the author would not suggest we pay by living off depleting assets such as iron ore and coal.

Coal is too valuable as a reducing agent for metal production to be burned simply for its thermal value or to sell so our professional people can buy their Mercs or Beemers.

The rot set in with the Modern Member's advocacy of "free trade" and too many gullible people fell for it.

Australia had, at the end of WW2, and now needs again, an Industry Policy.

Australian politicians are trapped by the Westminster system and the electoral cycle. The administration system needs to be separated from the law making system without somehow falling into the traps in the USA presidential system.

I believe we should subsidize. But selectively. We need to keep producing and processing food, given our clean green image goes down very well in Asia. And in the fullness of time, will queue to get our produce! We couldn't hurt that outcome with the creation of an inland shipping canal, very rapid double Decker rail, and a fleet of nuclear powered submersible roll on roll off ferries.
Norway already builds roll on roll off ferries, that are partly submersible, for reasons of stability, and presenting a smaller profile to problematic side winds?
For mine, its not a huge technological leap, to submerse them to periscope depth, to completely eliminate weather as a factor, and most pirates?

We can't afford to build these projects?
Why not?
We have well over a trillion resting in our own super funds, and fund managers crying out for long term visionary projects, that will still be earning a quid, long after any who read these lines, are pushing up the daisies!
The only thing that stands in the way of these and many other advances, I believe, are mantra muttering morons, on both sides of the political divide?
We need to subsidize a vehicle industry. Namely, gas powered electric vehicles. that finally solve the one thing holding back the electric vehicle industry, lack of adequate range! I believe that's eminently more sensible, than paying out 26 billion per for a product we have huge reserves of under our feet or Continental shelf! And in general use, creates 75% less emission!
Once you've driven an electric vehicle, you'll never want to drive anything else!
Rhrosty.

Great article. Business welfare is not just economically damaging its unfair.
Foyle
Markets adjust. Exchange rates adjust. We will continue to trade by producing things we’re relatively good at producing and importing things other countries are relatively good at producing.

Rhosty
The trouble with many of your proposals is that they would cost far more than the benefits they would deliver.

And please keep your hands off my super. It is not yours to give away.

And please keep your hands off my super. It is not yours to give away.
Ryan,
Well, neither is taxpayer money to prop up up your Super. Fair ?

CRONYISM!
Its everywhere - in every business, every government department - it is the very fabric of our economy. It determines who we employ, who are our suppliers, who wins the contract, who gets the seat in parliament and who a seat at a boardroom. And whilst it has always been present, as its kind of normal, its also become more and more the way of things.

It is a far too complex web of cause and effects for the scope of a thread.

Individual

I pay tax on my super savings, and I will pay tax on the income they generate when I retire.

ok Rhian, what industry are you in ?

Individual
Why is that relevant?

Rhian, because you sound suspiciously like a bureaucrat.

So what?

I have worked in government and briefly in education, but most of my adult life (about three quarters) I have worked in the private sector

Whether earned in the private or public sector, an employee's super is part of their remuneration - it is not a pot of ready money to be accessed by governments or for hare-brained experiments in nation building

Rhian,
Not telling the whole truth is akin to lying. Public servants do get a handsome lift from the service towards their Super. Higher ranking or should that be more rank bureaucrats such as politicians get even more plus they access it at close business rather than have to wait for retiring age like us mugs who work. So, if you're in the public service you DO get some of my tax dollar whereas I get nothing. Thta puts a difeernt perspective to it eh ?

Individual

Your personal attacks do you no credit and seem designed to detract from your baseless argument. Why should anyone's super be at someone else's disposal?

Rhian,
Where did I say it should be at anyone's disposal ? Also, it is not baseless to draw attention to the fact that public service bureaucrats get a sweet deal from salaries to Super. All propped up by workers' taxes. Deny that one rather than to try divert attention from the real argument which is not a personal attack. It's a pointing out of fact which the likes of you don't like to have publicised.

Individual
Commonwealth public servants receive a higher proportion of their earnings as super than most employees. Whether this is a "sweet deal" depends on whether this is money they otherwise wouldn't get, or just results in lower salaries. This article argues they would be better off without the higher super:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/less-superannuation-but-more-pay-please-20130629-2p3v6.html

The only governments I have worked for were state governments that paid super at the standard 9% that all employees are entitled to by law.

The issue of super came up in the context of Rhosty's post seeking to use super to invest in high-tech high-risk unproven technologies and infrastructure. So you are supporting the use of other people's savings to subsidise business and invest in high-risk enterprises. That is what I meant by assuming other people's savings are at your disposal. This is something I don't support. You made the issue personal by implying that I have benefitted from from overly generous super benefits

This is something I don't support.
implying that I have benefitted from from overly generous super benefits
Rhian,
I am dead against it myself.
Ok. re the second sentence but you did make it sound like so. Employer contributions in the private sector come from the profits made from the efforts of the emploer & the employees. In the public service there is not enough genuine effort to morally justify dishing out our dollars for hardly anything in return. Remember what we do receive via emergency services & health etc is aready paid for by us. Red tape is not a moral revenue base, it is theft on a grand scale protected by laws made up by immoral minority groups in a supposedly democratic society.

individual
I'm not a great fan of big government myself - hence my support for the author's position. But there are lots of things governments do that are necessary. Are you suggesting public servants shouldn't be paid to do these?