Hi Spindoc, sorry I have to disagree with you. Main roads & bridges are 2 things government should provide, & they should be toll free. Lesser suburban roads are developer built, & become a council, [IE. local resident] responsibility.

Other transport infrastructure should be the responsibility of the user, with building & running the things a simple business decision. Gladstone port authority is perhaps a model of local control, & profit from efficient provision of a facility, run as a business. Any involvement by bureaucrats would only bring disaster.

The last thing we need is more ridiculous featherbedding of government run things like railways, & telecommunications. As long as bureaucrats are involved, rail will not work. Manning at the public service rate makes profitable or economic operation impossible.

Water was rather like roads, before broke governments like Beattie's stuffed it up. State owned dams, & local council distribution worked, but I doubt it can be reinstated now.

Sorry also John C. Massam, the debt has developed because of bureaucratic bungling of things they don't understand, & featherbedding in public service departments. Get these leaches off the public's back, & put them to work sweeping the streets, at a wage rate that reflects their ability, & our budgets will start to improve.

Right back in 1990, when super first came in for employees, I said that the money should be used to fund infrastructure and not be allowed to be put at risk, often high risk, by blood sucking leaches. Had we gone that way we would be sitting pretty today.

But then again, it scary when one thinks of just how much the previous government coukdnhave wasted, had the debt not go so high.

Then there's thenissue of trust, as we were told way back in the mid 80's that once the gateway waspaid off, tolls woukd cease, yea right, pull the other one.

In fact, having commenced at about 40cents, and now over $4.00, can you imagine how happy oir farmers would be if they had a price hike in their goods to the tune of 11 or 12 times in this time frame.

The biggest problem we face is that governments from all sides TELL LIES and as such can't be trusted.

As fiorsuper, I started a similar thead some time ago, it didn't gain legs but my main message then was watch your super very closely, I hold the same view today because governments simply won't be able to resist, especially when the TRILLIONS start to multiply.

It's only a matter of time.

I do not know enough of the economics of PPPs to be able to say whether Karl's proposal is better than a PPP.
I do know that if John Howard, and a reluctant Peter Costello, had not frittered away almost all of the profits of a lengthy mining boom in tax breaks and middle class welfare, we would not need to be having this conversation as much of the infrastructure we are lacking could have been built. The "most profligate" Prime Minister in Australia's history richly deserved the title he was given by the OECD and the IMF.

I smell another big rat in this "Earth Sharing " movement that Karl belongs to. It supports the UN's Agenda 21 in which no one will own property. This is a communist manifesto.

Also Karl makes no mention of the fatal flaw in our system ie the Global Central Banks who create money as debt. No mention of stopping the theft of our assets by these criminals. No way. We must give up what little assets we have to appease this insane Globalist Agenda controlled by our financial elites..

It is these Banks who premote Agenda 21 and probably own Karl as well.

Yep rehctub a pretty huge increase, but there are others much larger, in the same time frame.

In the mid 80s I bought a bit of land. After a disagreement about how much rates have increased with my wife, [she wouldn't believe me], I actually dug out the first rate notice. $132.00 annually. It seemed pretty fair, when our only council service within 26 kilometers, was an unmanned, unserviced tip, & 3 hours of library on Saturday morning, in an annex off our community funded hall.

Today it is $1280.00 every 6 months, so $2560.00 annually. And some clown here was suggesting we should be paying land tax. I wonder what the hell he thinks these ridiculous rates are. They certainly aren't for anything like useful service.

For that we now get 2 hours of a mobile library, at a time most can not use it, & our tip was closed, when state government made transfer stations mandatory. That is, would you believe a 1839% increase in under 30 years, for sweet F/A, & people wonder why we find bureaucrats disgusting.

At least with the Newman government we have had one win. The maternity service has been reinstated in our local hospital. Big tooth Beattie had closed it in a fit of viciousness, when the a LNP candidate was elected here. Most of the districts women can now get to help within an hour or less.

Karl there is nothing wrong with giving people the option of using their super to invest in infrastructure. I've suggested to Tony Abbott that he issue infrastructure bonds. Your super fund can then own a real asset rather than over inflated shares that will collapse very soon and not rebound this time because the money printing as debt won't work any more.

You are against this because 'Earth Sharing' do not want ordinary people to prosper. Only Central Bankers are allowed to do this in your view.