* we place higher taxes on the wealthy,
DD,
I'm not wealthy but I don't think this is a fair proposal. There's only one fair tax & that is a flat tax. No ifs not buts.
Everyone pays the same rate. I can't understand why people have a problem with the same rate of tax for everyone. What could be more simple ? Perhaps too fair for the geedy ?

Rhrosty,

If our resources "belong to us", that implies they are nationalized. If they belong to those who hold leases, then they are owned by whoever the investors are, many of which are foreign. BHP/Billiton is predominately foreign owned. When it was just BHP, it was an Aussie company, but no more.

If you remember the usurping of Kevin Rudd, strangely, it occurred only days after his announcement to tax the mining industry an extra $10 billion per year (he made the announcement on a weekend, and by Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, he was unemployed). Political suicide on his part, three months prior to an election, believing the mining industry wouldn't retaliate, but retaliate they did, and swiftly. My point, is NOT about Kev, but of the vested interests in keeping the taxation on mining low. So the only way to have control of our resources, is to control our resources...nationalize them.

Even more important than jobs & money is mentality. If we can somehow induce the teaching of a more sober mentality by starting with more intelligent teachers & a more conscencous education system we'd be miles ahead in an instant.
We could reduce unemployment by introducing a non-military National Service using much of the funding that is now wasted on the Dole. In a national service we'd get the benefit of some responsibility being taught & hopefully some of it taken in whereas with Dole payments we're doing nothing more than taking away dignity from adults whilst turning young people into listles, pointless & lazy, selfish sods.
No ? Then what do you call the situation now ? I work with idiots who have an education I could have only dreamed about & they're costing all of us very dearly in every aspect.
If Australians want Australia to be Australia again then one thing is certain, we can't go on like we have done since the Goaf.
The present outfit running this country has inherited an unenviable state of affairs but that is not god-given right to worsen things.
Hockey wouldn't be so obese if he had to do to some physical labour & Abbott would be well advised to start remembering his ideas from before he became PM.

Yes well, it's nice to dream, even as an educated adult.
The reality is that rather than assist in youth employment, we have recently seen a push to lower the age for the adult wage, with a target number being around 18. That's a huge wedge that's just had it's first win.

The other problem is education, as labor simply wanted to throw more money (via Gonski) at our broken system, where as it is my view that subsidized tutoring (for those who want to learn) would be a far better way of injecting money (we don't have) into a failing education system, because let's face it, too many kids go to school today to fill in the gaps between breaks and weekends. Why waste precious resources on the likes of them. Especially when we no longer have this resources, so have to borrow them in the first place.

Like it or not, we have to take the path of not wasting time, effort or resources on wasted causes. Now I know that's cruel, but if parents don't give a stuff about their own kids future, and the kids themselves don't give a stuff, why waste our taxes. Now if the parants care and the kids dont, then lets work on that. Besides, if dead beat kids see other kids doing well, some of them may just buck the trend and change their ways, but they will never change if they are not cut off from the free ride they currently enjoy.

The other problem we face is competitiveness, as unless we drag our life styles down a few pegs, we WLL NEVER compete with the likes of China or India.

As I say, it's nice to be able to dream.

D.D.
If we used new surpluses to buy majority shares in resource companies, via the free market; and those companies held several mining leases, who would own the leases? That is clearly not nationalization!
If there was some ground that held valuable minerals, and the appropriate authorizes had not listed them for development or made them available as prospects. Who would own the mineral wealth?
And if we held such a provinces and had however protected them with heritage listing or a national parks? Who would own the mineral wealth?
You seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet about (American) private enterprise, and how it alone can develop our Australian mineral wealth?
And no, I don't agree with a mining tax or a carbon tax, given all that seems to achieve is yet more layers of complexity and paper shuffling bureaucracies!
The only thing that prevents the reestablishment of the gas and oil corporation is ideologues, unable to think outside a very limited set of extremely limited ideas.
Given we own said corporation, what prevents us, from emulating BP/Caltex/Dutch Shell, and employing expert contracting companies, to develop our minerals on our behalf, and then return the profits to internal revenue, rather than see them head offshore as repatriated profits, a lose/lose outcome for all Australians. Given we also send scarce export incomes offshore, buying foreign oil!

As for bringing off-shored companies back onshore, We could put a gun to their head? Or, if we had the lowest most efficient tax system on the planet and coupled that to the lowest energy costs? Leave them with no other option, but queue to return!
There were some very valid reasons for them to leave?
We surely are clever enough, and given our still massive resource base, to leave them with no valid reason to continue to stay away!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty, I have no bee in my bonnet about America only, being able to develop our mineral wealth...I'm not sure how you got that impression. I believe WE should own the resources and develop them ourselves. I like your idea of contracting out the work to companies, and think that to be more beneficial for the nation than how we're currently doing things.

I have a passionate dislike for bureaucrats, so anything that streamlines how we do things is a good thing.

I'm not sure that it's the government's business to buy controlling shares, as it lends itself to manipulating markets, corruption and insider trading, and complicated portfolios to manage. But simply contracting the work out strikes me as very efficient, in the nation's interest and minimizes the above criticisms.

Maybe "nationalization" is the wrong term, but I see it this way...if "we" own the resources, and "we" are a nation, that's nationalization. I know it's used to describe dictatorships seizing control of resources in their countries, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe national ownership of something.

Attracting back manufacturing? Not in our lifetimes. Apart from labour being cheaper in underdeveloped countries, so is everything else, from land to infrastructure. Then we have "free trade agreements" that reduces or eliminates import taxes, which is how we protected manufacturers from cheaper foreign imports. That alone goes a long way to explaining why we're losing Holden and Ford, plus their market share in cars has shrunk now to only 10% of the market, with Japanese and Korean car companies having the lion's share.

The world as we knew it has gone.

How do we provide jobs for low level to non-skilled labour? Tourism comes to mind, and the service industries attached. I'm not suggesting that's the sole answer, but if we provide world class attractions and superior service, it would certainly help.