That's not the ancient hebrew god, the one christ rejected, who you are quoting yu? You know the old vengeful one and not the later forgiving christian one.

Hey yu,

Do you still believe in deuteronomy 22?

All well and good, but promises, however sacred, need to be funded!
And due to the fact that govts of both political persuasions pissed revenue up against the wall, to coin a phase, we now have to make sacrifices.
Having said that, let me say this.
If you accept that we have a 1.6 trillion economy, then an 18% levy collected as the only tax taken, as a single stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax, would raise in excess of 380 billions!
I however believe that the economy is actually bigger, (5 times bigger?) particularly if you include all the business done here, by tax avoiding multinationals etc!?
And growing the revenue base is as simple as growing the economy!
And that is as simple as providing, free of privateers, lowest costing energy, and the lowest actual total tax impost, not made more expensive, by completely unnecessary tax compliance costs!
A single stand alone tax, would share the load much more equitably.
If we really wanted to save some serous money, we should opt for very different federal union and state govt models.
Which could be limited to a winner takes all governor, and around a dozen handpicked by him or her, team of state govt administrators?
States'rights could be protected by the Senate, and their very state friendly reviews!
Given diverse opinion and free and fearless advice, and a virtual army of investigative journalists, there'd simply be no need to also engage oppositions, which can in effect, double the cost of just running the establishment.
A luxury we can no longer afford, which currently holds back around 35 billions from capital works projects every year.
Put that money into infrastructure Australia, and in three years we'd be able to link the east coast with income earning, very rapid rail!
In another ten years, we'd have finished an inland shipping canal?
And in three more, our own fleet of roll on roll off nuclear powered shipping!
All of which would seriously grow the economy, jobs and wealth creation opportunities!
Rhrosty.

Dear Imajulianutter,

<<Do you still believe in deuteronomy 22?>>

Did I ever? Deuteronomy 22 has some horrible injunctions, such as the stoning of adulterers and the prohibition on cross-dressing, but my quote was from Deuteronomy 23, wasn't it?

It Begins with "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord." - well, I don't buy that: I believe (and so did Jesus) that everyone is entitled to enter into the congregation of the Lord, regardless of what they have or haven't inside their pants.

But while I don't believe in verses 1-6 for example, I do approve of verse 15, forbidding to return an escaping slave to his master, or of verse 16, forbidding to mistreat non-citizen residents.

And I do believe in verses 21-23, and so I think does Tony Abbott - which needs this reminder!