Tristan,

You want everyone to be paid more, but as most from the left have no idea who is going to pay for it.

Apprentices are not paid much, but are spending time in Tafe and getting hands on experience in the profession they want to pursue, as well as getting some income from about 50% in first year when they have no skills to full wages after a year. Compared to Uni students earning nothing, they are doing well.

Arjay - I support restoring an equivalent of the Commonwealth Bank. But the ALP Right - and some 'pragmatic' (and even Ideological) elements on the Left - would oppose it. Right now we have a better crack at national age care insurance funded by progressive tax reform; restore age of retirement 65; get back in and get Gonski and NDIS done... I will argue for a government owned bank in the future - I think its very important. But I doubt I'd get it past the pragmatists at this stage.

What are you worried about, Tristan? Abbot's policies aren't going anywhere because the Senate is owned by Labor and the Greens. Labor will do nothing to help Abbot balance the budget and the Greens have an ideological aversion to productive industry that generates revenue.

Look ma-a-a-a-ate. You are going to win this one. Too many people want to believe that the government's coffers are bottomless and that the government will always give them money. Just like Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Portugal and Ireland, the electorate will vote for anybody who says that there is nothing to worry about. It is going to be a short term victory for you.

But in the long term, our country is going to go broke just like every other country in the world which is unable to reign in it's welfare spending. The facts are stark and unmistakable. In 1965, 3% of the population as on welfare, and today after an unprecedented surge in prosperity, 16% are on welfare. And that is before the baby boomers begin to retire. The situation is unsustainable. And you don't have to be a Mensa from the local Audubon society to smell a rat.

Take my niece (everybody else has). After marrying her unemployable husband who was nearly voted "unmarried father of the year" in his own country town, she had four kids to him. Her husband then ran off with the girl next door who was half his age, to make more babies that the taxpayer would keep. My niece then shacked up with one of his sons (from a prior dalliance) who was a drug addict, a burglar, and who had been almost totally banned from driving cars for life. She then had two kids to her husband's son. And yes, they are all on the dole.

You can laugh, but you are paying for it. And you want to screw the productive to become the noble protector of the poor? Cuckoo. Cuckoo. You must have led a sheltered life.