"In my term in Parliament, I want to convince Australians to reconsider whether handing their money over to the government is better than keeping it themselves"

These guys have got a head start on you, David.

They believe that keeping the money themselves is far better than handing it over to the government...even after a $15 billion profit!

http://www.smh.com.au/business/glencore-tax-bill-on-15b-income-zip-zilch-zero-20140626-3awg0.html

And these fellas wouldn't dream of handing over their big bickies:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/budget-pain-not-for-millionaires-who-pay-no-tax-20140512-zr9o3.html

"The latest tax statistics show 75 ultra-high-earning Australians paid no tax at all in 2011-12. Zero. Zip.

Each earned more than $1 million from investments or wages. Between them they made $195 million, an average of $2.6 million each.

The fortunate 75 paid no income tax, no Medicare levy and no Medicare surcharge, even though 60 of them had private health insurance.

The reason? They managed to cut their combined taxable incomes to $82. That’s right, $1.10 each."

Society?...infrastructure?...collective enhancement of community?.....

Pfft!

Godzilla cannot be placed back in its cage - because it never was caged in the first place.

Godzilla by its nature is a monster, a predator, because it imposes itself on us involuntarily - ordering around everyone who happens to live in this continent. It is an illegitimate creature.

However, had Godzilla been voluntary, had its members (citizens) accepted it without coercion, then there would be nothing wrong in principle, for example, about it purchasing coffee machines for its bureaucracy.

Good point Poirot but if we had one sensible eight year old in the public service this would all be bought to a crashing halt. Tell the PS numpties there is no more money for their mothercare payments that so many people are incensed about the rest of us getting. Then watch schemes hatched and put in the next day to stop these rorts.
Do not tell me it is even hard. Mate you just arrest them, tell ASIC and if ASIC do not just order them off the directors chairs start on ASIC benefits. Our cosseted and grossly overpaid PS are the reason these blokes get these huge amounts.
Start with a nice reasonable ten per cent cut to all PS salaries but tell them that this will be for this week but if no money received then bigger cuts next week.

A new era in the Senate....

Ahem.....this should clarify everything.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/jun/26/first-dog-cartoon-newsenate?CMP=twt_gu

"First Dog on the Moon on ... the new Senate"

Lol!

Hi Poirot

Thanks for the highly informative Oz Guardian new Senate winners guide http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/jun/26/first-dog-cartoon-newsenate?CMP=twt_gu

And yes Brave Sir* Clive will be the most powerful man and politician in Australia for perhaps 3 years until the PUP Senate dominance declines.

I have it on good authority that Rupert's Press is expanding its broadsheets side-ways to accommodate Clive's svelte figure on the front page for the next 1,000 days.

* "Sir" Clive is a future thankyou from Tony for "Services to Politics" - a real Knighthood category in the rebooted Oz List of Social Betters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_knights_and_dames

Regards

Pete

On the public servant numbers issue. Clearly a lot of public sector employees are not employed under the various public service acts. Likewise many are engaged in front line activites rather than dreaming up endless regulation and red tape.

The overall numbers ar at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6248.0.55.002/

ADF permanent employees are not included in those numbers, stats at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~People~121 which seems to be around 80,560

I've not managed to find a breakdoen of numbers that are more relevant to this thread, the number employed in roles that provide services. The other factor that would be interesting is cost of service for pubic sector compared to equivalent services in the non-government area. IT departments, call centers and no doubt a range of other areas would have metrics somewhere that would be relevant to that aspect of the discussion but I have no idea what if any of it is available online.

R0bert