runner, only ignorant people like you believe that only things with zero provision cost can be free. Do you think free newspapers don't have paid staff?

Yes 579, that's exactly what I'm saying, and before so much as a single service is rolled out, we taxpayers part with 70 billions PA+, just for the privilege of employing people, like he who must be Obied!

Why, most services could be provided as a direct funding model and supported by much more regional/local autonomy; and that model would cost we taxpayers around 30% less than the current money go round!

If for example we returned to Great Depression expediency, and had much of the service model admin provided by unpaid regional volunteer boards; made up of recently retired [bored silly,] professionals?
We really could get much smaller government across the board.
And costly ignorance would be replaced by concise local knowledge, and consequent, far better directed much bigger bang for the buck, funding!

We with just one notable exception, are the most over-governed nation on earth, and are paying for it every which way, not the least of which is endlessly deferred development and infrastructure; which then costs the taxpayer double, due to the inevitable delays!

So the 70 billions per, is just maintenance, lunch/wine/cigars, cars/taxis, ministers' and staff salaries, rather than the other things like public health, education and emergency services that also cost additional tens of billions!
i.e., Roads that just lead to bottlenecks or nowhere, and tram and rail tracks ripped up, when what was really needed was some realignment and vast modernization!

Ask any city Mayor, and he/she will tell you; that the biggest wasters of public money are state governments; coupled to the different objectives of the ideologically driven/learner pollies that man them!

If management teaches just one thing, it teaches us that there is always a better way!
Rhrosty.

States should get all of their own GST collected in that state. The federal spending is racking up debt at unprecedented levels. That is where black holes are formed.
Why should the federal be telling the states where they want money spent. Like the recent tunnel in vic. Abbot wanted it not Victoria. That was purely political, and badly thought out. Abbott made the vote into a vic referendum for his tunnel.
State govt; are best at knowing what is best for their state.
Federal wants the states to sell everything and pass all moneys to federal, so Abbott can make himself look like he is doing something.
The level of competency in federal politics is not there to have one centralized govt;.
Unemployment is the worst for 12 years. That is what federal should be focused on, not where they can spend more billions, on roads the state does not want.
Vic has gone labor, QLD will be next. One sure way of federal becoming unstuck is to keep going the way they are now.

Well thank you miss know it all Suse.

My recent experience with university trained nurses is when the weekend worriers at a major Queensland public hospital didn't bother giving my bedridden mother any food or water for 36 hours. They were too damn busy talking at the nurse station to check their patients, or do the job the tax payers were paying them very handsomely to do.

They had put food & water on the table, too far away for her to reach.

I am quite surprised you didn't hear about it there, my shouting was loud enough. Loud enough to bring the hospital general manager in from home, to try to reduce the coming complaint.

From my experience we would be lucky to have more than 40% of our current nurses of any more use than the cleaners.

The last experience was when we had to carry my lady in with a gallstone attack. I was not impressed at the two & a half we had waited for her to get any pain relief, which she only got when I started getting noisy again.

Nurses, I wouldn't feed most of them.

Well if the states got all their GST; which by the way they do!
They would still be in a 20 billion dollar black hole before so much as a single state funded service was rolled out!

Each and every state minister costs the tax payer over a million P.A, just so he or she can polish leather and endlessly argue about where scarce funds should be eternally wasted/pork barreled!

And why do we the people need to find around 35 billions per year, just to pay for noisy or road block oppositions; but particularly with regard to the divergence of very robust opinion in party rooms!

And do we really need all those extremely expensive rubber stamp back benchers, who in all likelihood, will have to be carried by the public purse for life!?

Why not look at the vastly superior American model, where a single governor is elected for four years, in a winner takes all election.
And yes we the people should pay for those very elections, in order to prevent incalculable wealth from simply buying power and or influence.

With a single governor elected, he or she can then gather an extremely competent team around them (around 12 people) to take care of those things not able to be delegated to regional boards and or councils.

And investigative journalism vastly more effective in keeping the bar stewards honest; than lack lustre/in there as well/do nothing oppositions!?

And councils need to be wound back and become mostly unpaid volunteers working for their own communities, and earn most of their revenue from paid for service, like say, reticulated water and electricity/garbage collection!

Or failing that, replaced by a single state government appointed administrator!

I can recall an occasion where just such an appointee, got through more actual work in just 12 weeks, than three years of gridlocked Gold Coast council!

And from where all current or former real estate agents and developers; their wives, partners and family members should be forever completely barred/banned!
Rhrosty.

Nurses shouldn't be asked to do things for patients, that patients can still do for themselves, and heal quicker/avoid stoke or heart attack creating blood clots for having been forced off of their important portly backsides to do it, even if they are VIPs!

Or even the mothers of former rogue employers, belligerent bellicose bully boys, who would treat nurses as their personal slaves, if they could but get away with it!

Had it been completely down to me, security would have been called, the un-elected emperor of the world subdued with an injection, and then allowed to wake up in a psyche ward strapped up nice and tight in a straight jacket, until he learned some respect and manners; and indeed, learned to say please for every morsel of care tendered.

Nurses are health professionals, not servants or slaves!

And why shouldn't they chat in the nurses station if that is on their own time/roistered meal breaks, or at end of shift, where the incoming shift needs to be updated, with (absolutely essential information) the care requirements/medication needs of the current patient workload.

I grew up in very poor circumstances Has, and even at the lowest periods, I was taught that common courtesy and civility costs nothing.

How dare you attack often exhausted nurses the way you boast about!

Bet you they got your name and number, and will look out for you in the future to render the sort of service you so richly deserve!
Little wonder you now fear having to rely on their tender mercies, at end of days!
Rhrosty.