The picture you paint isn't very pretty, images of fat lazy, unproductive, over paid public servants.

Compare that to a slim, trim highly efficient, cost effective, skilled private sector worker.

So on one hand, the image of the public sector worker is negative and the private sector is positive.

This is a typical propaganda technique.

I totally agree that the political debate is superficial and lacking in any real attempt to convey to voters the evidential basis for economic policy. The assumption seems to be that voters' views on such matters are already fixed and therefore, as Gary says, the most likely outcome of an explanatory campaign is that some group or other will take offence while the rest will remain unmoved. So the politicians see themselves on a hiding to nothing.

This is a sad state of affairs, for all sides of politics. I accept that the politicians are the ones in the most regular and widespread contact with their constituencies and ought therefore be best placed to make these judgement. Clearly they see things that way. On the other hand I retain hope that they are wrong. Perhaps the next step should be for the parties to use their significant research resources to establish what proportion of the electorate might respond to deeper exploration of economic issues. Certainly the Coalition would benefit from a positive response; my student daughter once told me that all of her cohort who had done basic economics at Uni became conservative voters.

You make some very good points, which I think deserve some proper consideration.

Avoiding explanations has probably been a feature of snake-oil salesmen (and third-raters seeking sinecures as "community leaders") forever. It is the latter group that we should be most concerned about in the context of politics. You mentioned unionists as one form of that, which it certainly is - not at the bottom, where the worker looking for a fair deal lives, but at the top and the middle where the would-be fat-cat lurks, waiting for a chance to snag a tasty deal as it drifts down the food chain.

There are lots more, though: the "social advocate" who has a "charitable foundation" that pays out every untaxable cent that it takes in as (very generous) salaries or even better, perks is a scourge. The well-educated political staffers and smugly self-satisfied journos who know all there is to know about influence and bugger all about anything else. These latter groups are rarely seen and it's fascinating to watch the reaction of some of them to the relatively wide exposure of Credlin and before her, the contemptible McTiernan.

The "business advocate" who is an ex-politician paid to use his political affiliations to put the fix in, complete with pre-prepared slogans and advertising material.

What is worst of all are the petty bureaucrats who obfuscate by reflex and seek ever more regulation to allow them to avoid scrutiny.

So what do we do about it, Mr Johns? What's your solution, as a former politician, to the broader issue?

We own 3 energy companies and why they are not fiercely competing for every cent of the energy consumer dollar, is beyond me!

And why labor hire contracts that have to be renegotiated every 3 years aren't par for the course, is also one of life's great mysteries!?

And if profit sharing was a component part of any successful contract, you'd be surprised how much extra activity that would create.

That said, I have no time for pen pushers with no relevant experience coming out of air conditioned offices, for a couple minutes and critiquing heat stressed workers, for just not getting stuck into their work.

Labor hire contracts and more flexible hours, would enable much earlier starts and getting the work done in the cooler hours.

What we don't need are privatization pushers, bereft of any other solution; or possibly with some serious skin in the game, being successful, and as a consequence, enabling price rises of around 400%, the fairly common experience, I believe, where such ebullient evocations have already been successful?

We don't need privatization, just better management paradigms, and the missing competition, that would surely make public corporations far more competitive than the much touted privatization model, with all the drones they carry!

i.e., a preponderance of entirely unproductive shareholders, and mountains of deliberately created debt!

Quite deliberately created, to both avoid tax and or, expatriate profits; and in a lose lose outcome for the former owners or we the people/energy consumers!

I'll have to give Gary credit for being persistent, if little else?
Rhrosty.

Arguably, this is exactly what you can expect when dogma and ideology replace logic and reason!
Rhrosty.

We just don't have a spending problem, just a revenue problem, easily remedied by ending all welfare for the rich and quite endemic tax avoidance!

An unavoidable expenditure tax starting at 18%, ( 11% in reality, given all the inherent savings that would then produce) would replace all the easily avoided current complex convoluted tax paradigms and raise as much as an additional 100 billion per?

And just ending all forms of welfare for the rich would likely match that number as additional revenue.

A very wise man once said, at some point complexity always becomes fraud! Hence the current revenue shortfall!
Rhrosty.

I often wonder at what point someone becomes rich ? I should imagine that everyone has an opinion on it. It obviously depends on one's dependents, commitments, preferences, priorities etc., and the tax system has to try to satisfy these. No one is entirely happy about the consequences of that, because by definition it can't please all the people all the time and the result is a compromise. It also has to retain some kind of incentive to create effort, and balance that with all the entitlements that have become the norm.....Not an easy thing to do.