Aidan - Right just on a federal level we have around 1 federal public servant for just over 135 people and they still need to spend $10 Billion dollars on other people to do the work.

Add to that the state public servants then local Government public servants if the people in power can't see a problem we are in for future problems.

Phillip S, I. Think you'll find that the recent report that Aidan referred to showed that it cost the government far more to employ consultants to do the work that used to be done by the public servants it sacked than it did to pay those workers in the first place. And further, that sacking public servants and replacing them by much more expensive consultants was not only financially dumb but had the very serious consequence of destroying the corporate memory that the public service has always had that is essential to the provision of the sound advice on which politicians are totally dependent.

With one exception we are the most over governed country in the world!
Why there are cities with larger populations than Australia, governed by a single competent civic admin. yet here we are paying around 700 billion a decade for the rare privilege of employing state parliaments.

And that is just the cost of their existence, before any of the duplication or overpriced services are rolled out.

David should know he served in one of these ultra expensive road blocks for many years and I assume took a handsome pension when he "retired"?

As A senator David assumes responsibility along with the other senators for protecting state's rights, so all this talk of needing state parliament to protect and preserve state's rights is just more of the verbal garbage that makes our form of government almost the most expensive in the world.

Why if we could emulate other nation's pragmatism, we could use that largely wasted 700 billions to roll out a fibre to the home NBN, very fast trains along our eastern seaboard, up the middle along with a number of very fast ferries to link us by land and other rapid rail services to our principal Asian Markets.

Our pollies seem to want to protect themselves and their privileges by any and all means before they give a single thought to the true national interest?

Spent on propping up inept administrations that ought to be able to be forever removed by the will of the people, but for intransigent recalcitrant (it can't be done) pollies putting themselves the party and politicians in particular, well ahead of the true national interest!

We can streamline and downsize everything except largely useless governments and their endemic waste?

David is not part of the solution, just part of the core of the problem.
Rhrosty.

Rhosty, claims that we're one of the most overgoverned countries in the world don't stand up to scrutiny. We only have three levels of government, and the powers of local government are rather limited.

We don't need to cut back on government to build fast trains or fast broadband – we just need the government to recognise their value. As for international ferries (that wouldn't actually need to be superfast) they're not compatible with the government's "Stop The Boats" mantra.

i have never been clear how NDIS will interact with not insignificant State aid in this area. My guess is that the States will quiely withdraw services as soon as possible