David,

I like the sentiments expressed in the article but lets be honest this is not going to happen.

If you want jobs and prosperity start by making available this country's abundent energy to be used by industry to produce efficiently products for export and create jobs.

lower the cost of housing by considerably reducing taxes on new housing - 35 to 40 % of the cost of a new house is tax !

Change the national perception that the government will fix everything - very difficult.

Governments can only Tax, Spend and Regulate. Australiand pay an inordinate amount of tax to mis-managing councils, supporting the huge beaucracies of state governments and the federal governments over spending first then wondering where the money is comming from. Here we are left with the unedifying sight of the Federal Government trying to balance the budget on the backs of smokers. BTW I do not smoke.

David: As always you bang on about reducing the incomes of the east among us! All while denying yourself nought!

And given your appetite for mindless austerity for its own sake!

How about we start with you and your lot, by returning to the original Westminster system of unpaid volunteers manning Parliament? And finding their own expenses out of pocket?

Think, that'd eliminate all the nere-do-wells and unproductive spectacularly unsuccessful, and would't work in an iron lung types, from the halls of power, leaving only those who'd engendered success in their chosen careers/business dealings in their former lives.

Manning the wheel or pulling this nations financial levers, and for once understanding the fiscal implications!

If we start with your lot and in every parliament, we'd likely save as much as 70 billions plus per?

And something to cogitate, or blithely ignore, as seems your want, as you go around trying to hurt folks, the nation and its prospects; with objurgate obtuse overwrought overweening!

Empty vessels make the most sound and your oft overstated oversimplification is now deafening!

Go away and stir some (MORE?) porridge at the orphanage? At least that would be actually productive and serve a useful purpose!

The swollen head could be caused by too much water/liquid on the brain? The Irish cure for that, is a wee tap on the head. Or put another way and to quote Buddha,"enlightenment starts with a brick to the head"!
Alan B.