Russell, as you say the old farts folks like you, never having to do it tough or put everything on the line for queen and country, now have a natural expectation, young folk, who were once completely supported by old farts and or their tax dollars, ought have a special entitlement!

Paid for by that new young age group!

Even as those who served can wither on the vine! Oh that we should all struggle, with your opportunities and now "diminished" circumstances! LOL!

Me? I have a different attitude and would gladly pay my tax, which at one time exceeded 60 cents in the dollar. For the privilege of living and working in this the lucky country.

Lucky because we've never known war and "injustice" during any part of our federated history? But blinkered to protect ourselves against it, have chosen to involve ourselves in somebody else's wars and expeditionary adventures.

A personal odyssey? Thankfully, not culminating in laying buried beneath a mountain of rocks, rubble and mud, your humble hovel and resident family, flattened by an avoidable mudslide.

And avoidable if affordable energy hadn't been forbidden by legislators protecting privilege, position and profits for folks not too different from entitled (bah humbug) folks like yourself?

Who possibly profited from the woodchip industry that without question, created this, clear felled forest, heartbreak!

How many men must die, before we know too many men have died?
The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind!
The answer is blowing in the wind.

And the premier imperative is profit and privilege, before people/humanity! The lethal achilles heel in that, alleged personal odyssey?
Alan B.

Entitlement and responsibility!? Do we have resonsibility to anyone but ourselves?

How can folk who've avoided service and then a fair share of tax? Be entitled to anything?

The most obvious example, i.e., Donald Trump whose companies and personal fortune has largely been paid for, by hundreds of family firms forced into both bankruptcy and penurary; and the taxpayer?

Here, to varying degrees, the white shoe brigade! None worse than a few folk who find a popular area, buy reasonably priced properties, deceased estates, what have you, put them back on the market after a year for double what they paid?

Others claim we need tax relief, given in the knowledge that bracket creep, will more than reclaim it inside a single decade!

Given the rubes have been given minor tax relief, propose we give monolithic entities earning record, tax avoided, repatriated profits, a tax break?

Even when the record shows that the top tax rate in actual tax dollars paid, never exceeded 17% last year with one in three paying no tax at all?

Yet we know we need strenuously resisted real reform in this area, to retain some semblance of industry and enterprise, here in this country.

We'd lose nothing by reducing the unavoidable tax rate to 15% for everyone, as a set and forget tax rate on all income earned here, with no offsetts or other minimization strategies, allowing real profits/earnings, to escape reasonable universal tax liability! Minus the GST payroll/fuel tax and stamp duties, etc/etc. Which ought no longer apply?

Further, hardship moderated by raising the threshold to what would've comparatively, once applied, when we were still a Christian country, with fair dinkum Christians at the helm.

Add affordable energy and consequent affordable desalinated water to that mix; and we're once again the lucky country every boy and his dog wants to belong to!

Where those with the most, gladly shoulder the most responsibility, along with the absolute privilege of being so placed by serendipity and circumstance, as being able to do so!
Alan B.

Entitlement and responsibility?

When it come to state governments the emphasis seems to have been skewed toward self awarded entitlement and protected by ever growing armies of bureaucrats?

And impossible to change without a root and branch reform of responsibilities! Starting with state supplied education and health.

Which instead ought be supplied as an endowment that's available for either as a means tested support payment.

I mean come on, one of my kids pays over $300.00 a month for (personal responsibility) health insurance even though her income is below the national average.

In any event, reassigning the health and education funding to ensure we meet real need, not the administration costs of top heavy, empire building bureaucracies!

Couple that means tested direct funding to regional autonomy and benchmarked best practise And as much as 30% of the funds now committed by the taxpayer can be saved?

Savings that could be redirected at rapid rail, deionisation dialysis desalination projects and decentralisation. which would be accompanied by affordable housing, as the first consequence and maximised sustained (non mine dependant) economic growth.

Growth that in turn will enhance employment opportunities and a lower social security bill!

Instead of drought relief, lets end droughts with massive desalination projects that progressively supply affordable irrigation where and when we need it. Even to the point, we make the deserts bloom!

We need paradigms that ensure governments give priority to traditional responsibility rather than ever increasing personal entitlement? Gold cards, public health access and post politics pensions, in six figures?
Alan B.

When you were a boy, Russell, fearful of crazed commie fanatics in black pyjamas, did you say to yourself: "When I grow up, I would like to become a thief"? Because this is what you become when you live on money that was taken from young people against their will.

Yes, be selfish - but first know thyself, otherwise you might inadvertently be serving someone/something else!

Me? I have a different attitude and would gladly pay my tax, which at one time exceeded 60 cents in the dollar. For the privilege of living and working in this the lucky country.

Sounds like you and I might be the same age.

When I went out to work as a 16 year old in 1968, the corporate tax rate was 60%, Today its 30% and falling while various forms of corproate welfare is growing and growing.

Funny how corporate welfare is never mentioned in the media but then again thats because they dont want anyone to think aobut it or know about it.

Russell you are , once again ,taking the Piss. As soon as you wrote...'my hard-earned dollars'... you gave yourself away !