To Aidan.

We are getting well off topic, but I will reply to your post because it is an interesting subject in it's own right.

The fact that private industry is better than public, is as immutable as the Law of Gravity. That does not mean that governments must never own industries themselves. One valid reason why governments do own industries is to provide essential services such as public transport, communications, power, postal services, and even (Australia only) banking services in sparsely populated but strategically important growth areas where commercial operators find it unprofitable at that point in time to do so.

In such scenarios, governments rationally accept the loss making arrangements for what they see is a greater future good.

Australia once had very high tariffs for very good reasons. Our governments wanted to create a manufacturing base in a huge country with a tiny population. Every free trade country on Earth has trade barriers, even though it complains about it's trading partner's trade barriers. The Chinese have become very rich enforcing their own trade barriers, while telling the rest of the world that there should be no barriers to their own goods. Fortunately, the USA has a President in businessman Donald Trump who was smart enough to impose trade barriers on China in retaliation. While the left screamed in froth mouthed apoplexy for him doing this, it now seems that the posturing, complaining, and threatening Chinese have caved right in.

Nice one, Donald. But don't expect the left wing mainstream media to give you the credit you deserve.

Many people think that Sweden is a socialist country, but is in fact more free market than the USA. That is because the Swedes tried the socialist formulae of public ownership of the means of production, through buying up industries with public money. But just like with their present insane immigration policies, and their idiotic policy to have a totally censorship free society, it all went south. It seems that even smart people have to teeter on idealistic precipices before they figure out what is good for them.

Alan B and LEGO, your'e both right in most of your points, the one thing I believe was a big mistake was to sell off essential services.
We do not need the greed and averace of the politicians and their mates to become wealthier at our expense.
We are a captive audience and as such are held to ransom for over our dependence on essential services such as water, power, public transport etc.
Who authorised the sale of these assets?
I don't remember ever being asked if I wanted to sell them.
There is no doubt in my mind that even though you are both right in what you say, I cannot go to far from Alan's views that 'we' the people were much better off then than today.
I clearly remember leaving Aus to set up a new company abroad.
Two and a half years later, (July 1st. 1992) I returned to a changed country.
I don't know what it was, and still don't to this day, but Australia had changed, and for the worst.
It was as if someone had figured out that because the politicians were running the country and the public were in-effectual and lax or politically lazy, they found they could do pretty much what they wanted, so here were all these public assets which were begging to be 'stolen' by the scum and their mates, and we had to follow because we had no choice.
With so many left wing dreamers so busy becoming 'worldly', going out to the theatre, meeting up for double latte coffees's and all the the things that 'cool' contemporary people did, we took our eye off the money tin, and here we are today, homeless, and powerless, (pun intended).
As much as you both make valid arguments, we cannot escape the fact that WE, (the people) are worse off today than forty years ago.
I do agree that this is the 'entitled' generation and that they are living WAY beyond their means, but even taking that into consideration, we are worse off than before.
By far!

As an electrician, I once worked as a contractor for the Electricity Commission during the construction of the Kemps Creek 330Kv switchyard.

There were 10 contract electricians constructing the yard, and 19 Elcom workers checking our connections. The yard had top priority and we were told it was imperative that the work be done as soon as possible. The Elcom workers arrived more or less on time every day, and then they went to sleep on the 1.2 meter x2.4 meter rubber mats that the control room instruments were packed in. Or they played cards or built plastic model airplanes in the crib room. No work started before midday. The Elcom supervisor was drunk every day. Every day he left site and went down to the local club and stayed there until 5PM, when he returned so that he could claim overtime.

We wired up the Cooma HV switchyard and we started at 7AM every Monday Morning, on site in Cooma. The Elcom workers started work at 7AM in Sydney and then drove to Cooma. After a long lunch halfway in Goulbourn, they arrived at Cooma and booked into their motel, just in time for the workday to end. Monday gone. On Fridays, they were off home at 9AM while we worked till 3PM. Our LOHA allowance was $98 dollars a week, theirs was $240 a week.

Then there was the famous event of the operator at Bayswater Power Station. The operator was manning a critical control console that ensured the safe workings of the steam turbines. He was found drunk, asleep at his post, and surrounded by beer cans. When woken he assaulted his supervisor and was sacked. His union had him reinstated on the grounds that while he admitted being asleep and surrounded by beer cans, it had not been established that he was drunk. The union also claimed that he was remorseful for the assault, so he must be reinstated. Cynical people thought his reinstatement was more to do with threats from his union to strike.

Your tax dollars at work.

LEGO, I have witnessed the very same behaviour in other industries.
It happens in the private sector as well as the public sector, I always noticed it worse in the public sector, and yes far too much weight is given to the unions, and I have always said, the unions are to blame for the situation we are in today.
They have driven incomes too high so that we cannot value add anymore.
Just look back to how many thousands of people are jobless due to company closures because of the rising costs of production making us too expensive and un-productive, especially when comparing to Asia, China etc.
After a lifetime of hiring, firing or just being in business I have narrowed it down to one common denominator or factor;
The Australian people and their unrealistic and simplistic view on life and their priorities in life.
I grew up with the mantra; 'The Lucky Country'.
I remember thinking from time to time, how are we lucky?
The living conditions here were amongst the harshest in the world.
There was/is absolutely nothing about Australia that made it attractive as say, Europe, USA, nothing, you had to REALLY look hard to find even the smallest item of interest.
The tourist industry struggles impossibly to try to show Australia in any kind of 'good light'.
Let's face it, some white beaches, (some hard work to get to), a big rock in the middle of a desolate, hot, baron, dusty no-where.
A bit of water with some corals that you can find thousands, a thousand times better, anywhere in the world.
And please, don't mention the heat, the wind, the flies, oh God enough, I'm getting nauseous just writing this stuff.
So if it were not for the natural resources, this country IS a sh!thole.
The multicultural furphy is another of Australia's big failures.
I will cede on this point if someone can explain how the world is being run by a single entity, possibly in the form of a group which as in all groups has it's chair or leader.
Eg; Rothschild?
Hmmm?

<<Nobody will stop you building a flimsy raft and taking to the high seas, either. You're free to go whenever you want.>>

Go where?

Isn't the Australian Federal Government trying to "stop the boats", or has stopped the boats?

With the boats that are trying to come to Australia, aren't they being turned around and being sent back to their place of origin or elsewhere?

Sorry, it's not possible to just go out on a boat and expect other governments to be open and caring, when the Australian Government is not.

I wonder if Belly was the union rep at the time Lego.