Hi Tristan Evans,
Firstly, I respect your willingness to engage with people who comment in response to your article, I wish more content authors would.

I believe that in order to get to the truth of things we need to separate arguments that do hold merit from those that don't.

If content authors don't engage with those who disagree, then we really don't move any closer to the truth of things.

Whereas a debate might seek to use grandstanding to win, I'm only interested in the truth based on its own merits.

I honestly think all of your arguments are deeply flawed, and your ideas will only end with horrific outcomes for all concerned.

"As you recognise that $80 billion would be in the context of $1.6 trillion economy - or 5% or the Australian economy."

New OECD data in the annual Revenue Statistics 2018 publication show that tax revenues as a percentage of GDP (i.e. the tax-to-GDP ratio) have continued to increase since the low-point experienced in almost all countries in 2008 and 2009 as a result of the financial and economic crisis. The average tax-to-GDP ratio in OECD countries was 34.2% in 2017 compared with 34.0% in 2016 and 33.7% in 2015. The 2017 figure is the highest recorded OECD average tax-to-GDP ratio since records began in 1965. Country tax-to-GDP ratios in 2017 varied considerably, both across countries and since 2016.
Key observations include:
France had the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in 2017 (46.2%)..."

http://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-highlights-brochure.pdf

So you want us to burn like France?
You think this is the way to build a future?

[Cont.]
I think you deliberately want to destroy the nation from the inside out for your Marxist socialist revolution beliefs - am I right?
I challenge that you're not actually trying to find ways that benefit people and society as a whole, but rather find ways to undermine society and crash the system in order to bring about your own socialist / communist rule over the people.

I think society works best with a mixture of capitalist and socialist foundations in social policy, but I believe that it should be done in a way that strengthens capitalism, rather than undermining it to force socialism.

I'd be happy to argue the merits of all of your beliefs;
- But I think you'd probably run away as soon as your arguments were proven flawed, like all leftists do.

"So despite paying more in tax ; taxpayers would have more free cash at the end of the day."

No they won't they'll be dead.
I've got a friend right now in Palliative care who will be lucky to last the week, let alone till Christmas.
They wouldn't give him the $7000 CBD treatment that may have saved his life, no.
But they will pay $42,000 for a screwed up junkie with Hep C from sharing needles to treat their illness, and whats to stop a junkie going back out and sharing needles in relation to their addiction again?

How do you think the struggling battler feels about his taxes spent on that, or foreigners and their 10 kids, while you destroy the existing middle class, whinge about the environment, energy prices skyrocketing and no-one can even afford to run their fridges?

The whole system is Cloward and Piven, at a micromanaged level.

"A fair degree of redistribution is acceptable also; as 'supply and demand in the labour market' don't necessarily deliver justice."

- Well that's because the system we use as a labour market is fundamentally built wrong.
We give welfare as cash instead of giving a job.
I believe their should be a socialist base-level employment that makes use of the 5% pool of unemployed workers capitalism needs to prevent wage growth.

- The job you have when you don't have a job. -
Double dole for full-time work doing things for the nation.

It's not that democracy and capitalism doesn't work, it's just that the system is flawed, hasn't been properly refined or built correctly.

"And certain social goods - eg: Health and Education - should be non-negotiable - part and package of an enlightened and caring civilisation"

How are you going to provide free health and free education if you cannot even provide a free job?

Lets look at this:
http://www.billmitchell.org/White_Paper_1945/index.html

It's all bullcrap, you need real policies, not fairytales.
- And you don't care about making things better, you just want to justify tearing everything down.

Armchair Critic,
Well, Tristan did not hide the fact that he's a teacher & surprise, surprise a member of the ALP.
If he ever stumbled over a block of reality he'd be lost. These idealist indoctrinated are not capable of seeing fact, only day dreams. Were he to be taken of the public service payroll he'd be incapable of earning enough to buy himself a vegie burger. The disillusioning side is that there are so many like him kept by our tax dollars.

There's way too much she said he said stuff happening here. And an entire legal and political profession able to ignore that which would illuminate the facts! And for self evident reasons!

That is modern space age high tech unbeatable lie detection.

Almost guaranteed among other things to put many legal-eagles out of business and many an expensive courtroom emptied out as the unvarnished facts replace adversarial "JUSTICE" and pollies are seen for what and who they really are as covertly deployed unbeatable space age lie detection exposes them to full transparency.

Not even the most gifted compulsive pork pie teller or psycho can fool or beat this technology! And with that overdue change, gone is the presumption of innocence for the PROVEN guilty and with the end of the stitch up of the convenient innocent!

And simply left unused and undeployed because the high profile individuals and or cases, it would expose to the light of day!?

And a legal profession whose antiquated crafts and adversarial theatre would no longer earn the big bucks! Whereupon, most trials would never ever get as far a the courtroom save for sentencing.

And a situation where six and seven figure salaries would plummet to four and five? Mortgages would be unpaid/properties forfeited and many a bankruptcy would ensue! And a nightmare scenario for all those whose lifestyles are dependant on creating false positives/gilding the lily and mendacious disingenuousness.

These same folk are the new 21st century Luddites, And like modern-day Luddites, resisting feared change!?

Moreover, for purely self-serving reasons.

Better an innocent man rot half his life in a high-security prison than the incomes of Silks, Judges and willfully blind pollies be risked at the altar of the mighty irrefutable truth!
Alan B.

Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 6 December 2018 9:36:54 AM

Answer- I always tend to agree with you Armchair Critic. Kudos. Dialog over dogma. Parents should be teaching about sexuality not teachers. Pluralism equals affirmative action equals undemocratic. Possibility is not probability.