Tangy Clam Meat Diver,

If you'd like factual counterpoints, that's easy enough. The BOM forecast accuracy is measured and published. Next-day forecasts routinely verify well above 80-90% depending on metric and region. Five-day forecasts today are roughly as accurate as three-day forecasts were a couple of decades ago.

That isn't astrology. It's measurable model improvement.

Your "2.6 million bureaucrats" figure includes teachers, nurses, police, defence personnel, emergency services and frontline health workers. It isn't a headcount of Canberra regulators. Cutting 90% would not trim paperwork. It would dismantle public service delivery.

Maritime regulation complexity can increase because of litigation standards, insurance requirements, international harmonisation and accumulated case law. More pages do not automatically equal pointless growth. The relevant question is whether safety outcomes worsened under the newer framework. If they didn't, the nostalgia argument weakens.

And yes, satire should exaggerate real trends. My point was mostly that exaggeration still needs a stable factual base. If the factual base holds, the satire lands. If it doesn't, it reads like grievance - like this article.

That's not shutting debate down, it's inviting it onto firmer ground.

Facts;

The public service in Australia comprises 2,600,000 of which 190,000 7.5% are Commonwealth PS of which about 40,000 1.5% work in Canberra. About 4,000 Canberra based PS could safely be described as bureaucrats or 0.15% That blokes a fool!

Some 20,000 more bureaucrat positions have been created since Covid 19. Not surprising it gets defended so vehemently !
Yes, these include Drs & other professionals & service personnel however, that is not the argument as the defenders well know. The argument is the number of non-productive vs productive i.e. revenue producing people. The former are now even with the latter & if someone can offer a reasonable explanation as to how this cost can be sustained I'd love to hear it !
Revenue producing is vastly different to revenue using.
Sadly, idealism doesn't take reality into account !

Between 2020 and 2025 the number of non-productive, never productive aged welfare recipients in Australia grew by 200,000 to 2,600,000 or about 10 times the growth of the public service. At the present rate of growth the number on aged welfare is expected to increase by another 1,000,000 over the next decade if unchecked! The aged welfare handout is unsustainable in it present form, more stringent means testing is required, including the value of the primary residence, cars, boats, chateau's in France, overseas holidays, zimmer frames, those annoying go carts in shopping centres, family pets, grandchildren etc etc. Cuts to cash payments will be necessary, as much as 99%, as some millionaire pensioners are receiving up to $100,000 p.a in benefits. A Seniors National Service for old folk, similar to "Work for the Dole" scheme is needed. A system of "food stamps" instead of cash payments would go a long way towards cutting costs! I've explained in the past how a 'Pensioner Tent City' a sort of work camp, established on the outskirts of cities and towns would free up housing space, for unemployed young folk, and newly arrive migrants. Indy have you signed up yet?

it is difficult to become a prophet in your own land according to the Book of Proverbs.
The Labor administrations & its bureaudroids such as Paul 1405 are living proof of that !