Hey Shorbe,

We're both probably right mate, we all get shafted while the pollies look after themselves and their financial supporters, whoever they may be.

The common thing with that is that to me, and you by the sound of your post, the enemy is pollies regardless of colour or policy. These people put on a public show of disagreement and oppose each other on every issue, publicly. The reality is they are brothers and sisters and look after each other at the expense of the public and any new challengers to the two party duopoly we call democracy.

Accountability today means finding someone else to blame. It's sickening mate. Sir Humprhey stuff, direct from those scripts.

How long is it since we saw an MP resign on a matter of principle rather than being told privately to bugger off. Even the UK has had such resignations in recent years re Iraq but here it's all kudos and no responsibility.

At the State level it's just as bad with Beattie in QLD claiming to continually have fixed a health system he presided over for a decade while it disintegrated. Now it'a a daily announcemnet that all is well. It's just disgusting but what is even more difficult to take is the governments we have are probably far better than the alternatives. I mean, Federally Howard is a nightmnare but Beazley seems blind to what everyone else knows. He can't win, he has to go.

This is an excellent idea. It does not destroy "the will to work" because the amount of money is not sufficient for most people. Those for whom this applies do not work now and never will. It will work best if it is combined with a change in the tax laws where everyone pays the same tax on all their income (excluding the basic income) and if it is extended to children at a reduced rate it will remove the need for family bonuses, child care assistance, student assistance etc. 60% of our current taxes are transfer taxes. This just makes the whole process more efficient as we now spend at least 10% of the money on the adminstration and distribution of transfer payments. Reducing this cost by 50% will pay for quite a few benefits.

Add in the idea of an income bank account where all income is deposited for each individual and taxed immediately and we will have a streamlined efficient tax and welfare system

Finally make it an "optional" system where people can choose to join or stay with the current system and we will soon see those who get the most benefit from the existing system and it is my guess it will those who complain the most and currently pay the least amount of tax.

RobbyH: These days I'm so disinfranchised with everything and everyone. I don't know who or what to believe anymore. I'm opposed to big government (and actually think a lot of people succeed despite government, not because of it), yet I also lack faith in free market alternatives for a whole lot of reasons.

It seems to me that people are sick of the big two power brokers, yet they're also quite wary of any party based on an ideology (from the Greens to Family First). Maybe we need a Common Sense Party, although of course, not only would people disagree on what common sense was, in the great Aussie tradition they'd find a reason to knock it without being prepared to take any responsibility themselves and have a go themselves. I think it's human nature to like a bit of a whinge.

I read a book a few years ago called "The Dispossessed" by Ursula LeGuin that kind of made me realise that politics really is a mug's game and you just have to try to live your life despite it all. I'm a fan of the Roman philosopher Lucretius too. Aside from a bit of online commenting, I am less and less political these days and I'm inclined to think that the only way to go is to buy a rural property, be somewhat self-sufficient and just try to avoid (or endure) the bs the rest of the time, which is what I'm planning on doing in the next few years.

As Nietzsche said, "the human situation is a bad situation, because the human situation is all too human."

Shorbe,I don't mind snouts in the trough if they actually produce something that is positive for the the general populace.We have to make the both Public Servants and our Pollies more accountable.

Let's have real ramifications for pollies who make bad economic decisions and reward those who are good managers with dynamic ideas.

Arjay: I'm not sure that having snouts in the trough can ever be a good thing, though it might be more tolerable if they actually produced something positive. The libs tout themselves as great economic managers, and whilst I believe the Labor Party would be far worse, I'm still waiting to see where all the taxes go.

I couldn't agree more with your second paragraph. How to do this though? Politics is a gravy train and what politician is going to get in and stop the gravy train?

Australia ‘the lucky country’ was an ironic phrase. The notion being that our natural resource enabled us to plunder and exploit without needing to invest in high value-adding. This promoted the propagation of lazy profiteering. Plundering the natural resources of a nation means whoopee until we face the consequence of depleted resources and a dearth of investment in knowledge rich value-added industry. Similarly an abundance of cheap labour can be exploited with less pressure for knowledge rich value-adding. Thus propagating lazy exploitative industries. A recipe for the classic race-to-the-bottom.

Its interesting to turn the rhetoric of choice around. There is much promotion of the ideal of providing people with choice for selecting a 4WD, a cigarette, a pokies venue, a hamburger franchise, a subliminal vector to insert our marketing message. However, this ideal seems easily set aside when it comes allowing people more choice about their employment.

People do not work only for money. Money is not the strongest motivation for my work. A huge proportion of Australians accept low salary as a payoff for the opportunity to do positive work in the Not-for-profit sector. There are complex psycho-social reason for what we currently call work. These change over time. (Historians may look back on today and find it interesting that we value the work of tobacco companies CEOs more than the work of mothers).

The provision of the Basic-Guaranteed-Income is the type of fundamental change that could completely upend the current models of economics. The BGI could provide the means for people to chose very different roles in society. It has the potential of producing great social and environmental change. There would be increased possibility for spending the time of ones life in preferred valuable ways. However, such change could see great reductions in the measures we currently use to describe the economy. However, it is possible to have a higher standard-of-living while scoring lower results in the KPIs through which we currently interpret ‘the economy’.

Isn’t it ironic we are working longer now than 20 years ago? When is enough?
http://www.auseinet.com/journal/vol1iss3/dollard.pdf

For a more detailed background-relating to-the-complex-issues-and-context-relating-to-the-situation-facing-Indigenous-Australians,see
http://www.healthsite.co.nz/hauora_maori/resources/feature/0001/002.htm