I admit that I made an error in my comments re: superannuation. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you make comments 'on the run' without taking the time to engage in proper research. There is, however, no need to be personally insulting in order to make the point.

The article, however, (as opposed to my rushed comment) IS well researched, Its arguments stand. In order to match Finland - the most competitive economy in the world - we would need to raise expenditure by $160 billion. Australia is a very low tax current by international standards. If we are to improve infrastructure, education, health - there is no option but to increase expenditure. A few years ago progressive economist John Quiggin estimated that $5 billion would be needed to address the hospitals waiting lists crisis alone. The we have the spectre of the Snowy Mountian Hydro power station being sold off to pay for limited upgrades of education infrastructure in Victoria because the government is 'strapped for cash'. The PBS is increasingly losing coverage and - when you include aged care - and the ageing population - we will soon need to reconsider our status as a 'low tax' nation.

R&D credits and industry assistance, improved aged care, a national fast train network, roads, hospitals, preventative health care, Medicare subsidy of other health services including dental care, public broadcasting, schools, universities and TAFES, university courses, welfare, indigenous services, representation and self determination, alternative energy sources, Commonwealth scientific research, improved and cheaper public transport, public housing, defence, tax credits for low income earners, child care provision and sudsidies - all these and more need to be paid for somehow.

It's time to wake up to the fact that we can't have our cake and eat it too. High quality public services and infrastructure need to be paid for - and tax cuts lead into spending cuts further down the line.

It's also time we reconsiderd the case for redistribution in the Australian tax system given increasing social stratification and successive tax cuts aimed at the 'top end of town'.

Tristan

No Tristin, That sounds like a full on Communist state with all the Philosophical constructs and dialectics combined to a Utopian existence. A fourth Dimension Hypothesis if you like.

Reading through what we have to fund through taxes, we have nothing of the sought as you explained.
Supposedly in record employment, but a welfare bill of 81 billion dollars?

• 8 million employed, but ……. 30 to 40 % of those employment figures are { Local – State-Federal governments and bureaucrats} So how many working productive Australians are left to fund everything else, with the other 14 Million populous who seem to dwindle in to the twilight of non productive but drawing on the resources as well as the Labyrinth.

The Equations ends up the same, We are Taxed to near three quarters of our productive efforts across the board, and everything is falling apart around us, from Local , State , Federal levels.

A whole lot of Looting going on. And not much value for my Tax dollar.
You may be surprised, but our defense is subsidized by the great Satan, yes America. Such is the parasitic drain of the Looters in Australia. That is the only thing saving us from sure Invasion, we are under Occupation as it is, just not finalized.
I begg you to reconsider the economics, and ask Mr Quiggins how much loot he was paid from Government coffers last year? There, you could fund a new Hospital. Great value hay.

Let's also tax the air. Hell, make that progressive too. People with bigger lungs should not only pay more tax, they should also pay a larger portion of tax. How dare they have bigger lungs.

In fact, forget about tax all together. Our earnings might as well belong to the government. Everyone knows the government is better at spending our money than we are - that's why Tristan wants the government to take even more of it.

And that's exactly why he should learn some basic economics.

"MOVIN' OUT"
Tristan works at the grocery store
Savin' his pennies for some day
Mama Leone left a note on the door,
She said,"Sonny,move out of the country."
Workin' too hard can give you a TAX ATTACK ..ACK.. ACK ..ACK
You oughta know by now
Who needs a tax on our little shacks
Is that all we get for our money?
It seems such a waste of time
If that's what's it's all about
If Tristan's tax is movin' in,then I'm movin' out.

Now Tristan put on some Billy Joel and sing my Lyrics.

Tristan,

When you think about tax (and wages for that matter), you really need to think in terms of competitor countries, and not all countries. International comparisons between Australia, and, say, France or Estonia (or a host of other countries) are basically meaningless, since the extent that Australia is in competition in various industries (and for people, for that matter) with them is not especially large. If France changed its tax rate to 10% tommorow, I doubt it would make much difference to Australia. In addition, as I pointed out before, there are also vast cultural difference affecting the movement of people differently in those countries.

Alternatively, if you look at Australia's main trading partners -- the US, New Zealand, Japan, China, etc. and countries likely to be in competition in the same industries that Australia is either good at now, or wants to be good at some time in the future (e.g., biotechnology, international education) then you will get a much fairer picture. Was the lower tax rate in Singapore responsible for the growth of their biotechnology industry to some extent at the expense of Australias ? and is, say, their idea of expanding their universities into the international market likely to come at Australia's expense (both via direct competition, and via the employment of some of the cream of Australia's scientific workforce) ?

If you think the answer to the above two examples is yes (the first surely is, the second we will find out), and if you think tax rates play some role in that (which they surely do), then that is the comparison you need to make.

Before the Internet, op-ed columns about the sclerotic European economies went unchallenged, but now the truth is out there for those who want to look for it. The Nordic countries are just as good as the Anglosphere countries in creating wealth and jobs. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics runs a comparison of unemployment in 9 countries. Any differences between Australia and Sweden are marginal. We are slightly ahead now, and they were in 2003. The Nordic countries are also producing their wealth in the context of stable populations. They are not participating in a vast pyramid scam, selling their country off in smaller and smaller pieces to more and more people, to the point where they have permanent water restrictions in most of their major cities.

By other measures they are well ahead. rc would like us to copy the US, but despite its wealth, the US is well behind the Nordic countries when it comes to literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality, percentage of the population living in poverty, etc. Mishel, Bernstein and Schmidt in 'State of Working America' (2001) compared the mobility of workers in America with 7 European countries, including three Nordic ones, and found that the US has the lowest share of workers moving up from the bottom fifth of any of them. Apparently it is Europe that is the land of opportunity and not the US. In Finland the top tenth of the population has 5 times as much income as the bottom fifth, but it is 12.7 times in Australia (CIA World Factbook).

Language is not an insuperable barrier, as we see from our own migrants. If rc could greatly increase his income by learning fluent Estonian he would do it in a matter of months. Perhaps all the talented people don't leave because they like living in a decent society where mentally ill people don't have to live on the streets and poor people can get their teeth fixed. If our politicians worked as hard on getting us into the EU as on justifying poverty and inequality, we could probably join them.