Mr Moore, I'm having great difficulty understanding your post, so I have referred back to your original speech. I have some questions. You say police security is supplemented by substantial private protective services and some gaols are also privately run.
Ok, say we save costs by privatizing these services further, and hire out our State Run Service to more countries, such as the Solomon Islands, now doing, and East Timor, most likely the way the drift is heading.

State Schools, our Teacher Unions & P. & C's have pointed out in the past, are being less & less financed by our State & Federal Governments, and told to look after their selves, and finance maintainers etc. from locally raised funds. Which is difficult enough at the best of times, but in our area, the mining boom is in full swing, and on the books of statitians we are a wealthy district. Little do you realize that our shire only 'houses the workers,' they do not permanently live here, just work, and send their moneys home to their families. The mothers who remain in Cities, have the opportunity to have a job, send the younger ones to government funded nurseries, and the older children to your much loved private schools.

I have only scratched the surface of your well intended private plans for Queensland, others may continue this debate, hopefully bringing some realism to your pipe dreams. How long have you lived in Queensland?

The GST bonanza is never over. Australian economics has included two CPI rises per year.

Along with the individual state CPI increase, the product increases in cost and so does the GST collected.

This is why the government is never too quick to inquire about the price increases nor the effect of privatisation and their drives for profits and how this effects on Australian communities.

It just would not be in the best interests of the taxation departments coffers nor the work environments they like to indulge themselves.

John Howard has been in power too long.

He is short sighted and only does what he feels is in the interest of easy-street Government. Governance of the people for the people was never meant to be easy as Malcolm Fraser pointed out. The notion that Howard can tip this on its head at the expense of the Australian public by courting ill considered private government Partnerships under the guise of PPPs (Public private partnerships) is a sad end to a fine political career.

IMO Howard's refusal to back down to public opinion on the Snowy sale will be his end. Australians KNOW from the Cross City Funnel disaster and Sydney Airport skulduggery just how unrealistic private enterprise can be when dealing with the public through infrastructure that has monoply characteristics. If there is only ONE Snowy scheme, one source of water for NSW and Victoria then that is a monopoly. Privatisation will thus be a disaster because there is in effect no healthy competition. Despite ill concieved government assurances to the contrary, the public will be ripped off by private ownership of the Snowy. There are many ways to thwart weak government regulations and turn the Snowy into Kafkaesque cash cow. This in concert with grain species ownership laws will convert Aussie farmers and citizens into serfs and peasants. I simply do not believe the Australian psyche will allow this to occur.

Politicians must realise they have an onerous job and that the public will not accept shoddy decisions, abrogation of responsibilities and senile behaviour no matter how erudite the speeches they are wrapped in.

Sooooo.....

Even in Queensland the hyenas prowl just beyond the margins of the campfire. And our Victorian cancer turns out to be malignant.

I wonder if I will live to see the day when the PPP will be redefined as the relationship between the ordinary person and his/her government.

What an arrow to the heart! We won't remove the poison tip with the aid of anaesthetic, and the operation will endanger the patient. Some of us will have to stand and be counted. Count me as one.

Global economics is looking shonkier with every passing day. The US dollar, once underpinned by cheap abundant oil, requires ever larger infusions of military force to maintain it's value. Global capital must cast around for other essentials to meter and control. Water is high on the agenda, as is hydroelectricity. Health services.... mate, that goes without saying.

Vampires are alive and well... they live amongst us and "work" hard at justifying their existence.

As an amazing coincidence, my post on the Snowy sale has been answered by John Howard and presented in the Saturday Herald.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/snowy-sale-bid-to-block-foreign-ownership/2006/05/26/1148524888421.html

It seems Mr Howard will now consider the riders on the sale that I alluded to. It also seems that IEMMA is now in the drivers seat for the sale, so Howard says he can't be blamed anymore. BUT Howard insists the sale WILL go ahead.
That friends is a Clayton's driver's seat Howad is in there. From where I sit Howard is trying to have it bothways and accordingly he's been exposed as a senile twit. Howard is no longer King John. He now is the senile King Lear who is too tired to govern precious assets and so bequeaths them to the Gonneril and Reagan of Private Enterprise.

We all know what happened to King Lear. Let's hope it happens to Howard before the Snowy sale can get up. There will be many more Howard's in our future History but there will only ever be ONE SNOWY Mountains Hydro Scheme.

It has been suggested that the "Futures Fund" that Peter Costello spoke of, will receive the profits from the sale of Australian Assets.

Telstra profits from the sale will go into this "Futures Fund" and will actually be filling the black hole of the Governments Superannuation Scheme.

In arrears is a figure put forward of 90 million dollar black hole which even leaves a deficit of 60 million.

Legislation was passed that politicians now only receive 9% as the rest of the nation.

The exposure and judgement of the lucrative payments taken from the taxpayers, suggested that politicians were receiving were unjustified amount.

But the changes to legislation did not effect those politicians already in government. And unfortunately we like to keep them in double the amount of their shelf lives.

As our politicians retire in their droves there will be a need for a source to draw from.

Is this "Future Fund" really about ensuring our politicians superannuation payouts?