The Labor Victorian government collect 14 billion over 5 years on housing stamp duty.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/stamp-duty-surges-for-melbourne-home-buyers/story-e6frf7kx-1225969873907

The big question is where has all that money gone?

Hospitals NO!
Schools? NO!
Roads? NO! although that 14 billion could have paid for the east link.
Salaries for nurses, teachers, police, ambos? NO!

Maybe the railways? NO again!

So how does 14 billion dollars evaporate into thin air?

Come on James, you really do know the answer.

The majority of public servants vote labor. The less important, [IE more irrelevant] their job, the more desperate they become to see a lefty government stay in power. Just think of Kennett, & the new UK government. Gillard's lot come to mind as well.

That's where it went mate, buying more Labor voters, oops, I mean public servants.

Hasbeen, I suspect I know where the money went and it wasn't for public servants as you suggest.

For example an auditors report showed that value for money was not achieved in the school building program. So projects cost a lot more than they should have.

<< Hospitals NO!
Schools? NO!
Roads? NO! >>

JamesH, I disagree. YES, to all of those actually. But not to the extent of stopping the overall decline in services and infrastructure.

A lot of money spent, but no significant improvements? How can that be?

Could it have something to do with continuous rapid population growth and the fact that the existing populace is paying through the nose for infrastructure and services for ever-more people instead of for improvements for the current population?

The 14b$ hasn't evaporated into thin air. It has been used to prop up our mad continuous expansion antisustainability rush-towards-the-cliff paradigm! Well... at least a fair bit of it has.

Money doesn't "go" anywhere.

>>The big question is where has all that money gone?... how does 14 billion dollars evaporate into thin air?<<

Money doesn't "go". It is "used".

In fact, it only has any value at all when it moves, i.e. when it is doing its job, which is to act as a simplified means of exchange for goods and services. When it is not moving, it actually has a negative value, since it is expensive to keep motionless.

It is a fallacy to believe that this money simply disappeared.

Its first useful movement was probably into somebody's bank account, in exchange for work done.

Or, for politicians and public servants, for time served.

It might then go into into a shop, in exchange for goods and services, providing the shopkeeper with the wherewithal to i) feed his family and ii) buy next week's stock.

Or, if you are in NSW, it goes into the pokies.

It shows a sublime ignorance of financial realities to imagine that this, or any other amount of money, simply goes up in smoke.

LABOR SOCIALIST/FABIAN EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT/PUBLIC "SERVICE"

haha.. at the risk of sounding like a broken record.. "That" is where the money went.