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.

JamesH:

Let me list just a few things for you that have been happening in Victoria. Royal Melbourne Hospital - upgrade. New Works on - Children's Hospital, Austin - Mercy Hospital, Royal Women's Hospital. Westgate Bridge -upgrade. North-South Pipeline. Desalination Plant. New trains, new trams, new buses, rail upgrades, wind farms.
Upgrade of Melbourne Airport. Phillip Island Penguin Colony - land reclamation. Extension of freeway into Gipsland, freeway extension into Morning Peninsula, Geelong by-pass. Maintenance of all roads, National Parks, Upgrading of Schools. Extra police, Ambulance, and Fire-Services, Re-Construction of Public Housing. The list goes on if one has read the newspapers for the past ten years or travelled around the State it does not take much intelligence to see what has been done. In our experience more has been achieved in Victoria in the past ten years than in the previous 40.

I am of late trying very hard not to be rude.
OH I have been in the past, often.
And AGiR at the time you posted as boaz David I both defended you when the verbal boots went in, and held you accountable at times.
In you third name here, have there been more? you are increasingly abrupt, in my view rude.
This 14 billion dollars today yesterday or tomorrow, could have been both party's yours and mine.
It is known I dislike the very left, nearly as much as I dislike your position, alleged Christian,, visible fanatic.
You have been banned a few times and maybe those different names are proof you are ashamed by your statements.
I am much more offended by your claim to be Christian,if your God returned today, you may find he never told us to hate and despise half of man kind.
I see you as little better than the money lenders who got thrown out of the temple, your self confidence is miss placed.
God if he existed may very well be no conservative or left he just might not know you as one of his.

Ludwig is correct. What you need to know is the per capita cost of infrastructure to provide the current standard of living. Do this and you quickly realise how the money was spent, why the government is racking up debt, and why infrastructure cannot hope to keep up with the growing population.

JamesH:>> The Labor Victorian government collect 14 billion over 5 years on housing stamp duty.The big question is where has all that money gone?<<

James sorry for the late reply but I just found the thread. We had, and have exactly the same problem in NSW.

When you consider the "style" of government that the Vic and NSW Labor evolved into the reason is evident, they could not manage a chook raffle, the Feds are the same. This from Edmund Tadros News.com August 03, 2009

>>Australian governments at the state and federal level spent about $1 billion last financial year on consultants, the Rudd government spent $454 million on consultants in 2008-09. This figure includes strategic consulting, provided by firms like The Boston Consulting Group, and systems implementation consulting. BCG is a global management consulting firm and the world's leading advisor on business strategy<<...their words not mine.

Why do we have a public service? Why do the Ministers have department heads at all when they pay an outside organization for direction? They have 130,000 public servants on the payroll and none of them can provide the direction they get from the billion dollars worth of private sector consultants every year. If what we have seen are examples of their economic management and implementation skills in the past three years we should stop paying BCG and the other bludgers who return us no benefit.

Modern Labor governments waste money, they spend it on the Chardonnay set who have all set up consulting companies and the pleb foots the bill.

James the old guard Labor do not see this lot as Labor, I have heard more than one comment on the lack of quality and direction of the current crop of Labor leaders. The local guy is fair dinkum but the party that directs him lacks talent and ethics. Your Labor guys blew every windfall that came their way as well as selling off everything they could and the Libs just snuck past the post at last election, what does that tell you about the simpletons roaming our streets.

Lexi:>> Let me list just a few things for you that have been happening in Victoria.<<

On reflection of my last post and since I have just read Lexi's contribution I have to say as one who travels to Vic fairly regularly the previous Labor government is a load more competent than it's NSW counterpart, but the "waste" comment still stands.