Thanks for putting this into some perspective, wobbles.

>>The Future Fund was established to fund the future superannuation committments of Commonwealth Public Servants - the very committments that were left unfunded for the first half of the Howard government era but also, according to Costello, as a source of revenue "for a rainy day"<<

The Future Fund was - and is - nothing more than financial sleight-of-hand.

It was one of Costello's master-strokes of misinformation. He failed to identify within his "magnificent ten" budgets that unfunded Commonwealth super had ballooned by $29 billion - in other words, he fudged the figures to show that we were $29 billion better off than we were.

I have tried to discover the latest figures for unfunded super in the Australian Public Service. I haven't yet tracked down a definitive source, but this might serve as an indicator.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/states-face-super-liability-crisis/story-fn59niix-1225958841611

"...the superannuation deficit of federal, state and territory governments had blown out to more than $220bn at June 30"

And here we are, quibbling about a measly $20bn.

Well, it appears we are to have a levy

http://www.smh.com.au/business/levy-to-pay-for-56b-flood-bill-20110127-1a64x.html

Interestingly, it is designed to raise $5.6 billion over just 12 months, yet will cost an average of less than $5 per taxpayer, with many taxpayers completely exempt.

The amount raised is about twice the total amount of child support transferred annually,

http://www.csa.gov.au/agency/facts.aspx

so presumably a levy of less than half this one, targetted at all taxpayers, would be sufficient to replace all of that.

The CSA is an ongoing destructive force costing $500 million a year to run that blights the lives of many more Australians than this flood did. Why is there such enormous opposition to doing something about it?

Come on, PM, show us you're capable of seeing the bigger picture.

Antiseptic I like the change in your posting style.
Have been watching it for a while.
Do not fear bloke nothing to be concerned about but I almost feel like having a beer with you.
But 1 point some thing billion comes from the levee.
Cost cutting gets the rest.
5 bucks, a week you mean.
I think this my last tax year as a middle income worker it will cost me $500
no problem gave more than that.
My wanted outcomes, bet I do not get them but here they are.
Rebuild better wiser but rebuild quickly.
Look at the NZ insurance issues and consider a levee forever to FUND ONLY DISASTERS nothing else.
One last thing, that we use other battle grounds to fight our politics.
I am baffled by one of our very finest posters RObert and his low income post, do we define loss based on income?
I truly honestly hope income is No measure of pain, worth, ability or any thing other than spending power.

Belly that part of the post was a response to the views at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4242#106976 . I'm very much over income being used as a determiner of enforced responsibily to others.

It's no measure of peoples choices nor how much discretionary money they have left after meeting their committments.

R0bert

$ 1.40 / week for pay over 50 ,000 / year.

OK RObert hands up my post was wrong.
I lived the Aussie dream early in the day, last week of October.
Never sang the song about taking the job and but he got the message.
I was on middle income, but even putting long service and quite a bit of holidays it will not be a full year.
And I may avoid it all together.
But I contributed more privately.
We should have a disaster fund,not spending money for party's seeking election, but for our increasing troubles floods fire cyclones.
PS
Any chance my old boss is still spying on me, have saved a seat on the out of work benches over the road from me, hard to see from here it is in the blackberry bushes, water them every day for you.