Bazz, I stand corrected, the figure should be $160 million, I misread the page.

The costs aren't fungible, sonofgloin.

>>It costs $60 [or $160, whatever] million to build and staff a teaching hospital, we could build 680 hospitals.<<

The question is, why would you want to build 680 [or whatever] hospitals.

Hospitals generate costs. And once built, their burden on the taxpayer is permanent and continuous, rather than once-off.

There are already around 760 public hospitals, costing $33 billion a year. Every 23 more hospitals will cost another billion, and rising, every year.

We already spend over 9% of GDP on health costs. And they go up every year. Investing the equivalent of twenty weeks of health costs on infrastructure that could lower transaction costs, permanently, across the board, seems a relatively smart move.

Pericles:>> The question is, why would you want to build 680 [or whatever] hospitals.<<

The point is not that I want to build hundreds of hospitals or rebuild the Snowy Scheme, it is that we could do more with $40 Billion than dig holes and lay cables.
My expectation of what government should deliver with our taxes and trust is basic.
1. Don't let me starve.
2. Ensure the water supply.
3. Fix me when I am sick.
4. House me if I cannot.
5. Take care of the existing infrastructure and build new infrastructure when needed.
6. Legislate to support local business and industry.
7. Implement laws that stop the commercial and financial sectors taking "unfair" advantage of me.

Previously both sides of government focused on these basic requisites, neither side does now, and we have signed United Nations protocols that have taken away the sovereignty of the sitting government’s legal ability to do that. It began with the Lima Agreement and the sole purpose was and is the "re distributing of the wealth" from the first world to the second and third.

But the only re distribution of wealth in the first world has been the turning of the middle class into the working class and the working class into the working poor. In second and third world nations Lima turned subsistence farmers into subsistence factory workers, an elite has also grown but percentage wise it is neglibable. Where did the redistributed wealth go? Right now and over the past 40 years, year by year the majority of the wealth of the globe has moved to the hands of a growing ultra minority.

>> A study on The World Distribution of Wealth by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development and Economics Research reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the worlds assets in total.<<

Pericles we are being enslaved and as I understand your post you want to enslave our kids with a $40 BILLION debt for holes and cables.

Pericles re your health cost, get rid of the over administration.

If you are from NSW you are double struck by wasted funds given that NSW has more administrators for our hospital system than any other state.

579, I heard on the 'grape vine' that we will be charged about $130 per month simply because it is there.

Now may well you laugh at me referring to the 'grape vine', however, it's about the only option one has to find much out about the NBN.

BTW, we get charged for garbage collection and sewerage, regardless of whether or not you flush the toilet or place your bins out for collection.

Just remember, our capacity to replenish the consolidated revenue 'bank account' is dwindling and our governments either have to come up with a more efficient tax system, or, find new ways to tax us more. At the end of the day we are going backwards and as long as we continue to have waste and mismanagement within governments, we can only ever head south.

sonofgloin>> We have to get rid of compulsory voting, then the scheiser will sink to the bottom again.

Could not agree more. Those with their noses in the trough usually vote for the one who will cause them the least amount of grief and, I will bet that if the had the choice, they could not be bothered with voting.

we could do more with $40 Billion than dig holes and lay cables.
sonofgloin,
Spot-on ! Considering that digital technology is already like a runaway train we should sit back & think if the NBN will not be out-dated half-way through construction.
I wonder how much good only half of that money could do in securing pension funds etc.
I don't think NBN would be a good investment for Australia as a whole. As per usual only some overseas CEO's would be the main beneficiaries but not the australian public.