cont'd ...

My apologies for the typo. Correction. The quote from The Age in the last sentence was:

"... This won't be cheap. but the costs, both human and financial incurred by refusing to invest would be worse."

Lexi,

To explain simplistically:

The government get tax as an income and spends it on services and infrastructure. The Labor government's expenditure was almost exclusively on services with very little infrastructure, and was spending way more than it was getting in revenue.

Kennett's only option was to strip the fat out of the government service, and so took the axe to large swathes of inefficient departments. There was no way that government services could remain at their previous levels, but the debt was paid back and much needed infrastructure was built.

It may have been painful, but was necessary. Most essential services remained, but the overly costly ones were trimmed or cut.

Not only that, essential services like the Grand Prix were introduced!

And essential services like paying off the "Boy's Club," such as the old BP Building near the Shrine which was coverted to luxury apartments and sold at half-price to the "Boy's Network." Later to be re-sold at more than double the paid price as a financial reward to the participants. (This information was received first hand from people involved). Nice!

Lexi,

Take your anecdotal information to the press or police. Flighting urban myths does not buy your case any credibility.

P.S. the Grand Prix generates huge income for local businesses, and more often than not the taxes on this more than cover the cost to the government.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Unlike like yourself I don't deal with urban myths only facts. As for credibility? This coming from a one-eyed Liberal Party supporter. The Liberal Party, supposedly the bastion of smaller government and less intervention is full of people who are ardently in favour of regulating who we sleep with, who we marry, what we do with our bodies, who can have children and how. Surely you jest?

As for the GrandPrix. Ask the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, former state Liberal leader, Robert Doyle how he and others feel about it! The shrinking grandstands, empty corporate boxes, and exaggerated attendance figures do not generate huge incomes merely deficits in the hundreds of millions. Doyle and even the new Premier now question the huge cost and the annual thrashing of a public park.