individual
Those sorts of comments are counterproductive and do not add anything to the discussion.

So far none of the above posters are in the public service as far as I am aware, and even if that were the case do public servants not have the right to an opinion? It might surprise you to learn that public servants are many and varied all with different political allegiances and opinions.

Why do you find it surprising that big business is complaining about increased taxes?

Pelican'
I don't find it surprising at all that big business is complaining.
The replies to rehctub are clearly from people who don't have to put money up front in order to make money. i.e. public servants. When you have councils going broke & you still get replies like the afore than clearly people are utterly out of touch. Non public servants are hurting out there. rehtctub is right. Only someone with a cushy PS number would argue to the contrary.
my comments are designed to stir people into thinking about other people who do it tough because of a Government which was voted in by deceit & ignorance.

Individual
Public servants are not a homogenous group, many I have worked with are pro-Coalition. Politicians are the people who decide on policy.

I harp on this fact as while I detest some aspects of the public service and the problems with an entrenched culture of secrecy in some departments, you cannot IMO, make such generalisations about public servants as though the mere act of being one denies you privilege given to others to make rational judgements.

Of course, the irony here is that individual is a council worker, and of course they have such a good reputation for their work ethic and efficiency. I'd be interested to know how much money he had to put up to get his job.

I'm a partner in a small business on which I rely to pay my living expenses, but I support a carbon tax, so long as it leads into a proper cap and trade system. Mind you, there's various ways to run a business - we choose to run ours ethically.

pelican' the present Govt is working on making the public servants homogenous. that will ensure votes for the future.

morganzola,
you're obviously the silent partner in the business, unless of course you're a consultant to a Govt Dept. or a lawyer or similar. You're definitely not a tradesman or in manufacturing. you wouldn't write like this if you were.
And, yes, I have paid dearly to uphold my employment.

The whole problem is that when big business hesitates, or decided it's to risky to invest, small business suffers and, considering small business is our largest employer, that is certainly something we should all be worried about.

Now some suggest our economy is going alone just fine, well, I challenge you to remove mining and the jobs created from government incompitance then do the math.

as a retailer for all my life, i can assure you that mum and dad average are doing it very tough out there.

Like anything, it's the short to medium future that matters and that's looking very I'll.

Madam pm would like us all to think we are in great shape, but don't let your self be fooled.

Things are far from rosy out there, believe me.

With this governments achievements thus far, I hate to think what can happen if they screw anything else up.

I think this is why big business is so concerned. They have some hug projects on the go and
they have not managed to get one thing right so far. Of cause, I would love to be proven wrong, but I'm not holding my hope up.