Paul,

Of course I don't believe it any more than any rational person would believe that the T party and the liberals share anything in common.

Health care costs at the current trajectory would consume the entire federal budget roughly by 2050 leaving nothing for pensions, schooling, etc. Just remember that it was the Labor party that first identified that Medicare was in trouble and that a co payment was necessary to reduce unnecessary visits and prevent medicare costs from blowing out of control.

While I have heard the Left whingers throwing stones at the measures in the budget, not one labor MP has offered an alternative. While closing one's eyes and pretending that rapid debt growth is OK will work for a short while, it will all come to Greek style grinding halt at some point.

If the Greens or anyone has any viable alternative, I would be glad to hear it.

Perhaps today part of the problem lies in the fact that
we have political parties where lawyers, accountants and
other middle-class professionals make up the vast
majority of members of parliament. This is not to argue
that these elected politicians are wise philosopher
kings - far from it. However, their life experiences and
lifestyles are uniformly middle-class, and, hence, it is
in the interest of this class that they tend to promote.

Some of us would take this outcome to represent a loss
of the diversity of knowledge and interests that parliaments
need. And it is. There's no answer yet as to what we should do
to improve parliamentary democracy. We still struggle to
find a democratic solution - that would satisfy us all.
Hence our divisions and labelling of "Left" and "Right."

The means by which modern, representative, liberal democratic
governments acquire a rough understanding as to their
constituent's trials, tribulations, and wishes, are reflected
in what the electors ask governments to do for them via
public opinion polling, and in the probing of focus groups.
These tools of modern politics do nothing more than alert
members of parliament to the views and desires of those they
represent. Of course public opinion polls are based on
representative samples of voters and hence are a useful guide.
Howver, there is a fundamental matter to deal with before
people are polled and that is the question of -
how well informed are voters?

A democracy requires its citizens to make informed choices.
I'll repeat what I've stated in the past : -

If citizens or their representatives are denied access to
the information they need to make these choices, or if
they are given false or misleading information, the
democratice process becomes a sham. Under such circumstances
the people cannot use their rights in a meaningful way.
Hence the current expression of disgruntled voters from
all walks of life displaying their frustration in the protests
currently taking place around the country.

cont'd ...

As far as the US is concerned?

It's torn between a religious "Right" and a secular, liberal,
"Left" and from this comes diametrically opposed public policies
on foreign affairs, education and health.

Perhaps the solution has to be to improve the knowledge of
people across the board. The democratic experiement should be
pushed to deliver much more: not be curtailed as some
conservative thinkers want. By challenging the next
generation to higher standards - there is hope. Only caring,
secular teachers can counter the prejudices of
parents who themselves may not have had the schooling to
break the (generally ignorant) cultural inheritance of their
parents. Trace this process back far enough and you may have
a 21st century child with 10th century, 7th century or year
zero understanding of the world.

SM,

"Just remember that it was the Labor party that first identified that Medicare was in trouble and that a co payment was necessary to reduce unnecessary visits and prevent medicare costs from blowing out of control."

Why, oh why in that case is the proposed LNP Medicare co-payment not going to bolster Medicare. Why have they hastily confected their Medical Research Thingy?...I mean why?

You might say, it'll make people think twice about seeing the doc...(athough Hockey has been keen to tell us it's only the price of a couple of beers, so it won't make any difference in that regard at all)...but why the hastily constructed Medical Research Fund. Someone cynical might say the Abbott Govt thinks people are so dumb that including something like that will suffice to shut out criticism.

Regarding the likening of the Abbott Govt to the Tea Party...one doesn't have to look to far to see the similarities. Privatisation of social services like health, http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/you-will-pay-more-medicare-changes-will-create-usstyle-system-20140607-39pud.html ....booting an entire section of society off the welfare net for 6 month periods....the demonisation and sadistic treatment of asylum seekers...pandering to the extremely wealthy....climate change denial ahoy!

Not to mention this Govt's post-election policies bear almost no resemblance to their pre-election spiel.

Deceptive in the extreme...although some people seem to think that's just fine.

SM,

I never intended to debate the Medicare copayment proposal on this thread, I only raised it as an example of "progressivness". To provide a simple answer, budgets are also about priorities. I think the Abbott government has got its priorities rather contorted, misshaped, even bent, and only a total rethink of priorities will bring it back into line. I like this one.
<<Health care costs at the current trajectory would consume the entire federal budget roughly by 2050 leaving nothing for pensions>>

Abbott and co can't see past the end of their noses. little own gaze into the future at the year 2050. Its a bit saying "If you drive your car in a straight line from Sydney to Melbourne, you will crash before you get there. It a long way to Melbourne, just as the year 2050 is a long way off, people can change direction, slow down, speed up etc etc. Nothing is set in concrete regarding budgets between now and 2050.

Paul,

Well, yes, any expenditure committed (perhaps by a former government) into the future is a constant, and probably growing, flow of cost to any government, and has to be at least matched as much as possible by a similar flow of revenue. Costs out, revenue in.

1It's not that different in principle from your household budgeting - whatever you want to spend, has to be matched by what you earn, and if you have very long-term expenditure such as house repayments, then you have to plan ahead - adding in the costs, say, of a few kids, and the partner not working for some years, unexpected health costs, purchase of a new second-hand car, etc.

So you would know from the outset that, if you were young and relatively carefree now, and still could barely get by on your wage, that you might have some trouble if any of the above extras happened, that you may have difficulties staying out of debt for the rest of your life. o you would plan for the problem of what to cut, or reduce.

Any Treasurer has the vastly larger responsibilities not to get the entire country into debt, Labor or Liberal, or to minimise the stream of future debt inherited from a previous government.

I hope this has been useful.

Joe