I heard the tail end of a news grab this morning from a minister (I missed his name) explaining that even though (some) decision that was made is detrimental to Australia we were legally bound by it because of a “Free Trade” agreement. Our governments both left and right need to fight for our sovereign rights to remain debt free and reinvest our money in Australia.

Without any alarmist rhetoric it is notable that Australia’s debt level is rising, although remaining well below debt levels in other advanced economies, Australia still has a Government Debt to GDP ratio of 33.88%, an all time high.

At present the Future Fund and some significant financial assets returns the government enough to still have a gross debt, but the net debt position is negligible.

Many other advanced economies are likely to be weak into the indefinite future; our government needs to ensure we do not go down the same road. It needs to stabilise our government balance sheet while it is still possible to do so.

How do you accomplish that without ownership of a profit generating entity? To begin with you stop selling off assets. Over the past fifty years governments went from owning profit generating business in key segments of the economy to divesting these interests to the private sector, who are now making profits.

We need to reinvest in our own production and manufacturing segments. A good place to start would be the natural gas segment. Agribusiness is another sector with a future and we also need a peoples owned Bank. We went from having people owned State and Commonwealth banks to no banks in only twenty years.

Is there any other way out of our situation given the government has already raised the retirement age and cut funding to the states because of an aging population and a dwindling income?

We simply have too many who rely on the tax payers for support, remembering that only about 20% of all income earners actually pay more in taxes than they draw in welfare.

Either we find a more efficient, fairer tax system, one that taxes everyone, companies/trusts/foreign corporations fairly, while rewarding success, as opposed to punishing it as the current system does, or we wind back our lifestyles to where we all live within our means and able body non contributors get the very basics and nothing more.

We must also put an immediate halt to anyone wanting to immigrate unless they have something substantial to bring to the table as our immigrants of late, generally speaking, have fed off our system, rather than contributed to it and we have been stupid enough to allow it to happen.

Finally, if anyone thinks we are in trouble now, just remember we are not having to defend ourselves as yet because if/when we ever have to we will have a new prospective on debt.

In my view a financial transaction tax is something that needs to be looked closely at but for some reason nobody wants to go there.

sonofgloin,

We have a "Net" debt to GDP ratio of around 17% (16.9 last figure I saw)

We had a Net debt to GDP ratio of 10% at the time of the last election.

So if, as Rehctub asserts, 80% of Australians are net recipients of government money and we somehow reduce this, as Rehctub seems to imply would help, how many *more* sausages will the remaining 20% buy from the local fully-trained butcher? Will this increase in sales fund the increase in wages that qualified and capable butchers truly deserve? Careful what you wish for.

Rusty.

Close government departments and sell off their buildings. Inner-city property can go a long way toward repaying the debt.

Sell off the parliament buildings as well: conduct parliament sittings via video-conference and electronic votes (thus also an end to politicans' air-fares).

Cut off completely all perks of the remaining public-servants and politicians (sell off their public-funded cars as well).

Stop all foreign aid: if Australians wish to help others, they can do so through charity.

Make Christmas Island an independent country, then stop patrolling the distant seas near Indonesia for refugees. Also withdraw from the refugee-convention and close down all offshore detention centres.

Turn all Medicare and PBS payments into HECS-like loans, so that those who can afford to pay their own medical expenses but choose not to, will have to refund what they received either when they earn enough or from their estate.

I've made my position clear on this issue before.

Democracy is a fantasy and they don't keep their election promises and aren't accountable to anyone.
Its 'Us' and 'Them'.
If they make the laws for us, then we must make the laws for them.
Doesn't anyone get it?
There is NO balance of power and therefore there is NO democracy.

Anyway, as mentioned previously, we need to build a PRISON for the politicians when they mess up.
To show em' we mean business and keep them honest.

I told you all this during the Bronwyn Bishop 'Choppergate' affair.
I told you if we didn't stand together and do something then next time it would be our fault for doing nothing when the writing was on the wall that something needed to change.

- But no one listened, and it wasn't long till I pointed out the Cambodian deal which was $55million for 2 refugees.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/blow-to-australias-55-million-cambodia-deal-as-two-more-refugees-reportedly-leave-20160308-gnda8q.html

So now I find out the estimated cost to resettle 12,000 Syrians is $900mil, $75000 per person.
They may as well just give a couple with 2 kids a $300,000 welcome gift, am I wrong?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-15/government-to-spend-900-million-dollars-resettling-refugees/7030866

But here's the one that takes the cake.

13.5 BILLION (over 4yrs) on unpaid HECS debts, where students never completed their studies, and didn't even get any qualifications.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/push-to-tie-hecs-repayments-to-family-income-20160408-go1gml.html

How much is foreign aid costing now $8-$9bln?

If you people can't see where the problem lies, how do you ever expect to fix the problem?
Honestly...

Has anyone here heard of 'Cloward and Piven'?
Please look it up, and learn something, it might be appropriate here.
The other options are 'incompetence' or 'treason'.