Is Mise,

An efficient public service is essential; ours is just too bloated, with too many people doing nothing, or feeding BS ideas to politicians.

ttbn,
Have you got any actual evidence our public service is too bloated? Are you sure you're not basing your opinion on the situation of the 1970s and just assuming nothing's changed?

A capable public service is essential otherwise the government has to spend more on consultants to get the work done, and huge amounts of money end up being wasted because the work is not properly being overseen.

The government should not be trying to reduce debt; instead it should be trying to grow the economy. Reducing the amount of money the government puts into the economy will shrink the economy and reduce tax revenue, so it wouldn't actually have any chance of reducing the debt at all.

Paul, ttbn,

The whole point of free trade is that countries that are more cost efficient in a particular industry will produce in that industry and other countries will move to produce goods and services that they are better suited.

Manufacturing of certain goods in Aus is threatened by countries with cheaper labour, power and less regulation, but a thriving China is keen to buy Aus goods such as minerals, farm products etc, and considering that unemployment in Aus has been nearly always below 6% for more than 2 decades, with continued growth in living standards the claims of job losses don't stack up.

As for inferior products, it is true that China makes some inferior products, but it also makes some really good ones such as cars iPhones, wind and nuclear power etc. No one with even basic economics can honestly claim that free trade is a bad idea.

Hi ttbn, as a Progressive Socialists, you might think I would believe in an inefficient bloated public sector. I certainly do not, Socialism is about providing for people, it doesn't mean that should be done inefficiently.

The catch 22, "The cost of the Australian Public Service has reached $52 billion annually. In fact its far greater than that, with the States and LG employing 75%, in total about 2 million people. If a politician with a zeal for efficiency was to come along and wave his magic wound and cut the PS by say 25%, very good you might say, no very bad, if nothing else is done, because you just doubled unemployment. At 5% unemployment is a non issue, at 10% (founder of the Liberal Party 'Pig Iron' Bob's ideal figure) you're in political trouble, at 30% (Great Depression figure) you're history. Besides you have to either make direct payments to the unemployed, the dole, very visible politically, or hide them by creating "new" jobs. And where can you do that, hidden in the public service.. much more politically acceptable. The old right wing catch phrase was "put em' in the army" soldiers are also PS, with modern warfare you don't need millions on the battle field to act as cannon fodder, aka WWI and II.

A bit of history, during the Great depression the NSW Government Railways employed 40,000 people, the equivalent of 200,000 today. Didn't pay them much, but with 30% unemployed it was a help. Many others were "employed" in manual relief work, like shifting sand hills. It wasn't all bad Labor's Jack Lang got the Sydney Harbour Bridge built, and many other worthwhile projects.

SM,

I understand why you think that about 'free' trade; it is the perceived wisdom that movers and shakers thrust down our throats so much that we have come to believe it.

I think it is all a huge con trick run by a bunch of corrupt elites who stand to gain personally at our expense. Globalism and 'free' trade (remember the adage about there being no such thing as a free lunch?) has brought to Australia some of the worst aspects of non-Western practices. Not only are products from the Third World rubbish, not in keeping with what we used to have, but they are churned out by downtrodden, underpaid people who cannot afford the things they make. On our side, the average Australian is paying too much for goods that the elites want to export – crayfish comes immediately to mind, as does gas, since the government has allowed private firms to up the domestic price of that commodity so that they can sell it cheaper (less than we pay) to foreign consumers.

The most hypocritical thing about these free traders is that, while they are making a fortune off sweat shop labour, and rip off prices to us, is that they big note themselves by talking about worker-exploitation in these low wage dung heaps that make up the Third World.

There is nothing free about 'free' trade. It has cost Australian jobs, and lowered our standard of living, enriching already wealthy people. Think Andrew Robb, for starters.

SM,

"As for inferior products, it is true that China makes some inferior products,"

I'm just taking this as a chance to have a personal gripe; clothing made in China, the quality is OK but they tend to use one size of zipper on men's pants with resultant discomfort when urinating.