15% sounds a bit high NR. Surely 5-10% would be more than enough once we sack most of the public service and end the income churning and redistribution functions.
I was going to say 15% was a bit low i think 20-25% would be about right . We still want to have infrastructure , the military ,police ,firefighters, ambos etc
Don't think of it as sacking. Think of it as freeing them to pursue a more fulfilling and satisfying role in the private sector.
National defence spending has only been ~1.5% of GDP. The rest can be funded easily within an overall 10% of GDP even if you are falling for the old lie that police/firefighters/ambulance/etc would not be funded if it wasn't by Government and its taxes.
Are you still dreaming that the general public would just donate to keep it running . Or do u want it privatised so they can charge what they like .... Gov should own/provide water/electricity & phone infrastructure as well as the above mentioned. At least election time you could whinge & hopefully get cuts . Now theres no fkn hope your at the mercy of big business whos sole aim is to make profit & please shareholders not provide a service Yeah i know im going to hear but competition makes for better prices right ? hows it workin for ya so far ?phone /electricity/water services are way overpriced. You can stick your privatisation of services where the sun dont shine imo
@reno, How do you know that the public provision of policing, ambulance and health care is not overpriced? You and I both know that when government is involved, the contract price is ridiculously overpriced. Take the policing for example - a portion of my taxes goes toward the maintenance of a police force. On the whole, they are a miserable bunch of arseholes who delight not in performing a civic role role, but in catching as many people as possible involved in minor misdemeanours as a means to justifying their pathetic career choices. I shouldn't be forced to pay someone to be a professional turd, there are enough freely available ones as it is. At least if they were privatised I'd have a choice between arsehole and incompetent buffoon.
Imagine if you no longer got $180 fines for going 3km's over the limit... what a beautiful world that would be.
Typical dis-respect for decent folk who are serving Australians. Just how do you get off being so rude to Australians in uniform you jumped up snot nose? Australia is one of the best places in the world, thanks to our Federal and State police as well as the other public services that make our home great. So what misdemeanour's have you done lately? Robbed someone, bashed someone pissed, doing drugs or speeding like a f, wit?
:lol: Holdfast. Australia is one of the greatest places in the world despite our police forces. It would be even greater if we had private police forces and no government, but I doubt i'll see that in my lifetime.
I dont care if its overpriced its payed for with my taxes i dont want to pay twice for any basic services .If they had more fiscal responsibility & accountability for all the services they (hopefully ) wouldnt waste so much . The public would be up in arms if the gov owned the power with the prices they are now & the prices would be cut . They are to quick to rid themselves from any public accountability for services . I believe that is the major job of government is to provide basic services for the people . I still dont think you will have any choice between arsehole & buffoon . They have been indoctrinated to raise revenue not to serve & protect in most cases Theres many good cops aswell as bad i dont think that will change with change of ownership . Theres always someone on a power trip trying to prove a point & as you mentioned better or justify their career.We are both old enough to remember the days of a cop giving you a bit of a lecture then sending you on your way .Theyve in most cases lost their compassion & hand out fines to people they know cant afford to pay them for minor infringments that in days gone past would have not been given. We as usual have to pay for the governments overspending . Its time they started to be accountable for their stupidity. Politicians are paid far too much,do far too little & have way too many entitlements when they retire that the general population dont. The entire system needs an overhaul back to basics from the police force to our elongated almost illegible tax system . I agree with NR's earlier post about streamlining things back to what common people can understand Its got to the point where you unneccesarily have to employ someone to decipher rules/regs/taxes/tariffs/rebates/entitlements/duties etc & half of those eggheads dont understand it fully anyway .
yep its ridiculous & this is the sort of thing i am talking about .you take your eye off the speedo for a minute & it costs you a fortune . I think from memory theres paperwork in the ADR's Australian design rules where speedometers can be +/- 10% to be considered acceptable maybe its changed now ...i dont know i find it hard to comprehend where 1 part of the gov can say +/- 10% is ok but another branch says you deserve to pay $180 . A change of tyre size can put your speedo out by that much . I think its time for GPS speedometers .
The problem with the police as it currently exists is, they get paid whether they do a particularly good job or not. They serve the government, not people. The government pay them, not us. The government take our money forcibly and use it to pay them. Imagine if there was only one ISP in the country and the government paid them regardless. Do you think they would bother turning out a particularly good service? Some people in the organisation would try their best, but after awhile there is no real motivation. There is no motivation to provide a better service than they currently do because they would still be paid the same as before. It's the entire problem with socialist systems. No motivation for people to excel. The organisation ends up slowly degrading over time as more and more people within the organisation come to the realisation that it's not really worth it to put much effort in and it becomes the culture. Having a choice of security would be like having a choice of ISP's. The one you are using is no good you get to go to a competitor. The ISP's themselves now have more motivation to provide good services at affordable prices because those who do so get more customers and therefore more reward. And you are always having to keep up with the competition. You get a bad reputation and you are in trouble financially speaking. This is what needs to be the police motivation. They need competitors and they need to be paid directly not through the government intermediary. Then we'll get decent service. Until then, you can whinge and complain as much as you like. No-one's listening.
The government's best interests and the general public's best interests are only coincide sometimes. Often they don't. When they don't, do you know what the government does? It does what is in it's best interest and then one or more of it's representatives gets in front of the cameras and lies their ass off. You always have to ask the question "Forget what I or anyone else want, forget what is in the public's interest, is such a thing in the government's best interest?" If the answer is No, then it ain't going to happen.
From what ive seen public pressure/shame is the best motivation for the government to improve . Theres nothing like fear of losing office to motivate them into providing a better service . Ballot papers & public humiliation for those who are not performing speak louder than any boss . Thats the problem with the current lot of pollies theres not one thats stands out from the crowd with integrity & the right agenda & most people have become despondent with the whole deal . Theres no passion... only rhetoric ....Very dissapointing to see a bunch of plebs pussy whipped by their parties in office toeing the party line . I read somewhere in England a pollies mandate was get rid of a lot of the speed cameras ....he won by a landslide . ( i hope it was fact & not fiction ) .Until we find somone with enough grace to survive the circus which is politics with the right agenda for the people we have nothing unfortunately .
As has been pointed out before, there are many places in the world you can travel to where you can obtain as much service from the police as you're prepared to pay for in cold hard cash. 12 hours on a plane and you can be in any one of a dozen such places.
Still doesn't make renovator's 25%!!! necessary in any shape or form. Once you cut out the churn and redistribution functions 5-10% will give him enough of the services he really wants for sure. 25% ain't the radical efficiency change NR mentioned, it's a minor change around the edges.
Im sure you would be able to do it with less than 25% but do you want to be watching every penny or have something up your sleeve for emergencies ? A bit short sighted to have any entity running on empty .You need surplus for unexpected expenses as anyone that runs a business would attest to . Its nice to have a buffer . Hey if you want to run your business on a slim margin do it . Do you want the government to be like a wage slave spending all it has & just getting by until next week .Things need to be repaired ,replaced .upgraded etc. .if your lacking funds you will end up with hawkeyes example above where it gradually falls in a heap . It might be closer to 20% i dont know until i peruse the books :
Your position seems a bit contradictory to me. You don't care if a government service is overpriced because it's paid for by your taxes? But you want greater financial accountability, less waste and a more limited role for government in our lives? You do realise that it is absolutely impossible for a any government to be fiscally responsible with your money. There are too many competing interests clamouring for a share of the public pie, so what happens is that some are favoured at the expense of others and that eventually, there is not enough money and taxes have to increase. This is why a privately funded model of service provision is the only sustainable model that would best meet the needs of consumers. Governments don't care about the electorate, they care about retaining power, every decision made is made with reatining power as the primary motive. If basic services were provided by private business, then because profit is the primary motive, consumers can freely choose to engage service providers that best meet their own needs - those businesses that don't meet needs lose profits.
