Post by Keithr0Both sides in this election ran scare campaign, labor invoked the ghost
of Newman, the Libs, using emotional adverts, told us that we will
murdered in our beds by teenage criminals unless thay got in. Neither
seemed to have a plan to fix the real problems like overrun hospitals
etc. Probably Labor needed to go, they'd been it for 10 year and had
basically run out of ideas. Lets hope that the Libs don't fuck it up too
much, I have no more faith in them than the other mob.
Traditionally, the Libs are better at managing the finances, whereas
Labor tends to spend like they're going to stop making money tomorrow.
Both of those philosophies are not necessarily bad in and of themselves,
but it depends on what the ultimate objective is and how you go about
achieving it.
Some see Liberal fiscal policy as a necessary evil which is a result of
excessive spending by a former (read - Labor) government, while others
see it as an overly oppressive austerity regime that stifles growth and
leads to periods of stagnation. On the other hand, Labor *always* spends
like there's no tomorrow, and that's not necessarily a bad thing if
you're doing what people actually want. But for some reason Labor
*always* seems miss the mark.
Take what's currently going on in Victoria for example.
For the last 5 years or so, the Labor party here has been hell bent on
massive infrastructure projects. Big, incredibly *costly* projects.
That's cool. Infrastructure upgrades are needed from time to time, and
governments of all persuasions have to bite the bullet and invest when
the need arises.
But that's not what Vic Labor's doing.
What they're doing here is throwing *billions* of dollars at public
works programs that very few people will actually benefit from, while
necessary services like hospitals, police, ambo's, firies, teachers and
God only knows who else are in vrious stages of disarray. The problem is
that the state government is doing what they see as *popular*, and
ignoring what is desperately needed, and the only logical conclusion I
can reach as that funding essential services doesn't give the Premier or
Ministers the opportunity to stand in front of the media circus wearing
a hard hat and flouro vest and beat their chest about the "good they're
doing".
We have people who are now dying on their lounge room floors because
triple O operators are telling them that an Ambulance won't be coming.
The public hospital system is in crisis with not enough staff, not
enough beds and nowhere near enough money. Cops have to resort to
procedural bans and painting anti government slogans on their vehicles
to get attention to the plight of being understaffed and under funded.
Teachers are leaving the school system at such a rate that on any given
day at my son's school alone around 40% of classes have no teaching
staff at all, and toilets for all students remain locked for the entire
day because there are no maintenance staff.
It goes on and on and on. Funding for road repair and maintenance has
been cut by over 80%. Public transport is dying a horrible death. The
energy market is a massive cluster fuck. The building industry is at the
point of collapse causing a massive housing shortage, and public housing
is at breaking point. Etc, etc, ad infinitum.
The state is on the verge of bankruptcy, yet for reasons known only to
themselves the state government throws billions at totally unnecessary
projects. Not only that, in doing so they apparently cannot enter into a
contractual agreement with private enterprise on terms that are even
*remotely* favourable, and have to foot the bill for *every* cost
overrun that pops up between now and completion. Overruns which are
currently running at about 35 billion dollars, and we're a *long* way
from home.
By the time all these "big build" projects are completed we'll be
looking at a bill of around a hundred billion, provided the cost
blowouts don't get any more ridiculous than they currently are, and for
that all of these projects will be lucky if they return 10 cents on the
dollar.
For that same hundred billion we could have had a dozen new, world class
fully staffed major hospitals, a fully staffed and adequately funded
police force, ambulance service, fire brigade and school system, and
there would have even been enough left to make a massive dent in the
public housing crisis.
That's what I mean about spending lots of money isn't necessarily a bad
idea. Had they done all that instead of wasting it all on massive union
controlled works projects that we don't need we would have *all* been
better off and it would have made the debt easier to swallow.
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Regards,
Noddy.
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