Just like in the USA (when it's election season), I'm hearing various attack ads against various candidates, while streaming 4KQ Brisbane. One candidate wants to sell off public assets. But that's a one time solution to a budget issue, can't sell stuff more than once....

I heard today that the intrest bill on our Federal debt is costing 36 Million dollars per day!
Small when compared to the US debt, but we have less people to pay it off.

Another interesting comment was that while intrest rates are so very low we should be building all the infrastructure we can.

Wayne.

Closer to $35m a day for every man, woman and child. The Commonwealth will pay out just over $13bn in 2015 to cover the interest on its debt of $330bn. A 1000 bed public hospital specialising in all the major types of surgery and hosting an accident and emergency ward can be built for about $1.2bn so this is the sort of infrastructure we can't build whilst we pay off debts that previous governments accumulated to pay for recurrent expenditure.

WA2ISE, the programming you heard with the electioneering would have been for the Queensland general election which I think is this coming weekend. Do note that the above government debt doesn't include state government debt, only that of the Commonwealth Government. Some of the states have horrendous debts in their own right.

Taiwan has no foreign debt showing us that it can be done!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt.

Ireland has the most, broke, but still staggers along, you wonder how, like Greece and Italy.

I know politics isn't exactly part of the deal here so I'll keep it to a minimum but it is generally so that the Labor Party here is big on social welfare and it makes some of us very lazy. People get used to the handouts and other benefits and then when the Liberal Party win office they cut back on it and pay off the debt racked up by Labor they don't tend to do well in the opinion polls.

We have a stark choice at the end of the day - bludge off the system and live on the dole or try hard to get work and stay in a job, even if it is one that doesn't pay well or offer opportunities. Of course it is true that not everyone on the dole is a bludger but the money should go to those in genuine need and who make an effort to find work. Those on the dole for 10 and 20 years should be given an ultimatum.

All these payments to people for having babies and the 'back to school' handouts that some state governments still pay to families should stop. These are just blatant election bribes. The money saved could then go on things more worthwhile like public transport, roadworks, gaols and the fibre network.

I know politics isn't exactly part of the deal here so I'll keep it to a minimum

Yes, please. Let's stick to radios and related topics.

I've been checking out this site for a while now and have always found it helpful and interesting.

However, I'm surprised that this forum has been used to voice opinions on political issues. Surely, there must be other forums around should people feel the need to comment on issues that are totally removed from vintage radio. That there are people from other countries, that will have pretty much zero interest in local politics, using this site makes it even worse.

The other thing is, before making comments why not do a bit of reading on the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the RBA websites rather than going off half cocked.

Given that any group of people will have differing political views, these sort of comments are entirely inappropriate on a site such as this.

I don't mind. Although some posts in this thread contravene Rule 7, it is in the correct forum and interestingly was started by a member in another country. No one forced me to read it and we have a strange culture around here of allowing a bit of latitude to the guy who owns the place

PRC,

I will decide what is appropriate and what isn't. If the discussion here was to get out of hand I would then decide on the best way forward. At present the comments have been about the systems of government here and general comments that do no side of politics any favours.

Secondly, there's been no political fighting and that alone proves that there can be some mature discussion without any harm being done, unlike what happens in our Parliaments from time to time.

Thirdly, in a technical sense, it could be said that many comments here break one rule or another but the success of this site lies in the fact that it is under-moderated rather than being over-moderated and that this site's membership has the maturity and level-headedness to manage things themselves instead of having the job done for them.

This is a general discussion forum, after all.

I should also add that there has been many 'risky' topics discussed before, again with members showing they can handle things without the intervention that takes place on other forums.

One candidate wants to sell off public assets. But that's a one time solution to a budget issue, can't sell stuff more than once....

Yep, once it's gone, it's gone. future governments around the world may once again nationalise things but it won't be in our lifetimes - on the scale equivalent to the amount of privatisation that has occurred.

Here in NSW I can think of two cases where the government has 'bought back' assets. One was about ten years ago when the State Transit Authority purchased several private bus companies (that were probably on the verge of hitting the wall anyway) located in north-western Sydney and merged these operations into the wider government bus service. This did improve services in the areas concerned because the ticketing system the government used at the time ended up being rolled out on the former private routes and frequency was also increased. The second case in point was Sydney's inner west tram line. Two years ago it was purchased by the government to allow significant expansion without the usual hurdles that tend to develop between public-private partnerships.

At this point in time, governments here (on both sides of the political spectrum) usually favour leasing their assets rather than just flogging them in the way that was the fashion 20 years ago. It is a better system because the taxpayer still owns the asset and the government collects a smaller but ongoing annual dividend in addition to rent payments. The private stakeholder gets the rest of the income generated for the term of the lease then either signs a new lease or hands the asset back. Power stations and shipping terminals in NSW are currently run this way.

Well Brad, your defensive response seems to indicates that I've touched off a raw nerve. From where I stand, you either have rules and stick to them or you don't have the rules in the first place.

You may not accept this, but I'm probably only stating what some others think - but remain silent.

Until now, I've enjoyed this site but maybe it's not for me.

I suggest you have a good think about things.

My "defensive response" indicates only one thing PRC - that I own the site. Nothing more and nothing less.

With that in mind, I think you have demonstrated why forums tend to restrict risky topics and that has just triggered an otherwise un-necessary closure of this thread.

You got what you wanted - congratulations.