Politicians still wasting your money

Jun 24, 2012, 08:39 PM

Why doesn't the federal government just do its job? Why doesn’t it just concentrate on its core functions? Defence for example.
The government is now spending proportionately less on defence than in the Thirties. It's even put off replacing the hopeless Collins class submarines that another Labor government foisted on us . This is the government that turned $70 billion in the bank into something approaching $200 billion in debt. They’ve s even raised their ‘credit card’ limit to 300 billion. This government is always working out new ways to waste money. Particularly in areas which have nothing to do with the federal government. They’ve just announced a $25 million deal with a number of sporting associations. This is against binge drinking. It's to promote safe alcohol consumption to adults, alcohol-free sporting environments for minors and to reduce alcohol promotion in their codes. The bigger sports - Australian rules and rugby league -are not part of the deal. Of course the other sports have taken the money. Why wouldn't they? It's like this dopey idea of putting warnings on bottles of wine.
When will governments realise that their job is to govern in relation to core areas. When will they stop poking their noses into areas which have absolutely nothing to do with the politicians? By the way, guess where the $25 million is coming from? The federal government is borrowing it. They borrow about $100 million a day. So they crowd out the mortgage market. Borrowing rates would be lower if the federal government weren’t borrowing. And guess who pays the interest?
(Apart from an election, there may well be some hope. That comes from a very sensible decision of the High Court. This says that apart from grants to the states federal government can’t give money away without supporting legislation. And it can’t pass legislation outside of its powers.) In the meantime, it's about time politicians were made accountable.
Not just every three or four years. The politicians should be accountable on every day of every week of every month of every year