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@davewil1964 wrote:

And where does the government get the money for life's luxuries, like health, education, defence, roads... without an income and the people to administer these things?

 

You might not have noticed, but this is a finite planet. Continual growth in population and the use of increasingly scarce resources has to have an endpoint. The way it's going that will be within our lifetimes.

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The Australian government is far from perfect, but thankfully has some good policies and administration of funds to put those policies into practice. As you say, health, education, defence, roads - I consider Australia's healthcare to be among the world's very best (with the UK and the Netherlands). I acknowledge that there's variation in the standard, with Melbourne and Sydney doing much better than Tasmania, for instance. Overall, though, we're fortunate not to have the US's system, in spite of some very formidable hospitals and centres there.

Education... well, that worries me. In my view, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands outdo us in education with ease. Tertiary education is somewhat separate in that we do have some outstanding world-class universities, but in my view there is a disconnect between primary/secondary education in Australia and tertiary education in Australia. I believe education in Australia requires more focused funding, not just splashing money around on gimmicks and gadgets and commissions and so on.

Re endpoint - valid concern. What are we doing with the resources we have? We're squanderers. Industry is currently designed to squander. It's ridiculous.