Tuesday, October 9, 2007

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS


It's school holiday time and the beachside beckons. The school year draws to a close mid December. Redhead Beach.
We hear the rhetoric now at Federal election time and the biggest hoax. Feds act with benevolence and disdain over funding matters. Revenues belong to them. They are mistaken that way and should have little else to do than redistribute the funds. Money: that's what it takes to run the state and funds rightly belong to all the services we have.
The Feds are not at the coal face where real people work in hospitals, prisons, schools, highway construction. At arms length they dispense wonderful one-off grants to finance this or that as if we are so lucky. How come they can reserve funds to toy around with and buy votes? Their budget must be very flexible.
Funds are earmarked at will so that they can expand into more affairs such as technical education and indigenous matters, to justify their existence. This fragments services such as occurs in health. Really, the existing providors deserve better. Any threats to use funds as blackmail is un-Australian.
Defence and the big services are probably valid Federal commitments. It is obvious that these departments operate without any questions asked about spending. How much do the diplomatic services cost? Who knows? How well does it compare to the states financial management of more important priorities?
State and federal cheques and balances sure are a strange means of 'organising' our existence.

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