We are over taxed

in this country. We pay some of the highest, if not the highest, rates of taxation in the world. (Yes, some of those Scandinavian countries are high - but they get more for their Euros.) 

We are also over-governed.            

We pay tax on almost everything we buy through the "GST" - the "goods and services tax". We pay tax to our local council, shire, borough or whatever it is called. That is supposed to pay for things like local roads and rubbish collection. We pay taxes to our state government. We pay taxes to our federal government. We also pay for other government run "services". Our national health service is not "free" - although the Prime Minister keeps telling us it is. 

A great deal of our taxes go on duplicating services in varying amounts at different levels. They go on sorting out the different laws and regulations in each state. They go on employing the vast legal network needed to oversee all this. Yes, plenty of people have cause to want things to go on this way. Their livelihoods depend on it.

It needs to change. It won't change.

But it is also this sort of thing that allows petty little dictators who are also excellent con artists into making people believe that millions upon millions of dollars spent rooting up trees in parkland is a good idea. The Premier of this state is one of those dictators. He is still trying to go ahead with the "LIV" golf course to the north of the CBD. There is already a golf course there. It is a public course used by many. It is apparently more than fit for purpose. There are hundreds of trees there. The LIV course is redesigned. It requires hundreds of trees to come out. Not as many people will be able to use it. The land has been taken without compensation from people who have cared for it, from ratepayers who have paid their taxes into it.

I could not care less about golf. I am Mark Twain's view that it is "a good walk spoilt" but I do care about the trees and the wildlife which rely on the trees and the removal of our green canopy. I also care about fairly compensating people for loss. This has not been done here.

This is what happens when a government is handed too much power. All I can do is hope there is a backlash at the next election - but it will be too late to save what needs to be saved.