Today’s revelation by the ABC that 100 days after the federal election, Australia’s three defence ministers still don’t actually know what their responsibilities are, is a classic example of what happens when government is too big.
A fortnight after the July election, FreedomWatch highlighted the Turnbull Government’s 42 executive officeholders and 53 portfolios, and how this compared unfavourably with the first Barton ministry and the first post-war Menzies ministry.
According to the ABC, a ministerial turf war over who controls what, is responsible for this extraordinary delay. Taxpayers may well ask if they still don’t actually have a job description after three months can we please have a refund of their ministerial salaries!
In the real world the job comes before the person – i.e. something needs to be done so you find someone to do it, and if you can’t afford it, you either prioritise, work longer hours or just forget about it. But in the world of government they give as many people as many jobs and titles as they can, paid for by the long-suffering taxpayer, and worry about what they actually have to do later.
Labor is no better, and now has a whopping 48 shadow ministers. There are so many people on the gravy train that one of Labor’s few non-ex-union-official MPs, former economist Andrew Leigh, had to take a pay cut to stay on board.
With federal government spending forecast to pass $500 billion per year in 2019-20 and gross federal debt to pass $500 billion in the next twelve months, it is clear that the size of government and the red tape it creates and administers is out of control.
