"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...
"0tterbot" wrote in message

i know you've got an avowed set against city-folk g,

Not all of them, just most of them. Like most American, they just
don't get it.

but sydneysiders
subsidise a lot of country stuff.

Given the continual fall in services in the country, I'd be
interested
to know what they are subsidising.

i'm wondering if the country EVER had good services, or if people
remember
erroneously :-)

Doctors, hospitals and TAFEs are jsut 3 off the top of my head where I
know services have dropped in standard or failed to keep up.

in nsw (as an example) there are 4 million city-folk & one million
country-folk. the one million take up a lot more space than the 4
million
do, but still have roads, schools, hospitals etc to consider.
there's no way
on earth the one million are paying for the country stuff & the 4
million
paying for the city stuff because that would not be possible - it
just
doesn't work that way.

Roads are looked after by local rates UNLESS it is a major State
highway. Why do you think country roads are so shitty? Schools and
hospitals are fuunded from grant to the States from the Federal
Governement and much/most of this revenue is now raised from the GST.
Since the GST is a comsumption tax, then most rampant consumers are
the ones who pay. I guess you were thinking of city people being
those rampant consumers?

in cities you get economies of scale (consider telstra cables, for
example).
so the extra state & federal monies raised in cities but destined
for
project whatever end up in the country too otherwise the country
couldn't
afford anything at all :-). so we might help pay for their (cough)
desalinator, but they help pay for our roads, schools, hospitals,
telstra
cable, etc.

They don't pay for our roads, we do, unless it's deemed that there is
a Statewide or Natrionwide need for the road to be highway. They pay
for our schools and hospitals if they consume, otherwise they pay for
it in taxes just like the rest of us unless they are using social
services. So little Telstra improvement has not happened since the
first sale of shares that it doesn't count (and how dare the bloody
Feds sell something we owned anyway - *******s!).

But in addition to all that, there are strategic reasons why a vibrant
countryside is needed, but that philosphy has disapearred from the
thinging of any State or Federal Government over the past few decades.
Short term objectives only seem to be the goal - example: the Feds
ahve wasted the longest economic boom we've had in decades and done
nothing except aima t keeping themselves in powere - no infrastructure
spending and no long term planning or implementation - they're living
on the economic reforms set in place by Labor and yet claiming they've
done a great job economically.

tax funds for a state are for the whole state, not just some of it

Couldn't have put it better myself - shame they don"t think of that in
Macquarie St. I think that the WA and Qld governemtns might be better
at that than the NSW government.

- yet
similarly spending for something in a state is paid for by the
whole
state.
kylie