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

the federal liberal (sic) party is killing tafe. remember that at voting
time!

Roads are looked after by local rates UNLESS it is a major State
highway.

well, yeah.

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?

well not necessarily - based on sheer numbers it's purely a fact that they
contribute (slightly more than) 4/5 of state revenue in nsw. there's
actually many more taxes and similar than gst. gst did away with precisely
one (1) that i know of, although undoubtedly there were a few more that i
don't know of. (it's nowhere near as "efficient" etc as was touted - it's a
mess :-)

and i say "slightly more than" due to (generally) higher wages & higher
employment in syd-er-nee.

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!).

damned straight! and remember that at voting time, too ;-)

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.

i agree. except himself with the flappy lips who pays flappy-lip service to
the idea (seeing as how they're in a coalition with the nats).

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.

preach it, farm!!!!!!

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.

i think a roomful of angry one-legged budgies would achieve more than the
nsw govt, but perhaps that's just me.
kylie