Surely no-one would argue that the freeways of Melbourne, for...

Surely no-one would argue that the freeways of Melbourne, for example, should only be paid for by the persons owning a house in Melbourne between 15 and 20 years after the freeway was built. In the case of the Australian floods, (Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria) whilst the infrastructure has had some useful life, and the repairs will presumably have a significant life, the levy is extracting cash from current tax payers.

The Levy issue covers a number of areas of political philosophy. First, as above, should the cost of infrastructure repair be faced by a small cohort of the beneficiaries? The beneficiaries are all Australians whether living in a flood affected area, or part of an economy getting goods and services from that area over shared infrastructure. In the case of roads, for example, the persons benefitting from that road would benefit from a useful life of many decades.

The levy will disproportionately extract a tax from a subset of taxpayers over a small proportion of the useful life of that asset.

Paying for infrastructure repair or new projects out of consolidated revenue is normal, simple and inter-generationally equitable, and should be backed by borrowings for lumpy investment.

Secondly, the replacement of public philanthropy with Government handouts is an issue. I am member of a Club that was proposing at a forthcoming event to donate a proportion of net revenue from the event and solicit donations from attendees, as well as donating funds from reserves towards the Flood Relief. Whilst the amount would have been significant, this has been cancelled because the compulsory nature of the tax means it is now inappropriate to use our communal funds this way, as our members would primarily be those targeted and affected tax payers.

The combination of a politician's addiction to taxation, and self-interest groups that create more pressure that the politicians are prepared to wear if Government spending is cut (i.e. giving less money to special interests) makes it unlikely that the Government will choose to delay long term projects in times of difficulty.

If the Parliament was a prudent small business, and a drop in trading terms (or a flood) wiped out its cash balance, it wouldn't go to the bank saying "my expansion into the new shop I was planning in the next town is really important so I want to borrow twice as much so I can replace existing stock and still expand on my old timetable". The bank manager would send the shopkeeper out the door quick smart.

Equally if a farmer loses his crop through floods, he wouldn't go to the bank and ask for extra money to buy the farm next door, as well as all the new equipment he had planned on the proposed sale of his now wiped out crops.

Thirdly, many taxpayers are deeply worried about the ability of the bureaucracy to spend money prudently. Leaving aside whether the Government should have provided tax cuts or spending during the GFC, if spending is to be the route chosen, it is disturbing to those who earn that money that Canberra spends, that Government's spending is so inconsistent with value. A grant to a local school for them to arrange such as they needed seems very sensible but is not often the method used when expanding educational infrastructure. Rather, the currently preferred method of a Canberra mandated program of Halls and COLA's that has overheads at 36% of the total cost, is the choice of our Federal Government, under the leadership of the previous Education Minister Julia Gillard who is now Prime Minister.

This is compounded by the bureaucracy taking so long to get itself organised. I am still driving past schools with construction sites for halls, half built, long after either the commencement of the GFC or our economy needing a boost.

These projects absorb skilled construction labour so desperately needed on repairs for the 2009 bushfires, the current repairs for flood damage and the mining sector. It is quite clear that the resources won't be freed up anywhere near as quickly as they should be. Still, even if they were, the new home owner's grants continue to overheat the residential building sector and keep resources from other areas of the economy, like the rebuilding of Marysville and other fire affected towns.

The lack of progress in the fire affected towns is a disgrace we seem bound to repeat, but now on a much grander scale.

I propose no levy, more pressure on wasteful Government spending so that it manages better with less, and commencing the removal of distortional subsidies and handouts.

f111