barnaby joe wrote on Dec 2
nd, 2011 at 11:18pm:
hey grey do you reckon we should get rid of the state.
if so how.
im actually asking seriously.
I would like to see power devolved. I think you cannot get rid of the state. I mean... what does it mean? A Unilateral declaration of Australia's non-existence? Obviously that's too chaotic an invitation to contemplate.
I do think we have to organise ourselves as communities and that there are efficiencies to be had in not leaving everything up to Canberra or the state capitals.
How much forest should be cut down? Well I think that's for the local community to decide and its competeing interests. Same with child care and child welfare. I see no value in tax money being sent a long way away to be dissipated through bureacracies and advertising campaigns selling the latest government initiatives when it could be spent locally converting some vacant building into a child care centre and staffed with suitably qualified people.
I see moves to centralise and merge local government when the opposite should be happening. There's a place for central government. defence, national infrastructure planning etc. but they take far too much on themselves.
And perhaps we should decide, (the people who live in this town, village) how many refugees we want to offer sanctuary to and not Canberra. We should decide and welcome and be responsible for. Not a national allocation that all get dumped in some Sydney suburb.