Too much waste at all levels of government

AS well as a burgeoning, lawless, drug addicted and obese society, other everyday entrenched Australian problems include a very top- heavy government ( in all three tiers), social security and Medicare cash- cows in urgent need of drastic overhaul, and a nest of self- serving bureaucrats with an infinite reservoir of red tape and paperwork, whose main purpose in life appears to be conjuring reasons to justify their own jobs, while making it difficult for others to do theirs.

Bureaucrats are not elected by the people, and although governments and councils change, bureaucrats are immune from electoral vagaries and are under little pressure to implement any long overdue change.

Until we can garner bipartisan support in government on all major issues of national importance, nothing will change. Taxpayers are the nations’ biggest employer group, and a published annual audit of individual government departmental expenditure and performance is long overdue.

All we get is overall budgetary figures without the all- important breakdown and the nitty gritty of these sometime very rubbery figures. “Waste not, want not” should be the public service catch cry.

Bureaucracy in some form is a necessary evil, but the country would be far better off with say a generous 75 per cent less dependency on the vagaries and consequent frustration perpetrated under its banner, with a corresponding reduction in paperwork and personnel. DON MORRIS,

Cranbrook.