We shouldn’t be surprised by this news, after all, the modern response to a political scandal is always to make the taxpayer suffer and never for the responsible to resign or be fired;
Perhaps most galling for those few suckers taxpayers who are net contributors in the Northern Territory is that this recent splurge of their cash is being pitched as an “investment”.
If that noun were truthful, perhaps it’s not unreasonable for those taxpayers to ask what the return was for previous such “investments” and whether or not they were receiving value for money?
Let’s examine the “investment” claim a little further, what will they get this time?
The money is going to buy;
- Upgrades to two existing detention centres ($71.4m)
- An IT system ($66.9m)
- “Improvements” to detention operations ($22.9m)
- “Coordination hubs” ($11.4m)
- “Support for kinship and foster carers” ($5.4m)
I bet the NT taxpayers must be so excited, like a year full of Christmas and birthday mornings have arrived at once…..
Speaking of taxpayers, how many net contributing taxpayers (i.e. those who put in more than they receive back in benefits, childcare vouchers, medicare, etc.) are there?
Numbers are hard to ascertain but we could make an informed guess that it’s probably about 50% of the total population (supported by this article), so about 100,000 souls.
Bill’s Opinion
The press conference announcing the response to the Royal Commission’s findings could have been shortened considerably by reading out the following statement;
“Good afternoon taxpayers of the Northern Territories.
The Royal Commission has found that this government and our predecessors have consistently failed to achieve our stated results, regardless of how much of your money we threw at the problem. Therefore, we will be removing another $200 each from your wallets and will be buying more stuff with it. We haven’t made any material changes to how we measure return on investment so please do not expect any change to the outcomes.
Nobody responsible for the past mistakes will lose their job or be subject to further investigation“.
If you are a Northern Territory taxpayer, you may want to consider the possibility that you are being farmed.