Hey, big spender!

In the real Australia, Prime Minister John Howard presides over a higher level of Commonwealth expenditure per Australian than any previous PM:  twice that under the last McMahon budget, more than 50 per cent higher than the last Whitlam budget, a third higher than the last Fraser budget, 16 per cent higher than the last Hawke budget, though a mere 3 per cent higher than the last Keating budget.

The increase in revenues per head has been even more striking, being also twice that of the last McMahon budget, but 70 per cent higher than the last Whitlam budget, almost 50 per cent higher than the last Fraser budget, more than a third higher than the last Hawke budget and 16 per cent higher than the last Keating budget.

The fiscal rectitude of the Howard Government has been primarily purchased, not through expenditure cuts, but via revenue increases and reductions in the growth of spending, with expenditure per head dropping in only one year (1997-98).  Even then, the 2.9 per cent drop per head was more than wiped out by the 5.5 per cent increase in expenditure per head the following year ...

the real Australia is a more regulated society now than it was at the beginning of the reform period.  As a rough indication, the eight years 1990 to 1997, a period marked by no great national emergency, saw the Commonwealth Parliament pass more pages of legislation than the period from 1901 to 1980 ... The intrusive ambit of regulation expanded across a range of fields:  notably environmental law, health regulation, corporation law, tax law and the aforementioned areas of ancillary employment law.

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