Water rates

Oh goodie. I just got my land rates. Well, last week. Since the council amalgamations it now costs me about $300-400 pa for my land and water rates. My water rates were phenomenal before. The delivery charge was something like $250, and the water was about $36. For the year. I use very little.

Anyhoo, today, a few days after the land/water rates arrive, I get another envelope from the council. With a letter which, paraphrased, said "These inserts were intended for your rates notice however there was a cockup* at the mailout centre and the enclosures weren't enclosed".

So, the unenclosed enclosures tell me that the local government will no longer be in charge of the water supply, the state government will be in charge... and as of 1 July 2010 our water will be managed by private companies.

Great. They've done it to power, and the price of power has gone up well over 30% in three years. Or is that less than three years?

Lucky us. Queensland used to known as the low-tax state. Now we're just the low wage state. God help anyone who is not on a Federal award, and the state awards are pretty abyssmal, too. The rate that the state government is scooping money out of our pockets is just amazing. And the statutory services, law and order, health, infrastructure, are falling away. I've never been on such a good income in my life, and for what I do it's the lowest... but I can see it vanishing into the state coffers in no time.

And that's another thing... today I heard that there's talk of raising the medicare levy on high income earners who are not paying into private health funds. The extra money raised has been baggsed by someone wanting to provide better mental health services. Well, if all the money raised from the medicare levy actually went to pay for medical care (instead of "consolidated revenue"), I don't know that health would be in such a critical (parlous as one GP described to me), state.

/rant

* cockup? Well, they called it an equipment failure (a bit like the students on community service who were instructed to stuff window face envelopes with inserts for students/parents prior to inclusion of the account... too dumb to notice that they were windowface envelopes and so needed a piece of paper with the address on it... meh... you can't chain-gang good help any more!)