Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
’Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman…

And so it goes. Watch it here (the Heartbreakers’ wonderful version, at the unforgettable Concert for George).

DIED

Written in 1966, but clearly a tale for our own times. Incidentally, UK government spending as a proportion of GDP in the 1966-67 financial year was approximately 41.4 per cent – a steady, incremental rise in public expenditure during the mid-1960s.

George, who died (far too young) in 2001, is cutting to the quick on fiscal incontinence.

God knows what he would have made of government spending in the roaring 2020s, both in Britain and down under.

It isn’t just the size of the spend – and hence of the need for massive taxation – that is in play, of course. It is what governments spend our money on, and whether we concur with that spending. With any of it.

It was the late, great Harvard philosopher, Robert Nozick (the subject of an MA thesis I wrote when I was 25 years old), who argued compellingly that taxation was on a par with forced labour. Or theft, by the State. A few others have said similar.

Doing a deeper dive: Some forms of taxation are especially pernicious. Like retrospective tax, hidden tax and progressive tax. And non-indexed tax that is extra punitive as a result of inflation, the State’s best friend.

As of April 29, 2026, Australian headline inflation rose to 4.6 per cent in the 12 months to March 2026, up from 3.7 per cent in February, driven by high housing (6.5%), transport (+8.9%) and fuel costs.

While headline inflation surged, the Reserve Bank’s preferred trimmed mean (underlying) inflation held steady at 3.3 per cent for March.

Stealing your money and then spending it on things that you don’t want or need, or that you believe to be morally reprehensible or economically vandalous (and scandalous), is especially abhorrent.

What about spending your money on things they said they wouldn’t spend it on? Or happened not to mention when we were voting last? What kind of a mandate is that?

And what about spending it on projects that the Government says will cost $2 b (Snowy 2.0, Malcolm?) but turn out to cost over $40b?

Then there is the high-speed rail scam, apparently coming in 2028 (the starting date for construction) – $90 billion on current estimates. We know the final cost will be many times this.

The NDIS, which everybody knows is a scam, is ticking over at $50b smackers this year.

Costs are expected to reach $58b by 2028 and potentially $100b by 2034–35 without reforms.

We won’t mention the trillion on net-zero and the renewables scam. Or the COVID trillion.

Can anyone name even one of these rorts that was subject to an election debate? Oh, and we won’t mention all the pork barrelling for “local communities”, none of whom ever had the chance of a local plebiscite to determine if they even wanted the mini white elephants duly provided to them.

Funding, funding, funding.

For readers of the paywalled The Australian newspaper, you can read Robert Gottliebsen on net-zero and associated scams, quoting (the surprisingly now indispensable) Barnaby Joyce.  (Who-da thought I would be saying that, and that it would be true)?

POLICY CORRUPTION

The sheer size of the policy corruption and the exposure of Australian taxpayers involved in the ever-growing climate hoax should be the cause of head shaking and buyer remorse.

How many taxpayers even know the numbers involved? Trillions, anyone?

Moreover, out-of-control taxing and spending that we haven’t signed up for breaks the implied social contract, described by (for example) John Locke, that is the basis of modern democracy.

What about the one third of voters who don’t even consent to be governed by the UniParty, let alone to accept anything they spend those voters’ hard-earned on?

Remember the lessons of the Boston Tea Party. No taxation without representation.

Taxation is in the news right about now. Budget leaks suggest punitive changes to capital gains tax. That no one from Canberra discussed with voters before the last election, as far as I am aware.

Where are the Liberals and the Nats, you might well ask?

The Australian Government is slugging us all, especially seniors, without consent and in devious ways, in a naked daylight robbery-level tax grab, to pay for its crimes against our economy and our people.

Why people aren’t marching in the streets over this is entirely beyond me.

But it isn’t always the big tax-and-spend crimes that grab your attention and incite righteous anger.

You might think that $600m pissed up against the wall isn’t huge. In today’s terms – and in the context of (for example) the State’s net-zero and COVID crimes – it’s loose change, a rounding error, as they say.

But, still…

Readers may or may not have heard of Jarome Luai and Alex Johnston. They are NRL football players who are signing up to play for a new Papua New Guinea team that is joining the rugby league competition in 2028.

The reasons this is germane here are twofold. One is that the Albo trainwreck Government is spending $600m of our money to give PNG a team in the NRL. The other is that Luai, Johnston and anyone else who signs on will get their incomes tax free!

You are reading this right. An income of $1.2m tax free is the equivalent of a $2m normal income. “Can’t-say-no money”, as Paul Kent calls it. No theft or forced labour here.

And then there are all the third-party financial deals available to the PNG players. And they are tax free as well!

One journo (Brent Read) shared his views. He says that this fact would mean Luai becomes the NRL’s highest-paid player if he ends up signing a deal in the vicinity of his current $1.2m per season.

“The other big factor we can’t ignore is the money. By going there, even if they pay him what he’s on at the Tigers, he’s going to earn in his hand an extra $1m over two years because it’s tax free money,” Read said.