The quest to cut government spending

The abolition of Commonwealth payments to States would increase the autonomy and accountability of the States, and allow greater competition and experimentation between the States.

It would allow the Commonwealth to spend far less on education, given it does not run a single school.

Government-provided foreign aid does not show how generous Australians are.

The abolition would also serve to end 'horizontal fiscal equalisation', a welfare system whereby funds are effectively taken from rich State Governments and given to poor State Governments. This system discourages State Governments from removing impediments to economic growth and from reducing dependency on government services. It also targets assistance more poorly than welfare to individuals.

I turned to the welfare system, noting that billions of dollars are taken from Australian workers every year and given back to the same families in the form of government handouts or subsidies. This is wasteful, inefficient and unnecessary. We need to bring back a central support role for family and community, to focus tax-paid support on the least well off, and to get rid of middle class welfare.

Yet here we are now, a decade later, with little changed. Our governments continue to have a spending problem, there are 700,000 people on the NDIS, and our national debt keeps growing.

It is time for an intervention. We need an Australian version of DOGE.