A carbon tax for you, a pay rise for me

After instituting a series of policies that will reduce the real wages of working Australians, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has given herself, and her fellow robber barons, a pay-rise:

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard's salary will soar by $90,000 to about $470,000, making her more highly paid than US President Barack Obama and British PM David Cameron.

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Only days after the Gillard Government announced plans to slash public spending as part of a savage mini-budget to bring government coffers back into surplus, The Courier-Mail can reveal the base salary for even the most junior parliamentarian will jump from $140,000 to at least $180,000.

And the robber barons are, of course, not limited to the Labor Party.

The benefits will be even more lucrative for shadow ministers such as Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Chris Pyne, who will receive a special "loading'' for the first time.

For how many years has there been a futile attempt, by the Australian electorate, to stop this outrage?

The lesson is that you can't, under any circumstances, send money to Canberra and expect it to be spent for your benefit. It will inevitably be wasted by bureaucrats and pocketed by politicians.

Curbing the flow of taxation, and reducing the size of government, is the only way this can be stopped.