this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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I assume "Other purposes" is govt kickbacks to mining and gas companies 😬

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[–] BlazeMaster3000@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can request this in most countries, especially here in Canada. It's cool that the Aussie government makes it more transparent and accessible though. The "other purposes" seems a bit sussy-baka, though.

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There is no excuse for any country not to do this TBH. The math is really easy and uses already available information: take the year's total federal spending for different things, specifically in the form of percentages of the year's total tax revenue (hopefully the government has been keeping track of what they've been using the money for) and multiply by the total taxes paid by a specific person and you get exactly how much of their money went to what. This assumes every person's tax revenue is treated the same which I'm pretty sure is at least mostly the case in every country.

If they release the national spending percentages (which they should) then it'd be pretty easy for individuals to calculate these themselves.

[–] Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Well there is a reason: they spend it on bullshit and they don't want tax payers to know

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[–] Zozano@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nice to see our debt is being reduced. Meanwhile, the US is struggling to figure out how not to let their economy implode.

[–] cubicle0924@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Un~~fortunately paying the interest on your debt is not the same as paying down the actual (principle) debt. Unless there's something I'm not seeing.~~

Edit: There was in fact something I wasn't seeing.

[–] Fluid@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

See “gross debt this year” and “last year”. We had surplus so it has been put toward paying down the principle

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[–] yoz@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago

They got is sorted mate. They printing more money.

[–] Centaur@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my country government spending is mystery for tax payers.

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[–] wolre@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I think this is a pretty good idea, actually. While this kind of information is available in most western places, people usually can't be bothered to look it up and then have very weird ideas about what their taxes are probably spent on. This would at least help clear some things up.

[–] Hogger85b@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tories in the UK did this and obfuscated to their agenda

They showed "pensions" but that was only public sector worker pensions then added the universal state pension to the "benefits" section to claim we had a bloated benefits budget for scroungers despite them being the party of triple lock pension (linked to greater of wages, inflation and aribitary 2%)

[–] Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mannnn... I wish we had this in the U.S. Unfortunately it would ruin a lot of the propaganda forced down our throats, disabling some talking points for our dumbass politicians.

They'd never give us something so comprehensive.

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[–] Jolan@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I'm surprised so much money is going towards disability, what kind of stuff do they get?

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[–] Peepolo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

We get this in the UK too 👍.

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[–] instamat@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Is this hard to do in practice? I would love to see a breakdown like this in the United States, and especially on a local level. What’s involved in getting this information? Where does someone even start to request something like this?

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[–] Orange@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

That is a freaking sweet seal for the Australian Government! Id wear that on a shirt

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