My fellow Australians - WTF is wrong with you?

Dear fellow countrymen (and woman),

It is with a very heavy heart that I have to ask the question, WTF are you all having a breakdown about having to pay the flood levy surcharge to help rebuild the vital infrastructure that was damaged during one of our countries worst ever natural disasters?

Here is the bit that I am failing to comprehend. We as a people seem to be more than happy to donate money to charities as was shown with the amazing ammount of money raised to support the Queensland flood victims and the efforts we did for the asian tsunami, both times the characters of Australian's to unquestioanablly help those who clearly needed it shone through and I was proud to be Australian.

However now that it is clear that the costs to rebuild roads and other vital infrastructure to get the state back up on its feet, is going to be amazingly high, isn't it obvious that we need to pay for it? The notion that because the funds raised through this one off tax are not going directly into the bank accounts and hands of homeless flood affected Queenslanders and therefore only the government should have to pay is not only short sided but also unintelligent at the very least.

To think that the government should bleed The Treasury dry to pay for Queensland and still keep the countries ecconomy performing as one of the world's best post ecconomic crisis simply can not happen. The truth of the matter is Australia can not afford to rebuild Queensland and so we all need to give what we can.

Obviously those that can't afforded should be omitted from paying (and not simply because their postcode falls within the 2000's) but those that can should, and should also want to help their fellow countryman. The spirit that has gotten our country through so many previous bushfires, earthquakes and floods should be harnaced now more than ever and not quashed as is currently the case.

This also goes to a larger problem which is that this experience has clearly demonstrated that the general Australian public has no comprehension of what their tax payer dollars actually go towards. Sure they do go to pay for schools, roads and hospitals but they do so much more than that. They pay for a respite care worker to go into a home and relieve parents of a child with a serious disability, they basically fund the Non Government Sector of Australia which does everything from providing foreign aid, to support for people and their families living with diabetes, cancer and a whole host of other illnesses, they go into providing bush communities with music and arts that are usually only seen by people in the city, they go into the Soup Kitchens and hostels that feed and house our homeless and woman's refuges for woman (and too often their children) to be safe after a domestic violence incident.

My point is that taxes do a whole lot more than what the average Joe Public might think, and when this mantality of people not wanting to pay tax or to have it directed to places it needs to go to it can jepordise these services futures because it can be all too common for governments to try and win some brownie points with the public by slashing welfare and health budgets just to give people more refunds at tax time and go up in the polls.

Is this really the future direction you want for our country. The debate that is going on with the flood tax will help decide which direction Australia heads down.