Nohoperstan

Angela Shanahan lives in the socialist paradise of Canberra and doesn't like it:

have plenty time to digest this information because I find myself in a traffic jam. Unlike in the halcyon days of yore, before Canberra's state-like status went to the heads of the ruling left-wing junta, traffic jams have become common, caused by a combination of scaling down the number of lanes for general traffic (because of bus and cycle lanes), lowering the speed limit by 10km/h and some highly inefficient and expensive roadworks.

So, as I creep along, I mull over my almost $1000 water bill and my $2000 electricity and gas bill, the highest charges per unit of any jurisdiction in Australia, including some new taxes, the legality of which are being challenged. The price of water has gone from 47c a kilolitre in 1991, when I first came to Canberra, to $4.20. And it is not as if we are allowed to use much.

One Canberra economist, Terry Dwyer, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, has estimated that new water prices and restrictions have cost Canberrans almost as much a head as the cost of George W. Bush's US bank bailout.

Its not going to get any better either. In all likelihood Canberra will soon get a Labor-Greens government giving it the most left winged administration in Australia. The scary thing is Canberra is a public service town. These are the people who are supposed to run the government. If this is what they do to their own city what would they do to the country if allowed?