Longweekend staff abused

The number of letters villifying the attendance of Anna Bligh at the Noosa Long Weekend is disappointing - the various authors obviously do not understand, or choose to ignore, the economics of living in 2008 and beyond. The current implementation of our 3 tier government contributes significantly to Australia being the most over-governed country in the world. And of course this over-governance is something all tax payers like myself fund.

We have a Federal Government and 7 State / Territory Governments all supplying identical services. Each has its own Public Service, Health system, Treasury, Judiciary and legal system, Police Dept, Education Dept, Mines Dept, Energy Supply Dept, Water Supply Dept, Fair Trading Commission, Industrial Relations Commission and so forth. This of course leads to 8 Ministers / Commissioners, 8 beaurocracies, and 8 groups of assets (buildings, vehicles, plant and equipment etc) all providing the same services, and all paid for by the likes of me.

At the Local Government level we have historically had thousands of local councils each providing the same services to their local areas. This of course means we have had thousands of Councillors, beaurocracies, Works Depts, groups of assets and so on. In the "good old days" most of the councillor positions were honorary, i.e. the councillors did not receive direct financial payment for the work they delivered - many had noble aspirations for their local communities and volunteered their expertise on a part time basis.
Nowadays the value of the assets local councils own is too great and the world is to complex to be managed on a part time basis, so we expect our councillors to be professional or at least semi-professional. So they must be paid for the work they deliver to their local communities.
Over the last 15 years all the other States have rationalised their local councils in an effort to minimise duplication and lower the costs of local local government, and last year it was Queensland's turn. (Better late than never.)
Is it Anna Bligh's "fault" that the world is changing and people have higher expectation of their local councils? Or are we just slowly opening our eyes to the world around us, and reassessing the wastage that we have traditionally accepted?

Once we rationalise our Local Governments, I hope we are clever enough to start rationalising our State Governments. Won't the feathers start to fly then.