I was just thinking this very thought myself:

TONY Abbott says the government does not have an ‘endless supply of money’ to prop up businesses like Qantas or Holden, warning the companies must operate profitably if they want to survive. . . .

‘In the end, businesses have to operate profitably. And in the end they have to operate profitably because of their own decisions and from their own resources. They can’t expect government to do anything other than to create … the best possible market conditions for them to operate.

‘And that means getting taxes down, getting regulation down, creating as far as we can a climate of confidence and certainty.’

This is the right answer anyway, but the way the union-run Labor Party raided the cookie jar has meant that the workers in both firms cannot look to the government for assistance. There’s nothing there. So it’s a bit rich to read this:

Federal Labor is demanding Prime Minister Tony Abbott personally intervene to resolve a dispute between government ministers about more taxpayer support for Holden.

Why do they suppose the money has run out? Would they have gone even deeper into debt to fund yet more assistance while trying to pay for everything else they’ve put on the tab.

And this is going to become the story on a wider variety of issues. The government will be unable to afford bailouts and injections and forms of assistance that might once have been routine.

And it will roll on from there elsewhere.

And if this is the way it is with Holden and Qantas who represent two of Australia’s oldest and best known brand names so it will be down the line with others and hopefully with other parts of our welfare dependency-ridden state as well.