Bail outs and other mis-used terms...

It's seems like every other industry has now decided that they are due a supportive package of some sort from various levels of government.

This is hard to swallow given that the latest at this end of the world is the construction industry. It is projected that 10,000 jobs will be lost (not sure if this is Australia or WA) and desperate calls have been made for various infrastructure projects to be fast-tracked to pick up the slack.

What makes this incomprehensible is that that same industry (as the mining industry) has had the collective us over a barrel for a number of years and has been anything but sympathetic (moralistically, ethically and financially) to the greater good - admittedly with a few exceptions. You only had to build a home in the last five years to have a clear illustration of this - ie. quality of workmanship, scheduling of work, availability of staff, etc. Why then should the collective we help those industries?

Given the wages of staff employeed and turnovers of companies in that industry you would assume that a mature, rationale system would put it's own safeguards in place.

There is always the argument that Australia rides on the royalties/taxes generated by those industries but those tarifs arguably compensate the collective us for the various complications that arise from those industries.

It is a very complex and difficult issue especially when you factor in the various levels of government exploiting tarifs, stamp duty, etc for political gain. There is always too much land released, not enough land released, etc, etc.

There is a danger that this will all develop into protectionist policies, cultural institutions will suffer and - most importantly - collective efforts like carbon emission reductions will be put to the side.