Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼@DrewPavlou
Here’s how to fix Australia.
Restrict the NDIS to severe disability and make it a direct government run program like Medicare, cutting out legions of fraudulent and abusive providers, many of whom are migrants who should probably not even be in the country
Just here alone you can save $25 billion a year in annual spending. Over 30 years that is $750 billion.
Raise an extra $15 billion a year in revenue by taxing LNG exports at 25% which is still significantly lower tax level than Qatar. They take roughly 5 times more tax from comparable LNG export volumes. Over 30 years that is $450 billion.
So we have $1.2 trillion to spend over 30 years. Here’s how to fix the country:
Build a high speed rail spine down the eastern seaboard for $300 billion. Sydney to Melbourne in 1.5 hours, Brisbane to Gold Coast in 20 minutes.
Then build a working underground metro system in every major Australian city, 150 underground stations in total. You should be able to get anywhere in the city within 25 minutes without a car. Restrict spending to $2 billion a station by defanging the CFMEU, total cost $300 billion.
Then build a fleet of 30 nuclear reactors (using South Korean APR-1400 reactors at a cost of $5-8 billion per reactor). Even at upper most bound that is $240 billion.
Surplus here is $360 billion, we can return that to the Australian people with tax cuts.
Perfect. Literal perfection.
We make housing cheap, transit cheap, energy cheap. Decarbonise the entire grid and make ourselves completely sovereign in energy. Basically insulate ourselves from all future global energy shocks.
Pays for itself.
30 nuclear reactors would reduce the wholesale energy price by 60-70%, completely revitalising the manufacturing sector.
Right now manufacturing is at a record low share of our GDP (5% - 130 billion).
Partial re-industrialisation back toward 10–12% of GDP from 5% would add $130–180 billion in annual economic output.
Manufacturing has one of the highest economic multipliers of any sector, typically 1.5–2x, because factories buy inputs, employ workers who spend locally, and create supply chains.
A reasonable multiplier puts the total economic impact closer to $270–360 billion in annual GDP uplift.
Combine that with high speed rail and a powerful working metro in every major city which makes housing way more accessible.
GDP per capita would be like $130,000.
We would save the country.