said by norwegian:It is really a big waste of govt funds and our taxes.
Well I don't think there's a politician anywhere that really cares about how much they spend. You may have heard about our "Fiscal Cliff" here in the US. Trouble is we have Thelma on one side and Louise on the other and both built the cliff in the first place. Probably won't get a good outcome there.
Politicians, at all levels of gummint, want power. If they have to tax and spend to get it then so be it.
So back to the point. Any kind of National ID Card is just another power grab. I'm not sure of the (public) rationale for it in Australia. Here in the US the two reasons I've heard are to better detect illegal immigrants and terrorists. Those, of course, are the public reasons. The real reason is to gain more control over citizens.
The NSA already has a huge database of data on US and other citizens. Imagine how much "better" that'd be if they could link all the stuff together via single codes (individual ID codes). Just enter a code and bring up everything on that individual. Big Brother was an amateur by comparison.