Corporate welfare takes may forms, one example is the company tax rate which during my time with the ATO fell from 49% to 30%, another is the top marginal personal tax rate which has fallen from 60% in 85/86 to its current rate of 45% from 2006/07. Then we can look at the US where trillions have been given to the banks and other bloated corporations because they were 'too big to fail'. To get some idea of examples of corporate welfare in Australia go to http://www.civilsociety.org.au/CorporateWelfare.htm

When is corporate welfare wrong?

Where a corporation uses its knowledge to take advantage of loopholes in the law to gain a benefit against the spirit of the legislation. Or where an organisation is gifted taxpayer funds as a result of some dubious reasoning or anachronism.

An example of the first - albeit a small one - was when I was living in Perth. The rumour was going round that Alan Bond's daughter was getting a TEAS (Tertiary Education Assistant Scheme) payment. If true, it was outright fraud. Knowing Bond and the way WA worked at that time, it was probably true.

An example of the second is the way Churches are given charity status. If people do not get assisted by the Church, they have every right to ask why it is their tax revenues are going towards propping it up. Another is the way Governments bribe companies to stay in Australia so that they don't get a backlash at the ballot box because people lose their jobs.

"...very naïve and apologists for bludgers would not agree that there should be a crackdown on welfare cheats".

i think there should be a crackdown on far right wing ideologues like leigh who continually pretend to be reasonable human beings went in fact they are anything but. if you "crackdown on welfare cheats" you'd probably unearth two or three in every town..the right wing fantasy trumpeted by the media that people are just languishing on the dole is completely and totally insane..and has been shown to be so in study after study after study..but hey..the people who do the studies are all part of the communist post-modern pc latte sipping chardonnay swilling elite who seek to undermine core australian values... ;-)

Corporate welfare is dished out by both sides of government including subsidies to manufacturers (like Toyota) and other industries to support jobs in Australia. Someone else already mentioned tax breaks to industry.

Compensation payments have also been handed out to industry when suffering the ill-effects of changes to government policy.

Climate change or ETS policy was proposing compensation to certain industry and agric. sectors. Even if the ETS is flawed thinking, why introduce it if the major players are exempt?

Many State Governments have also offered free rents to companies to keep and attract them to their regions.

Sporting bodies also receive money from governments to fund upgrades to stadiums and funding of various football codes.

Why single out those who cannot work for various reasons when millions more are paid from the public purse to private interests.

Sometimes there may be legitimate reasons for public money to be used to boost the private sector, but too often it is government's playing into vested interests.

I think focusing on corporate welfare is a distraction. The more important point is that the welfare system allows some people to live supported lives whilst the rest of us work to support them. It takes the concept of social obligation too far when these people are on welfare for long periods of time.

I have no problem with disability benefits. I'm not a fan of middle class welfare through family payments and tax breaks but I can see the reason for it. But unemployment benefits should be transitory and they should never be a permanent entitlement. Ideally, they should be capped to six months or twelve months. But that is it. There should be limits on the number of times you can claim these benefits in any period as well - ie employed one year, unemployed 6 months, employed 3 months, unemployed 6 months etc - these types of situations should lead to a strict capping of benefits.

Similarly, anybody receiving public housing should have less entitlement to other forms of welfare. You should have to earn your place in our society.

If not cheaters, people on welfare are those who can not get income or those with the issues that make them not able get or maintain job. It does not seem alright that person prefer to stay on welfare then to work. One can not really wish to stay below poverty line – that would not meet criteria for mentally healthy individual. I wish to think they have physiological or mental issues if choose to stay on welfare as oppose to be proud for own contribution doing any kind of work.
And why the fact of not contributing to the society by avoiding paying or unlawfully minimising for thousands and thousands dollars in taxes is more acceptable in the society then someone who has physiological issues would be taking from the society few dollars a week? That would be a shame to see our citizens dieing and living on the streets in larger numbers. As civilised society we have to accept the outlay