Death duty causes real problems in business. I understand the desire to create better social equality by imposing death duties on the "wealthy" but for those whose wealth is tied up in running a business it can be enough to cause the business to falter for many years. This is generally not the case where the business is publicly listed (the owners are not expected to borrow to fund company operations), but many if not most unlisted businesses are interdependant with the wealth of their owners. This does have serious implications for the health of businesses, thus employment opportunities as well.

I dont understand the aversion to stamp duty, particularly on real property. Sure, I dont like it when I have to pay it myself, however its at its base a wealth tax. If you can afford to buy property, you can afford to pay stamp duty. The assertion that it is causing property price pain is false - the market sets property prices and takes stamp duty into consideration. If you remove stamp duty, property prices will simply increase by a similar amount - right to the brink of what people can afford. The impact of negative gearing is very similar.

The problem with superannuation is that people really dont care enough. They cant touch it for years, so its out of sight, out of mind. Give them the ability to draw out some of the earnings and you'll have a sharp increase in interest from a much earlier age. Or to make it less risky for people, make the default option cash - the tax concessions will mean that for most people it will still perform better than investments held outside super.

Re-doing the tax act is the easy part, the difficult part is getting consensus on what's "fair". I have never really understood why it's fair to take from those that have, by threat of violence (see what happens if you don't pay your tax bill) and give it away to others. Perhaps if there was less welfare and more infrastructure I might be interested ? A decent place to start might be to abolish Income Tax itself, that relatively recent innovation is anathema, perhaps a property and/or GST style tax, combined with a death tax seems a more appropriate means of revenue raising.

As to the Lawyer anecdote, the System of Law we have in Aus. is broken, completely, that Bob Brown was extolling how much legislation was pushed through a supposedly moribund Government simply reinforced the inane nature of our Politicians. We need the judicial system wiped, and to start again, a model based on the Napoleonic System seems a good place to start.

JS Mill.Private banks should only loan out money that already exists.Money only represents human potential and toil.You are suggesting that private banks should assume ownership of our toil and loan it back to us as debt?

Mathematically it is inevitable that debt exceeds increases in productivity.If increases in productivity get expressed as debt,then the more porductivity you have,the more debt you incur.It is happening right now.

In 1976 our total debt was 3% of GDP,now it is in excess of 53% of GDP.That is the reality.

Now that we have generations of welfare dependants thanks to failed secular dogma we need to tax more and more to support the bad habits formed by the éntitlement'mentality. This current Government has squandered billions in wasteful spending and now are introducing mining tax and breathing tax.To think that more tax will solve anything except for Public servants payrises is highly debatable. Its not fair that some work hard for what they get in order to be given by those who refuse to get off their bums.

Thanks for your observations of the Summit, Everald

Totally agree with you and the majority on negative gearing on property - it would have to be a major cause for the property price bubble.

I agree also your observations the falsity of the 'trickle down' theory. For it to be true there would have to be a greater 'multiplier' when the rich spend than when the poor do which is obviously not the case as the rich 'spend' on such things as speculation, company takeovers and saving which have very low multipliers compared to essential goods and services. Also it ignores the true theory of marginal benefits of additional income being greater for those who have little than those who have a lot.

But stamp duty - surely this acts against rampant speculation and given the exemptions for first home buyers, is a progressive tax?

Super - it would be interesting to know more about how you intend to change it. I think ramping it up to 12% is not a good thing; many would like to use it to pay off their houses rather than have it locked away.

Flat rate of tax- how would this work and how would it ensure wealthy avoiders will pay tax? Wouldn't it be better to eliminate the tax avoidance options they currently have?

Of course we can build a great Australia with tax reform especially a flat tax.
Problem is the people don't want to change to a fairer tax.