Yes Gary, and none more so than those who use the system to minimize tax, and at the expense of other tax payers.

Welfare for the rich comes in many forms, with arguably super concessions now spiraling into territory, that may well cost the budget more than the aged pension?

Many mums (now aged pensioners) dedicated their lives; and forgone careers plus personal income, to raising selfish self serving little horrors!

That later turn out to be selfish individualists who only ever take and add nothing?

Right wing eternally bitching drones who add nothing but their complaints about everybody else and how much unearned entitlements are costing the rich tax avoiding class?

Or indeed the responsibility and liability avoiding ultra privileged class?

Who seem to wear poverty consciousness as some kind of shield to protect them and all who depend on them for (the missing) creative decisions essential for the real prosperity we could create for our nation, if we could just get the ruling class to stop selling the work and creations of previous, sacrificing nation building generations, at fire sales, at the virtual drop of a hat?

What is costing this country, apart from massive waste, intellectual constipation and endemic tax avoidance, is the Greek disease, where armies of bureaucrats are asked to perform in place of the platoons that could do the job; if but competently led?
Alan B.

The top 10% of earners in Australia pay 50% of the tax bill. 50% of Australians either work in the bloated public service producing nothing, or they live on welfare. Yet, still, the socialists want more in the name of 'equity'. We up to our ears in debt - $1 billion a month in interest payments - yet they want us to be further in debt to give handouts to people who have done nothing to earn or deserve them. The myth of equality is dragging Australia down to Third World standards

@ttbn it was little johnny that setup a lot of the middle class welfare.

@The author I'm going to label this article as "just another Liberal hack wrote somthing". you could have saved us all a lot of time if you just wrote.....

I hate the labour party, I love the liberal party and no factual or any other argument will change that.

Is the title of this article a mistake? It doesn't actually refer to inequity, and only mentions equity once. It mentions inequality six times, though most of the article isn't about that either.

As for what Gary Johns says, it's partisan garbage based mostly on ignorance of economics!

Banks trusting incompetent ratings agencies was one of the main causes of the GFC. But a Royal Commission wouldn't work, as the ratings agencies are based overseas.

The Australian government only borrows in the currency it prints, so bondholders have a 100% chance of getting their money back. If any ratings agency dares to downgrade us, we should sue it for libel.

Gary is lying when he says that "Kevin and Bill know that Australians are paying $1 billion a month interest on the unproductive debt that their Labor government racked up." Firstly, a lot of the debt was incurred by the Libs (the Abbott and Turnbull governments). Secondly, most of it was productive. If you include the value of keeping Australia out of recession during the GFC, all of it was productive.

At a time when interest rates are at record lows, it makes sense to take on more debt.

"The rich in Australia have not set out to destroy escape routes by, for example, destroying public schools and hospitals."
Not completely destroying, but many want to cut their funding. That won't completely destroy the escape routes, but it will partially block them and prevent some people from reaching them.

"Note to the Grattan Institute: designs on the rich are pure envy."
No, it's simple pragmatism: the rich have the money, yet they're the ones who've been the main beneficiaries of changes to the tax system over the last three decades.

So ttbn you see the police, ambos, soldiers, politicians and courts as "bloated public service workers producing nothing"?

Stop swallowing murduchs coolaid. Its bad for you.

Re those employees of the bloated public service who 'produce nothing'. It'd be an interesting exercise to compare the social value produced by ambo's, defence, fire brigade, police, nurses, customs officers and the 'bureaucrats' who organise their training and pay etc with some of these heroes of free enterprise. I'm thinking used car dealers, real estate agents, currency speculators and the list goes on. What do they actually 'produce'?
.