We all live in kleptocracies and so we have for some millennia. In the West that would probably be since the Romans, in Egypt since the Pharaohs and in China since their dynasties started around 2000 B.C.

To summarise the article: "You should give me the power so that I can become your chief kleptocrat and hand your tax-money to MY friends!".

Well, another left wing rant? And completely wasted effort, that smacks of a disgruntled runt pig on animal farm and the politics of envy? I don't mind critique, always providing the complainer is able to proffer viable alternatives!

None of which are self evident in this bombastic bitch! You don't like it here? Do you have a passport and tradable skills that would make you a welcome migrant somewhere else, anywhere else! Feel free to move on out anytime soon! Tomorrow maybe?
Alan B.

You missed the biggest rip offs of a modern state John.

The incredible waste of academia & the university sector. We don't need people to waste 4 years uni getting a BA, just to become a public service clerk. Which brings us to the other great rip off, The bureaucracy, & thousands of NGOs, all staffed by lazy, overpaid dullards, who could never hold down a job with the same pay rate in the private sector.

Yes a kleptocracy, but more to support dills, like you, rather than industry.

I agree with all of this article. Australia is a scandalised laughing stock of arrogance and rule by wealth.

Whether or not you support policies that favour big business, having them doesn't make the nation a kleptocracy.

And the bit about the budget surpluses is wrong. Firstly the surplus was destroyed by the Rudd tax cuts (made as an election promise to match Howard's tax cuts) before the GFC hit. Secondly, we can ALWAYS afford another stimulus irrespective of the size of our debt.

people sucking on the public purse, dumbing people down and now complaining about someone's generosity.Sickening.

Its clear from the article that the writer has no clue about the organisations and taxation systems which he writes about.. this point "The conservatives have left untouched negative gearing and capital gains perks to housing investors, the family trust tax scams". Only the family home is capital gains tax exempt. Investment properties are subject to the tax. Neither side of politics would dare touch the family home exception for obvious reasons which have nothing to do with big business. The negative gearing perk is used by small investors mainly, not big business, and again neither side of politics dares touch it as its use is too wide spread - for shares as well as houses. Dr Tomlinson is so completely out of touch with the modern electorate that he thinks it is used by a few rich people. It isn't.

The gas prices paid to the gas majors is, I believe, the result of forward sales of the gas when the price was much lower. The suggestion that the gas majors would sell their output at a lower price out of spite, or through some clever transfer pricing agreement is so absurd as to be risible. Those big projects typically have their own tax agreements worked out well before hand and there is no suggestion that the ATO has given those companies a free pass. Dr Tomlinson attitudes are from a different era, but his lack of research is a matter of concern.

A kleptocracy is where a socialist government taxes everyone to death and spends the money on vanity projects.

The rising kleptocracy is not just an Australian phenomenon. It's become standard practice throughout the western world and beyond. It's part of the cycle of history - the peasants make some feeble gains, society becomes a little bit more equal and then the rich (aka the status quo) fight back using the full force of their money, power and influence - and they win (for a while).

At present, we are in the closing stages of the latest winner-take-all cycle. The peasants are getting thoroughly fed up, but are still grappling with their Stockholm Syndrome brainwashng that the greed and lifestyles of the rich are the barometer of economic wellbeing.

Australia has not yet managed to find an equivalent of Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn. Our last peasant leader was Gough Whitlam, and we all know what happened to him. 

Yeah, Killarney, he was voted out of office.

certainly obscene to see the massive salaries of some abc presenters who deliver not much more than propaganda. I don't really care what people who have earned their money do with it. When money comes from the public purse people should be held to account.