Interesting point about the equal opportunity. Agree in principle with the underlying point of your article that equal opportunity may not necessarily bring equal outcomes, the devil is in the provision of truly equal opportunity and this does not occur. I also disagree that a lesser outcome is purely a result of choice. Even having an exposure to the broad opportunities that are available is not available to everyone.
It is difficult to comprehend that someone who has spent their formative years surrounded by poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, horrendous living conditions and not a positive role model in sight has anything like equal opportunity. I was extremely lucky to have parents that made decisions about where we lived and where we were educated so that our opportunities were not equal - we had way better opportunities than lots of other kids whose parents didn't make those types of decisions.
It is true that people can choose not to be like their parents or other people in their situation and can get some semblance of equal outcomes, they have a lot of other hurdles to overcome that people in better situations never even had to consider to get their 'equal opportunity'.

Here's a few of my thoughts on opportunity, health, etc:

Around the world, many countries were colonised by the 'white man' (similarly to ours) yet outside Australia, their native peoples have a stack of drive, ambition and motivation to work hard to advance themselves;
People make choices in their lives that put them at near certainty of bad health outcomes, our safety net has become a hammock in this regard as people will eat badly, smoke, drink too much, particularly in remote areas, knowing full well we'll be there to help them out when by that time the help doesn't cure them, its just wasting money to put off the inevitable (lets have more rigorous cost-benefit analysis and rationing of healthcare for lifestyle diseases);
I live in a city with several tertiary hospitals yet cannot receive at no cost, for my knee issues, the podiatry/physio consults and treatment needed whatever that is, yet someone with self-inflicted disease may receive the podiatry consult on medicare;
Tobacco excise could be increased heavily say up to 30 cents per stick, and the money used to fund an increased private health insurance rebate up to 50% of the premium......... a great way of making the biggest users of hospitals pay closer to the actual cost and rewarding personal responsibility.

An interesting essay and one I overall agree with. On other concurrent threads, I have being thinking about the natural differences between men and women as being seminal to the outcomes they achieve.

One particular idea you hear a lot on TV - that of women not being paid as much as men for doing the same work - springs to mind. What if the pay is actually comprised of two components - a merit component (for doing the job well in real time) and a reward component (as a dividend for doing past work well, which works in the same way as compounding interest). As women working in the paid workforce is a relatively recent phenomenon, this may well explain why they do not get paid as well as men - they haven't had the same history and grounding and therefore don't get the dividend. (BTW, don't blame the system for this, this is pure physics speaking here.)

OTOH, women really come to the party with their nurturing roles. The joy they get in life mostly comes from raising a family, and that joy comes from a rich history of doing that activity.

So the real question is: what do women really want to do? If they do want to stay home, and the family can afford it, it actually makes sense for society to let the man get the better wage and, as a team, they get by that way.

It seems to me the ones complaining the hardest about lack of pay equality between the sexes are single academic females. How many females are paying the price by working to look after home and baby AND having to work in the paid workforce? For what reason? So that single, academic females can have a comfy life and business can spruik on about productivity? I reckon this issue needs to be looked at from a lot more angles than the typical debates on this issue have in the past.

The economic imperative is trumping the human. Does it have to be this way? Can it be done better?

What sort of an article can discuss equality, opportunity and outcomes in Australia in 2009 without mentioning those most lacking in opportunity: the disabled? A report commissioned by the federal government and released last week describes the experience of people with disabilities and their families. It is entitled "Shut Out". It speaks of how people with a disability are "excluded and ignored" in our society, how they cope with a service system that is "broke and broken", how they "can't get a job" or if they can, they "can't get there, can't get in, can't get it" and how they are "isolated and alone" socially. I agree that opportunity does not guarantee outcome, but without opportunity there can be no chance of outcome. What's more, I disagree with the basic premise of this article: that we are a caring society. A caring society does not have one large group within its midst who are forgotten and for whom the national ideal of a "fair go" is so imperfectly extended.

Thanks for the comments everyone. This is my first post at this website, and I appreciate all feedback on my ideas.

@estelles - I know I didn't mention the disabled in this article. Originally the central focus was on the Close the Gap campaign, but it end up as a more general discussion. I'm not sure if you are referring to just Wheelies in your remarks, or disabilities more generally. But I can't help think you may have missed the point. Equal outcomes for Wheelies means they are getting a massive advantage compared to others. I guess in the end it is a question of values - how much do we as a society value to contribution of the disabled? The more we value the contribution, the more we should spend (and regulate) in favour of equal outcomes.

I'd like to end on a positive note. Disabled people have far more opportunities today than they have ever had in the past, and it is likely to only get better.

Let me guess you think school vouchers would be a good thing to.
Cam you need to live a little you sound like your brought up in a nice rich family on the north shore. Reality is very different for most of the world then it is for white breed north shore boys.
The fact is kids born in dysfunctional environments tend to be dysfunctional themselves but you say that just because they make bad choices. Now that not to say them some people make great choices and get out most don't. It is in everyone’s interest to try and stop the cycle to force improvement then.
You need to think your ideas through a bit at the moment your coming over all right wing racist to me.