Snake, I believe you are oversimplifying things. Do you really feel many highly paid individuals would move OS and leave family, friends, the country and culture they were brought up in. Obviously there would be some, but I would feel the majority would stay. What also must be remembered is that such rules affect everyone, so still the top earners would still be the top earners, in other words an income of 2m might be reduced to 400k after tax which is still more than his friend previously on 1.75m that is now on 350k. Humans are very competitive animals, and what is important is not really the absolute difference between the figures but more so that the pecking order is still preserved. That book I stated before went into a lot of detail about such things.
The example you give of medical experts applies to myself, although I am a medical practitioner and earn above 200k I would not call myself an expert. However I would not leave Australia if such a tax was applied. In Scandinavia at the time there was a rule to discourage people "officially" living abroad yet in reality spending much of their time in Sweden. Something like if you lived abroad you could not spent more than 3 months per year in Sweden(not sure of the exact rule) but it did discourage many of the super rich from living abroad. An exception was Borg and his millions living in Monaco? I think.

All have equal oppertunity. It is the individuals choice. You chose who you serve. For 36 years I got out of bed with this thought "I wonder what will go wrong today", and guess what, I was never disapointed, then at a low point in my life I met a man called Jesus who is the Christ and I surrendered my will to his and sort to gain knowledge of His Kingdom and abundant life.
The first thing he showed me was who He is, then he taught me who i am in Him, then He taught me my rights and responsibilities in Him (His promises).
At many times along the way my purpose has been contrary to his and I still bare the scars. When I was young God gave me a dream and a vision for my future and it has taken me 66 years to see that dream and vision come to pass and it will be completed before I leave this earthern ware vessel I now call home.
Gods purpose and destiny for me was to be the best Richie 10 I can be in all fasets of my life, and I don't need any one else to tell me when I miss the mark.
Don't waste your time or energy on things you have no control over eg what other people do or have for it only breeds envy and disapointment in your soul.

*Do you really feel many highly paid individuals would move OS and leave family, friends, the country and culture they were brought up in.*

Ozzie, too right they would! You are trying to judge the world
from your particular perspective of life. Just look at how many
Aussie expats live overseas now. I gather its around the million
mark. Places like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc are full of them,
usually highly skilled individuals, paying very little tax in
those countries. When they finally return to Aus, they are commonly
financially loaded to the max.

The Swedish experiment was in the end a failure for good reasons.
It did not pay the dentist to work more then a couple of days a
week, so he'd commonly barter, if he was going to work extra.
All tax free of course.

Next thing, large Swedish companies simply moved offshore. Despite
being Swedish, Ikea pays virtually no taxes there. There are
many similar examples.

Try and screw the goose that lays the golden eggs and she'll go
lay her eggs elsewhere. People learn the hard way.

Yabby
The income disparity is no doubt sometimes caused by unions as well. If you work in a male dominated field that has a strong union, workers are more likely to earn more than say (for example) nurses whose union is not as strong. And it is a profession that generally does not strike on moral grounds.

But this disparity is chicken feed when compared to executive salaries (not only CEOs).

Many of the big gun CEOs who have come out to Australia on big salaries have not performed well and yet still they prosper. There is no accountability at this level and often they disappear with big bonuses or handouts at the end of their failures.

I suspect there are many talented people already working in senior-middle management roles within Australia who could take on the reins of a big company for much less and perform much better.

Sometimes the value of certain seasoned CEOs grow to mythical proportions. There is not much substance in the claims that there are no other talented or creative people ready to take on the challenges.

Income disparity can be too lightly dismissed as salary envy but it is much more than comparing wages, it is about the effects on inflation, the economy and affordability. The greater the disparity the greater the gap between those who can live well and those who can barely afford basic living costs.

*The greater the disparity the greater the gap between those who can live well and those who can barely afford basic living costs.*

One thing that I have learned Pelican, is that some people can manage
money and some cannot. I know people on 6 figures who complain and
struggle, then I have a friend on a pension, who grows his own
vegies and chooks, he has money left over each week.

If you really want to help the poor, then shut down the pokies, for
its mostly not the rich who lose 20 billion a year on gambling.

Indeed great CEOs can come from management. The last two BHP
CEOs have, Goodyear and now Kloppers. That does not mean that
they should not be paid an adequate salary for their responsibility
of running a hundred billion $ company.

CEOS certainly are accountable, to the chairman and to the board.
If the board screws up, they are accountable to shareholders. As
a shareholder, you can go to the AGM and rub their noses in it,
they will have to listen. You can even put forward a motion that
they be removed.

I have pointed out before, there are in fact very few CEOS of
large companies in Australia. Even if you spread their salary over
their tens of thousands of employees, it would hardly make a difference. So for a good reason, who you left with none but
envy. BTW Pelican, I am not talking about you personally here
Pelican, for I know that you take my position about money, ie
its not the key to happiness.

imagine the brain drain of all the expertise and talent to places around the world where they would be welcomed with open arms.
Snake,
I wish they would because firstly, we'd rid ourselves of a great many of those Experts who are of no value whatsoever to us. And, secondly, this overated overseas marked would very soon be saturated & that in turn would bring those insanely criminal salaries back to a sensible level.