Increasingly Australians feel that they cannot get ahead. That the economy is failing to work for them. If people don’t have a stake in our society, they are more likely to turn to more extreme solutions.

An important reason for this is that economic reform has stalled. Tax reform in Australia is not just hard; it is diabolical. Scare campaigns have been very successful and now governments on both sides are very reluctant to make any real change.

This lack of reform is making people’s lives worse. But it is happening so slowly that it can take years to register.

Take housing affordability. House prices started rapidly increasing in the early 2000s, just after the Howard government introduced the capital gains tax discount.

At first most people welcomed higher house prices as it made homeowners feel wealthier. But over time people were increasingly unable to buy a home as more houses were snapped up by investors. Now, 25 years later, it is one of the biggest issues facing Australia and a big reason that young people feel that the Australian economy is........

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