Medusala said:
You have no idea. I have lived in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and the UK for nearly all of Howards time in office and never have we been considered a pariah state in those countries. For starters most of the Singaporeans and Hong Kongers were very keen to come here for education and to get permanent residency.
Personally as much I'd love to go back to Aus in a couple of years, for the time being it's hard to beat the expat lifestyle where you can pay peanuts for someone else to do all the mundane things like housework; pay 2 bucks for a taxi when you want to go out and have a drink; pay a lot less tax; earn twice the income; etc etc.
I don't blame any of these things (income levels; even tax rates) on govt's. Under either party the tax rates and salary levels aren't going to be too much different. Tax rates in Aus are what they are primarily to ATTEMPT to bridge the gap between rich and poor - by taxing the rich more, but also by funding things like a generous welfare system and free education and health.
The main reason you have lower tax rates in other countries are (1) higher population density = more people to share the costs; and (2) low spending - little or no money spent on essentials like welfare, education, health. Which means the poor live in a type of poverty Aussies who haven't seen it can only try to comprehend.

