Perhaps what voters are really rejecting in the budget is not just a series of policy measures, but its potential to accelerate the unravelling of the kind of Australia they want to live in, write Peter Lewis and Jackie Woods.

Two great traditions of middle Australia are pitted against each other in the aftermath of the Coalition Government's controversial first budget. It's Downward Envy in the red corner v the Fair Go in the blue.

The Abbott Government may have put its money on Downward Envy (they get how much welfare?) but as the gruelling political fight continues it looks like Australians' hankering for a Fair Go will win out.

With the Coalition flagging in the polls, much is being made of the Government's failure to sell its agenda. If voters could just understand the detail of proposed measures sentiment would settle down, is the soothing self-narrative.

But what if the problem here isn't in the detail but the big picture?

This week's Essential Report suggests that public concern this budget disproportionately hits the vulnerable has collided with a growing fear Australia is losing its egalitarian spirit.

Perhaps it's not just the budget measures, but the perceived changing fabric of society that Australians are not prepared to accept.

Q. Do you think Australian society is more or less equal and fair than 20 years ago?

Total Total more fair/equal 28% Total less fair/equal 43% A lot more equal and fair 7% A little more equal and fair 21% About the same 23% A little less equal and fair 21% A lot less equal and fair 22% Don't know 7%

Despite the popular narrative about economic growth creating a rising tide for all, many of us see the opposite occurring over the past 20 years. And that matters, because equality and fairness matter.

Q. How important is equality/fairness to Australian society?

Equality Fairness Total important 89% 92% Total not important 7% 6% Very important 51% 62% Somewhat important 38% 30% Not very important 6% 4% Not at all important 1% 2% Don't know 3% 2%

Nearly all of us think equality and fairness are important to some degree with high numbers rating them very important. On both these measures a budget that disproportionately targets lower-income earners, pensioners, students and welfare recipients can only be regarded as a step backwards.

But perhaps the most surprising finding from this week's poll is that more than double the number of people who think the standard of living will improve for the next generation, think that it will be worse. And a third think it will be a lot worse.

Q. Do you think the standard of living for the next generation will be better or worse than today?

Total Total better 21% Total worse 48% A lot better 4% A little better 17% Much the same 27% A little worse 13% A lot worse 35% Don't know 4%

After more than 100 years of growth and prosperity, rising living standards from one generation to the next, nearly half of all Australians have lost faith that this is the journey they are on.

This finding is not purely the result of Australian whining. Indeed, according to the ITUC global poll, conducted in 14 countries by EMC earlier this year, Australia is actually one of the more optimistic nations. When it comes to the future, 51 per cent of all respondents globally don't think the next generation will get a decent job. (In Australia it's only 39 per cent.)

Around the globe, people have lost faith in their economies as a vehicle of prosperity and see them more and more as battlegrounds between their interests and those of the rich and powerful. And it is not a fight they think they are winning.

This is the landing point in the surge in inequality that Thomas Piketty charts in his global academic hit Capitalism in the 21st Century, a work that crunches data over the past 100 years to build a profile of inequality built on fact, not ideology.

Piketty's theory is that inequality can be calculated by looking at the balance of capital and wages in the economy.

His data shows that while capital reigned supreme in the early years of the 20th century, it waned through the Depression and world wars with rising levels of equality through to the 1970s at which point the inequality curve began rising again.

The free market economic agenda, selling off assets and the creation of new financial markets saw capital's share of growth increase, a surge that has continued apace into the 21st century.

In the context of Piketty's data, voters' anxiety about declining fairness and equality in recent decades appears to be based not just in nostalgia for a rose-coloured past, but in a very real economic trajectory.

This week's polling suggests voters don't think the market economy is delivering the kind of society they want and explains why arguments from Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey that the best thing they can do for the economy is generate growth by making life easier for business are falling flat.

It's clear the budget has struck a nerve in the electorate - but perhaps what voters are really rejecting is not just a series of policy measures, but its potential to accelerate the unravelling of the kind of Australia they want to live in.

The survey was conducted online from June 6-10, 2014 and is based on 1019 respondents.

Peter Lewis is a director of Essential Media Communications. View his full profile here. Jackie Woods is a communications consultant at Essential Media Communications. View her full profile here.