How nice to see that public-spirited Obeid family campaigning so hard to end the rort that is the family trust system. Well done, Eddie, Moses and the rest of them.

Of course, the Obeids might not quite see it that way, but the creeping exposure of their use of trusts to disguise, channel, fiddle and generally muck around with the spirit of the Tax Act, revealing the power of the rich and well-accounted to avoid paying their fair share, is the best advertisement yet for radical reform of the putrid trust system.

Moses' ability to be officially broke while living the millionaire life, courtesy of the family trust structure, thus avoiding a $16 million debt to the City of Sydney, and this week's ICAC evidence outlining trust "loans" to avoid income tax are why the Obeids are the new pin-up boys of tax avoidance.

Whether that avoidance strays into the realm of illegal evasion is something for the Australian Tax Office to investigate. One can only hope there's an ATO officer keeping notes at the ICAC hearing.

But, giving the Obeids the benefit of the doubt, as one must on legal matters, they nonetheless have supplied the nation with more than enough evidence to suggest that the use of family trusts is a joke at the expense of the less fortunate.