Many of them are fleeing persecution in their own country, but that makes no difference. We even mistreat their children, causing them to have mental illnesses and then refusing them medical treatment. Last week a government led by Mr Harbourside Mansion dished out another round of punishment to fellow Australians whose crime was to be unemployed or to have split with their partner while having dependent children, making it hard for them to do paid work. The money to be saved will go just the tiniest way towards paying for tax cuts for big business. Did the rest of us care? Not really. Caught red-handed: Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith face the media in Cape Town. Credit:AFP But let’s not kid ourselves. If governments thought mistreating asylum seekers and being unreasonable to welfare recipients would lose them votes, they wouldn’t do it.

They do it because they believe most voters want them to punish boat people and supposed dole bludgers. Which also explains why both sides of politics are guilty of it. Lovely people, Australians. (And don’t imagine the rest of the world isn’t realising how unlovely we are.) Asylum seekers stand and sit behind the wire of the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea. Credit:Kate Geraghty But stoop to tampering with a cricket ball? We’d never do something so utterly despicable. A player could have been injured. Don’t forget that cricketers have money at stake when they decide whether to ease the path to victory with the help of a little sticky tape.

Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Nor should we imagine they’re the only Aussies yielding to the temptation to bend the rules in pursuit of a bigger bonus. What do you think the royal commission into banking misconduct is about? I fear we hear about only a fraction of the national franchises that screw their franchisees, who then screw the kids working for them; the many employers paying less than award wages, including those ripping off people on temporary work visas who’re afraid to complain. They do so because they’ve lost any sense of fairness towards their workers – and because they’re (rightly) confident their chances of being caught are low. Governments – Coalition and Labor - have been cutting the number of inspectors and auditors in the name of greater public service efficiency.

We’ve become less Godfearing, more individualistic, more materialistic and more self-centred. We’ve become less community-minded, less committed to “solidarity” – where the strong go easy so as to help the poor do better – and less sympathetic to the battling of the battlers (except when we kid ourselves that we are battlers). Illustration: Andrew Dyson We’ve changed the meaning of “professional” to being highly competent in your occupation, whereas it used to mean putting your clients’ interests ahead of your own. Politics has degenerated into an unending battle between interest groups, in which each seeks advantage at the expense of the rest. Much of the fighting is conducted by a thriving industry of lobbyists. Even the churches fight like Kilkenny cats for a bigger share of the government handouts to private schools – just so they can afford to teach their children Christian values, of course.

But don’t imagine the greed is limited to businesses and institutions. Almost all of us have a mercenary attitude towards the government, paying as little tax as possible while demanding free public hospitals, subsidised pharmaceuticals, bulk-billed GP visits and much else. How does all that add up? Not my problem. My problem is paying an investment adviser to tell me the somersaults I have to turn to get the pension and avoid paying tax on my investments. What I’ve found most surprising in recent days is not money-hungry cricketers but the views of a leading businessman, Harold Mitchell, expressed in this very organ: “I’m an Australian and I pay tax for the good of the country.” Mitchell tells of being visited by representatives of the Singapore government, who invited him to move his head office there. Their advertised company tax rate was 15 per cent, but he’d get a special offer of 7 per cent. He declined. “I believe in the Australian system that creates the sort of society that enabled me to build a successful business. Avoiding tax, even if it seems legal, is a very shortsighted ambition,” he wrote.