The anger generated by Wednesday's Senate committee hearings into corporate tax avoidance makes the government's budget and political challenges that much harder, writes Barrie Cassidy.

It's problematic as to whether the national debate on taxation will lead anywhere. But one thing is certain. Every day the public is being better educated, and that spells trouble for the Federal Government.

Ordinary wage and salary earners suddenly have a much better understanding of how superannuation concessions are exploited by higher income earners; and they're learning more about how negative gearing works and what capital gains tax concessions are available to business.

And now they know the extent to which some of the world's largest corporations make billions of dollars in Australia and pay next to no tax in return.

In short, the penny has dropped. The Australian taxation system is riddled with rorts for the rich, and yet seemingly ordinary earners alone are being asked to accept belt tightening in the national interest.

That is the biggest single take out from the extraordinary events at Wednesday's Senate committee hearings into corporate tax avoidance. As one after another - Microsoft, Apple and Google executives - tried to explain away their exceptional arrangements, the Government's task of reforming the economy and breaking down the entitlement mentality in the welfare system, got that much harder.

This letter to The Age was typical of many around the country:

If only the Government showed as much fervour for cutting tax avoidance rorts by big business as it does for cutting welfare benefits for the poor.

The evidence would not only have angered PAYE taxpayers, but Australian-based companies as well, who do the right thing and pay taxes at the high end of the market by world standards.

The numbers that the executives were forced to bring to the table were bad enough - Apple Australia for example earning about $6 billion dollars in revenue and paying just $80 million in tax - but worse still was the attitude that came with it.

Each one insisted they paid "all the taxes they owe, in accordance with Australian law", and there was nothing improper, illegal or even immoral about that.

In other words, they're your laws we're exploiting when we shift profits overseas. It's your problem, not ours.

The testimony was especially risible when Apple's Australian managing director Tony King appeared to play dumb, perhaps in the belief that it was the Australian public and not him that was the fool.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon asked him a simple question - simple enough for any managing director: of the $6 billion dollars that Apple earned in revenue in Australia "how much of that went overseas?"

King: "We reported all of our revenue and all of our costs."

Xenophon: "No, no. I asked you how much of that went overseas."

King: "We, um, our net profit was $250 million."

Xenophon: "How much of the money went overseas? How much of that $6 billion paid by Australian consumers went overseas? Can you please tell us that?"

King: "I'll take that question on notice to give you a specific number."

Xenophon: "You've come to this inquiry - are you serious? You've come to this inquiry on tax minimisation and aggressive tax minimisation and you weren't expecting a question like that? So $6 billion, you can't tell us how much of that's gone overseas?"

King: "Ah, we pay for all our products..."

Xenophon: "No, no, no, no, answer the question, please, Mr King. How much of the $6 billion that Australian consumers have paid for Apple products actually have gone overseas?"

Tony King eventually conceded - or at least claimed - he didn't know the answer. He's just the managing director.

The one point the executives did establish is that the problem is one for the Government. The tax laws that they dance around are the Government's own, inherited or otherwise. The buck ultimately stops with them.

So what do they now do about it, because to do nothing will paralyse reforms elsewhere.

The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, says the issue will be addressed in the budget framework, but it's not clear whether by that he means the tax act will be rewritten to make it unambiguously clear that those who sell products in Australia, and profit from those sales, will be liable to pay taxes like everybody else. Can the Government in just four weeks write up legislation that outsmarts some of the best lawyers in the world? And is that the best way to go anyway?

Some experts are already urging the Government to exercise patience and wait for a global solution, suggesting piecemeal and unilateral action like the United Kingdom has taken will serve only to undermine the international process.

But how determined is the international community to overcome the global power, the United States, who get their fair share of taxes from these home-grown technology companies and so seem prepared to frustrate the efforts of others.

Wednesday's hearing made great theatre, but it was far more than that. The anger the evidence generated will have a significant impact on the domestic taxation and entitlement debate.

You could sense the country saying to the Government: sort them out first; they've got the big bucks; only then can you come for us.

It's a challenge for the Government no doubt, and one that this time should be met equally by the Opposition; otherwise their role in the highlighting of the issue will be seen as opportunistic grandstanding and no more.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.