Who Really Pulled the Rug? A Three-Part Investigation. The Architects – Who Got Rich and How They Did It

Part 2: The Architects – Follow the Money to the Mates

By Sue Barrett 

This is Part 2 of our investigation. Yesterday, we documented how the Australian fair go was systematically dismantled – wages decoupled from productivity, secure jobs became casual, housing became unaffordable. Today, we follow the money to see who benefited, and we reveal the lobbying machine that made it happen.

SECTION 2: The Game of Mates – How Economists Documented the Rigging

Before we name names, you need to understand the system. And here’s the thing: you don’t have to take our word for it. Economists have already documented exactly how Australia’s wealth extraction works.

In their 2017 book Game of Mates: How Favours Bleed the Nation, economists Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters mapped the entire rigging mechanism.

Their framework is devastatingly simple:

The Mates are the small network of well-connected individuals in property development, banking, mining, media, and politics who use relationships to gain favourable treatment, policy outcomes, and regulatory decisions.

The Others are everyone else – workers, renters, small business owners, taxpayers – who pay the cost of the favours the Mates give each other.

How the Game Works

• Property and Planning: Rezoning decisions turn $2 million farmland into $50 million development sites. Who gets those rezonings? People who know people. The Mates capture the $48 million difference. The Others pay higher housing costs.
• Banking and Finance: Regulatory decisions protect incumbent banks from competition. Who benefits? Major banks and their executives. Who pays? Customers paying higher fees and getting worse service than they would in a competitive market.
• Resources and Mining: Favourable royalty rates, environmental approvals, infrastructure commitments. Who gets them? Mining companies with the right connections. Who pays? Taxpayers who could have negotiated better returns on public resources.

The Cost

Murray and Frijters estimated these “grey gifts” – favours between mates that aren’t quite corruption but aren’t quite legitimate competition – cost Australia around $230 billion per year.

That’s roughly $10,000 per Australian per year being transferred from the Others to the Mates.

Not through productive work. Not through innovation. Through favours, connections, and a rigged system.

Why the Game Persists

Here’s the critical insight: The Game works because the Others are kept fighting each other.

As long as workers blame migrants for housing unaffordability, they’re not asking why rezoning decisions benefit property developers. As long as people blame welfare recipients for budget pressure, they’re not asking why mining companies pay so little in royalties. As long as the Others fight each other, the Mates keep winning.

Sound familiar? It should. Because that’s exactly what we documented in Part 1.

Now let’s look at who the Mates are, how much they’re taking, and how they justify it.

SECTION 3: The Wealth Extraction – Follow the Money

CEO Pay: The Ratio That Reveals Everything

In the early 1990s, the average CEO earned approximately 17 times what the average worker earned.

By 2024, that ratio exploded to 50 times average worker earnings.

Not a 50% increase. A nearly 300% increase in the ratio itself.

ASX100 CEOs in 2024:

• Median realised pay: $3.87 million per year
• Highest paid: ResMed’s Mick Farrell – $47.5 million
• Second highest: News Corp’s Robert Thomson – $41.5 million

Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn earned over $10 million in 2024 – more than 100 times the average Australian worker’s salary.

And here’s what makes this particularly galling: In late 2024, CBA was caught charging customers fees they shouldn’t have been charged. When pressed to refund affected customers, Comyn’s bank initially refused. The CEO making 100x worker wages presided over a system that took money from customers improperly – and then fought against returning it. Here’s my recent article about this issue.

This isn’t ancient history. This is happening right now, December 2025.

Meanwhile, CEOs are more likely to lose their jobs than lose their bonuses.

In 2023-24, only 2 ASX100 CEOs missed out on bonuses. There were 24 CEO terminations. Median bonus payout rate? 66.3% of maximum possible.

Corporate Tax Avoidance: The Parallel System

While you pay PAYG tax before you even see your paycheck, major corporations access a parallel system:

• Capital Gains Tax Discount: Make $10,000 from work? Pay full tax ($3,700 in 37% bracket). Make $10,000 from selling shares held over a year? Pay tax on only $5,000 (~$1,850). Same gain. Nearly double the tax if it comes from work.
• Negative Gearing: Property investors offset rental losses against other income. Cost to budget: billions annually. Who benefits? People who can already afford investment properties. Who doesn’t? Renters and first-home buyers locked out of the market.
• Superannuation Tax Concessions: Top 10% receive 38% of super tax concessions. Bottom 50% receive 21%. Combined cost? Over $40 billion annually – more than the entire Age Pension.
• Corporate Tax Reality: Official rate 30%. What many major corporations actually pay? Significantly less, sometimes near zero. Through profit shifting, complex structures, and “optimisation.”

The Wealth Gap

Between 1994 and 2023:

• Productivity growth: +11%
• Real wages growth: -0.2%
• CEO pay growth: ~300% (ratio increase)
• Housing costs growth: +483%
• Average wage growth: +127.5%

Assets appreciated massively. If you owned things – property, shares, businesses – you made enormous gains.

Labour depreciated. If you worked for a living, you fell further behind.

This isn’t accident. This is policy:

• Tax policy favouring capital over labour
• Industrial relations policy weakening worker bargaining
• Housing policy encouraging speculation over shelter
• Corporate governance prioritising shareholders over workers

Every single policy was lobbied for by people who benefited from it.

SECTION 4: The Distraction Machine – Grievance as Business Model

When Did Immigration Become “The Issue”?

Here’s a fact: According to Kos Samaras’ research, immigration wasn’t a top-tier issue before the May 3 election.

So what changed?

After the election, parts of the Coalition deliberately elevated immigration. Not because it was organically arising – because it’s politically useful. It agitated the right flank. It gave economically anxious voters a target.

As Samaras explains: “Voters who latch onto immigration as a top-tier issue usually do so because it gives a simple, emotional outlet for deeper anxieties: loss of status, loss of control, rapid change in their communities, and an economy that feels rigged against them.”

Notice: Deeper anxieties about an economy that feels rigged.

They’re not wrong about the rigging. But they’re being pointed at the wrong target.

The Historical Pattern

This isn’t new. Every time wealth inequality reaches extreme levels, those benefiting need to redirect attention:

• Late 1800s (Gilded Age): Massive inequality → anti-immigrant sentiment surges
• 1920s (pre-Depression): Extreme wealth concentration → xenophobia increases
• 1980s-present (neoliberal era): Wealth concentration returns → culture wars intensify

Why? Because economic anxiety is real. When people feel economically insecure, they look for explanations.

Will they look up or down?

Look up, you see:

• CEOs making 50x worker salaries
• Corporations paying minimal tax
• Housing speculation driving prices beyond reach
• Wage theft legalised through casualisation
• Union-busting destroying bargaining power

That’s threatening to powerful interests.

Look down, you see:

• Migrants “taking jobs”
• Welfare recipients “bludging”
• Women “displacing men”

Suddenly the fight is horizontal – between workers – instead of vertical.

Grievance Has Become a Business Model

But here’s what makes this moment different: grievance is now monetised.

One Nation polling at 17% nationally isn’t just politics. It’s a profit centre:

• Platforms profit: Algorithms on X, YouTube, Facebook systematically amplify emotionally charged content. Outrage drives engagement. Engagement drives advertising revenue. Studies show right-leaning content gets greater algorithmic visibility – by design of attention-economy business models.
• Media profits: Sky After Dark, shock jock radio, podcast networks trading in “anti-elite” masculinity. They’re not persuading these men – they’re recognising them, packaging them, selling them back to themselves as a loyal market segment. This is branding, not propaganda.
• Politicians profit: Every man redirected toward cultural grievance is a man not demanding corporate tax reform, CEO pay caps, or housing policy changes. The longer they fight culture wars, the longer wealth extraction continues uninterrupted.

Who Actually Has Power?

Migrants have:

• No lobbying presence in Parliament
• No campaign donation capacity
• No ability to write tax policy
• No control over industrial relations law

Major corporations have:

• Extensive lobbying operations
• Substantial campaign donation capacity
• Regular access to ministers and treasury officials
• Industry associations that help write policy
• Media ownership to shape narrative

When housing is unaffordable, wages stagnant, and jobs insecure – who actually had the power to create those conditions?

SECTION 5: Democracy Watch Assessment – The Lobbying Machine

Case Study: Penalty Rates Campaign

Lobbyists: Australian Retailers Association, Restaurant & Catering Industry Association, Australian Hotels Association

What they lobbied for: Reduction/elimination of penalty rates for weekend and evening work

Case Study: Union-Busting Legislation

Lobbyists: Business Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

What they lobbied for: Changes making union organising difficult, restricting right to strike, increasing penalties for industrial action

Reality: Union membership collapsed 40% to 13%. Worker bargaining power evaporated. Productivity gains flowed to shareholders and executives instead of workers.

Case Study: Housing Tax Settings

Lobbyists: Property Council of Australia, Real Estate Institute, Housing Industry Association

What they lobbied for: Retention and expansion of negative gearing, CGT discounts, resistance to changes limiting property investment

Reality: Tax settings inflated property prices, created two-class society. Cost to budget: billions annually. Benefit: those who already own multiple properties.

The Pattern

Notice across all campaigns:

1. Well-funded corporate interests lobby government
2. Policy changes benefit those with wealth/power
3. Costs borne by workers lacking lobbying power
4. When workers complain, they’re redirected to blame other workers

This is not conspiracy. This is how the system works.

Corporate interests have money for lobbying, donations, think tanks, media. Workers don’t. The system advantages those with resources. Policy tilts toward those with resources.

Tomorrow, in Part 3, we’ll look at what unrigging requires – specific solutions, what women’s experience teaches us, and what you can do beyond voting.

What You Can Do Right Now

1. Understand Corporate Power

• Look up who lobbies your MP: Australian Parliament House lobbying register
• Check corporate tax payments: ATO Corporate Tax Transparency data
• Follow the money: Australian Electoral Commission political donations

2. Demand Transparency

• Contact your MP: What meetings with lobbyists this month?
• Which industry associations made submissions on bills you care about?
• Request they publish meeting schedules and policy influence

3. Support Accountability Journalism

• Michael West Media tracks corporate lobbying and tax avoidance
• Anthony Klan’s The Klaxon investigates financial scandals and corporate misconduct regulators won’t touch
• The Australia Institute produces accessible economic analysis
• Subscribe to outlets doing forensic work

4. Organise at Work

• Join your union (even if casual)
• Talk to coworkers about pay transparency
• Document wage theft and report it
• Isolation benefits employers, solidarity benefits workers

5. Vote for Transparency

• Support candidates committed to lobbying reform
• Back policies closing tax loopholes
• Demand beneficial ownership registers
• Push for campaign finance reform
• Support Community Independents accountable to communities, not corporations

Having the Conversation Part 2: Spotting the Distraction

When Someone Says: “Immigration is out of control”

Try: “Who told you it’s out of control? And what were they talking about before? Because Kos Samaras’ data shows it wasn’t even a top issue before the Coalition deliberately elevated it after the election. What do you think they didn’t want us talking about instead?”

When Someone Says: “We can’t afford to pay workers more”

Try: “CEO pay went up 300% while they were saying that. ASX100 CEOs make 50 times what workers make now, up from 17 times in the 1990s. So clearly there’s money. Who decided it should go to executives instead of workers?”

When Someone Says: “It’s just market forces”

Try: “Is it though? I looked up who lobbied for penalty rate cuts. They’ve got names, they’re in public records, they made specific submissions. That’s not ‘market forces’ – that’s organised lobbying. Want to see the documents?”

When Someone Says: “Everyone’s doing it” (about tax minimisation)

Try: “Everyone with enough money to hire tax lawyers, sure. But you and I pay PAYG tax before we even see our wages. We don’t have the option to ‘optimise.’ So when they say ‘everyone,’ they mean ‘everyone rich enough to work the system.’”

Questions That Create Doubt:

1. “Who has more political power – migrants with no vote and no lobbying budget, or the Business Council of Australia?”
2. “If the problem is ‘workers expecting too much,’ why are CEO bonuses at record highs even in ‘underperforming’ years?”
3. “When was the last time you saw a news story about which corporations paid zero tax versus a story about immigration?”
4. “Who benefits from us arguing about immigration instead of asking why penalty rates got cut?”

Tomorrow: Part 3 – The Path Forward

We’ll look at the Wealth Paradox – why people vote against their economic interests. We’ll examine what women’s fight for equality teaches us. We’ll map specific policy solutions that would unrig the economy. And we’ll talk about what you can do beyond voting

You know what to do.

Onward we press

This is Part 2 of 3. The people benefiting from this system are counting on you fighting other workers instead of looking up. Share this with someone who needs to see the receipts.

The Complete Series (TBA):

• Part 1: Who Really Pulled the Rug? A Three-Part Investigation. Following the Money Behind Australian Men’s Anger

Sources & References

Game of Mates Analysis:

• Murray, Cameron and Frijters, Paul (2017), “Game of Mates: How Favours Bleed the Nation”

CEO Pay and Executive Compensation:

• Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (2024, 2025), “CEO Pay in ASX200 Companies” Reports
• Guardian Australia (2024), Analysis of executive pay in ASX companies

Tax and Wealth Data:

• Australian Taxation Office, Corporate Tax Transparency Reports
• Treasury, “Tax Expenditures Statement” (various years)
• Grattan Institute, reports on negative gearing and capital gains tax
• Australia Institute, analysis of superannuation tax concessions

Lobbying and Corporate Influence:

• Australian Parliament House, Register of Lobbyists
• Australian Electoral Commission, Political Donations database
• Business Council of Australia, ACCI, Property Council public submissions

Political Analysis:

• Kos Samaras, RedBridge Group polling (Twitter/X: @KosSamaras)

This article was originally published on Sue Barrett

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