Tax-welfare churning and the welfare state: are welfare state opt-outs a viable solution?

The expansion of the Australian welfare state over recent decades has surprised many, especially those commentators who diagnosed its imminent crisis in the 1980s. In 1960, five per cent of Australians of working age lived on income support—now more than sixteen per cent do. Have we become ‘a nation of supplicants,’ pathetically tied to the apron strings of government