There is nothing conservative about running down a country’s democratic institutions. Indeed, it’s quite a radical thing to do. Similarly, there is nothing conservative about bringing an extra million people to our country every five years and refusing to fund and build the infrastructure they will need before they arrive. Our so called conservative governments engaged in radical democratic and social experiments and, despite the early results, they seem determined to press on.

Despite the fact that our public services aren’t keeping up with demand, and despite the fact that the budget deficit is bigger now than when Tony Abbott told us we had a ‘budget emergency’, the Turnbull Government is determined to collect $80 billion less in company tax and $140 billion less in personal income tax over the coming decade. The right wing of Australian politics has not just abandoned its conservative heritage, it has abandoned its alleged concern with the state of our public finances as well.

So what’s going on? How come after 27 years of continuous economic growth we feel poorer than we used to? How come one of the richest countries in the world can no longer ‘afford’ to provide the essential services we took for granted? And how come the Coalition care far more about tax cuts than they do about the budget deficit they have worried so loudly about for so long?

The answer is simple, the current crop of right wing politicians in Australia are more obsessed with cutting taxes for those with the most than they are interested in ‘maintaining the Australian way of life’ for most Australians. Nothing is sacred any more, not even the Sabbath. Despite the strong links between Christian Conservatives and the right wing of Australian politics, the rise of weekend work is being accelerated with cuts to penalty rates and calls for their complete removal.

Not even the Australian War Memorial has been spared the humiliation that comes with the Conservative obsession with cutting taxes. Indeed, the monument built to help us remember those Australians who died for their country now also helps us to remember the companies that spend some of their PR budget buying signage throughout the memorial. Lest we forget - our sponsors.

This financial year the Australian government will spend $445 billion on goods and services and collect $459 billion in revenue. Australia is one of the lowest taxed countries in the developed world. If we collected the average level of tax levied in developed countries we would collect an additional $100 billion in revenue this year, more than enough to wipe out the budget deficit, free the war memorial of the need to beg for corporate funds, increase the incomes paid to those losing their jobs with the rapid emergence of new technology and fund the public transport, schools, hospitals and other services that a rapidly growing population needs urgently.

Luckily for those interested in maintaining our public institutions, and lively political debate, the Opposition of Bill Shorten broke with 30 years of Australian political orthodoxy and went to the 2016 federal election promising to fund higher quality services by collecting more tax revenue. The Turnbull government is still so confused with how to deal with this ‘crazy brave’ decision that it recently commissioned Treasury to estimate how much additional revenue would be collected by Labor’s promise to abolish cash refunds for dividend imputation credits. Labor’s Chris Bowen greeted the Treasury modelling warmly, pointing out simply that it was nice to see that Treasury confirmed Labor’s own forecasts for all of the extra revenue Labor hoped to collect.

Labor’s political strategy rests on two key assumptions. The first is that it is possible to collect a lot more tax revenue without increasing most people’s tax rates. This seemingly impossible feat is actually quite simple in Australia for the simple reason that so many loopholes, concessions and carve outs were introduced to our tax system by Peter Costello that it is now possible to collect tens of billions of dollars in extra revenue by simply plugging the holes in the bucket. For example, abolishing the right to swap ‘spare’ imputation credits for cash isn’t a new idea; it simply restores the system to the way it worked until Costello changed it in 2000.

The same applies for the 50 per cent capital gains tax concession. Labor might expect to raise $3.5 billion by reducing the generosity of the tax break for capital gains but of course it was Costello who gave us the capital gains tax discount back in 1999. Similarly, it was Costello who decided to make all income from superannuation tax free, an idea so outrageously expensive and inequitable that both the Coalition and the ALP agree it needed to be wound back. Put simply the ALP has realised that it is good policy and good politics to collect a lot of extra revenue by winding back the expensive loopholes that deliver so much money to a small number of people.

The second key assumption behind Labor’s new economic and political strategy is that the Australian public are sick of being told that, after 27 years of economic growth, they still can’t expect to have high quality public services. Labor’s support for more revenue and their defence of the need for a strong publicly funded Medicare system were both key to their better than expected performance at the last election. In turn it is no accident that since then Labor has hardened both its support for services and its determination to collect the revenue to fund them.

Economic theory tells us that as people’s incomes rise their tastes are likely change. The classic textbook example is that as students leave uni and get a full-time job they are more likely to buy steak and less likely to buy sausages. Lots of things have changed as Australians' incomes have risen in the last 27 years. Australians now eat out far more often than they used to, they drive bigger cars, they drink fancier beers and wines and, of course, we treat ourselves with billions of dollars worth of bottled water.

But, for some reason, as we get richer and richer and spend more and more on luxurious water, we have been told that we ‘can’t afford’ to spend more on high quality health care, aged care, child care or public transport. Of course as some of the richest people in the world there is almost nothing that Australians ‘can’t afford’, including water at $10 per litre. But while we can, as a nation, afford to do almost anything we want we cannot afford to do everything we want. Which means that if we prioritise tax cuts for the biggest businesses and the wealthiest citizens we cannot spend as much on public services without running much larger deficits.

So, what should we do? Should we continue to increase our spending on bottled water or spend more on aged care instead? There are of course no right answers to such questions but, finally, at least we can have a democratic debate about what we want more of and what we want less of. If tax is the price we pay for a civilised society I, for one, am happy to buy a lot more of it. And if the so called conservatives want to buy less civilisation they should come clean about what they think will emerge in its place. There are no right answers in democracy, but it’s a relief to be finally asked some interesting questions.

Richard Denniss is the Chief Economist for The Australia Institute @RDNS_TAI