When Tony Abbott recently accused the Labor government's budget of being a foray into class warfare, he tried to make this sound like a dirty trick. But what's wrong with a little class warfare? Isn't it the job of an alleged workers' party to represent its less privileged constituents?

Labor was quick to deny the accusation, which tells us Abbott may have been on to something. The fact that Australia is a deeply divided nation is something most politicians are reluctant to admit publicly; for them, "class" is a dirty word.

Politicians are keen to avoid using this ultimate c-word because they don't want to be seen as being radical in their thinking. As soon as someone introduces the idea that some groups in Australia do better than others, it raises questions that don't come with easy answers.

Central to our national myth is the idea that we are an egalitarian nation. We are the land of the fabled fair go, where anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. We like to think of our nation as stable and prosperous, which helps to explain why most Australians describe themselves, when pushed, as middle class.

When Abbott cried class warfare he was basically accusing Labor of attempting to redress disadvantage - ironically, an ideology that's almost obsolete in Labor ranks.

Despite the illusion of prosperity, Australia carries deep and scandalous divides that can't be easily overcome. Often these come about as an accident of birth. As Kerry Packer once quipped, the trick to success is to be born with the right parents. Any wonder that many prominent business tycoons - Packer, Murdoch, Rinehart, Forrest, for example - all inherited wealth and connections. It doesn't take a genius to point out that a kid born to unemployed parents in public housing in the Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth, for instance, will not have the same life chances as a kid born into a business dynasty. That's the class system in a nutshell.

The life chances or opportunities of some social groups are very limited, and research conducted into Australian poverty paints a stark picture of the end result.

One in 10 Australians lives below the poverty line, according to statistics from the Australian Council of Social Services. Our poor cannot afford to feed or educate their children; they can't access housing, can't afford dental treatment and can't gain access to the services, goods and opportunities mainstream Aussies accept as standard. They get sick often and they die young.

Politicians such as Joe Hockey criticise welfare payments as fostering entitlement and, by implication, sloth. I can't help thinking it's a bit rich (pardon the pun) for a pollie earning about $231,000 a year to pass judgment on someone surviving on $235 a week.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics last year released a General Social Survey, providing information on people who had been homeless in the past. A staggering 2.1 million Australians reported having been homeless at some time in their lives, with relationship and financial problems the most common reason. That's 13 per cent of the population.

More alarmingly, the same survey determined that 251,000 people had experienced homelessness in the previous 12 months. Homelessness has become as significant a part of Australian culture as football or the Holden.

As a culture we assiduously avoid talking about social inequality - we prefer to embrace a narrative of how we are a land of luck and lifestyle opportunities, values worshipped in mainstream media (witness top-rating TV shows such as The Block and MasterChef). Australian historian and social commentator Mark Peel has written that future generations will be shocked by the callousness of a nation that ignored the growing inequalities between classes and generations. "They might ask why people in positions of influence chose to endorse and practise selfishness," he says.

Labor's efforts to introduce a national disability insurance scheme and a national dental scheme are fumbling steps towards recognising that our mining boom and concomitant national prosperity have not delivered much for most working people or pensioners.

Are such initiatives class warfare? Or are they just a prudent measure to ensure that democracy does its job and protects the vulnerable? It may not be a fashionable position, but it's a government's obligation to allocate resources to benefit those with less. Wealth redistribution is social justice - the foundation of any healthy society.

In looking for solutions, let's not copy the Americans, as we so often do. They tend to view taxation and government intervention (except that which benefits the wealthy) as godless communism. Just look at the immense difficulty they have had attempting to bring in a basic piece of civilisation such as a universal healthcare system. Thanks largely to its social-Darwinist version of capitalism, America now has an underclass that numbers more than 49 million. Many Americans think this is the natural order.

Poverty must never become the natural order in Australia, but it is far from abnormal in this land of plenty to find people struggling. If there is such a thing as class warfare it's the status quo, which rewards some social groups at the expense of others.

We tend to measure success in Australia by sporting achievements and the triumphs of prominent people in business. We need to become more sophisticated about how we define a successful, healthy society. Let's measure success by our willingness to redistribute wealth and provide a decent standard of living for all.

The Fair Go Has Fairly Gone