1 Trends in Fiscal Incidence and Economic Inequality in Australia Alan Tapper John Curtin Institute of Public Policy Curtin University, Perth, Australia September 8–9, 2016 Abstract This paper presents a picture of the Australian welfare state through nearly three decades of economic policy change. Three kinds of trend are tracked. The first is fiscal incidence, i.e. household taxes and social expenditure in both cash and kind. The main metric is “net benefits”, with household types being classified by income quintile and by age. The second is economic inequality, as measured by the distribution of “final incomes” and net worth. The third is the performance of the labour market, as measured by earned incomes and unemployment. The paper concludes with an attempt to integrate the evidence into a single picture.