Christmas is almost here but it's all take. No spirit of giving is encouraged in our society. Children are shoved in front of the default child minder - endless TV episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine and other cartoons.

They grow older and spend all their time on computer games, then hit adolescence and view the world through another prism, the smart phone. Texting, sexting and bullying.

By the time they're ready for the adult world it's a quest for the pleasures of what life can do for you; not what you can do for life.

From that moment it's no giving way at roundabouts; pulling out from the curb without looking; expecting traffic with right-of-way to brake and slow down. Fly into a red-faced road-rage if they don't.

Storm on to a freeway and push in from an access ramp; run down other vehicles where two lanes become one; tailgate, just because the other guy did. Don't dip high beam and tailgate P-platers and learners when you know they're legally stuck on 80km/h.

Goodwill and generosity are now such unusual events that people take the time to mention these occurrences in newspaper letters or on social media.

The modern elected representative is a poor example. At all three levels of government they plot, scheme and grab power when they can. Parliament is a cacophony of spite, feigned anger and conspiracy. Hate is a common characteristic.

The church's reputation is in tatters over the scourge of paedophile clergy, spread over generations of evil hypocrisy.

If the church is so tainted by its own failure of duty of care and selfish cover-ups then naturally the whole church suffers and loses influence and effectiveness as a pastoral utility.

When civil order becomes so undermined by institutional failures the individual's reaction understandably becomes overwhelmingly self serving.

Road rage proliferates. Domestic violence blooms. Bullying permeates a world of hate, spite, selfishness and narcissism.

Elite contact sport has degenerated into a world of luxury, petulance and poor sportsmanship. A thump or a whack behind play on TV is good enough for a thump and whack in the school yard.

In a moral vacuum of this magnitude genuine refugees haven' t got a chance. The homeless will stay homeless. Welfare refuge centres like Anglicare, Centrecare and the Salvos will struggle.

Public donations are tax deductible. There's the catch to our cynical generosity, and no one believes it all goes towards the good cause.

If the proverbial young single mum is fat, smokes, does drugs and drinks, with five kids in tow she doesn't deserve welfare. No thought of how she could get a physical hand up so that her kids get a chance.

Merry Christmas. It's hard to imagine how it could be turned around. Most parents dismiss the "system" as a pecking order based on who you know and not what you know.

Joe Hockey's first budget could have been a model for ending entitlement at all levels of society and spreading the load, so that we contributed towards better managed finances according to our means.

It could have meant our money better spent, but apart from the polemics, the budget was a huge lost opportunity. Conservatives looking after conservatives.

When the federal budget fails the fairness test you have a problem.

Perhaps we are destined to track our American cousins into a Mad Max consumer society of dog eat dog; rob or be robbed and scam or be scammed.