As federal public servants and key ministers are crafting the May budget, University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten put forward a proposal last week which illustrates virtually all the unfairness and weakness in the Australian taxation system and economy generally.

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It comes after another proposal on tax from the Superpower Institute.

Shorten has called for a 1 per cent levy on company profits to fund universities. The Superpower Institute has called for a tax of $90 per tonne of emissions on big fossil-fuel companies and a "fair share" tax on gas profits accompanied by generous compensation for the flow-on price increases.

These could be easily dismissed as just tax grabs, but they neatly address the major economic distortions and intergenerational unfairness that has slowly crept into the system.

Shorten says that government squeezing of universities has made them rely more and more upon international students - "a morphine drip".

It has also made universities concentrate on research (where the grants are) at the expense of quality undergraduate teaching to the detriment of local and international students alike.

Universities have become more like big corporations and their vice-chancellors more like highly paid CEOs.

The international students are attracted by the possibility of permanent residency as much as the education. That in turn has led to more pressure on housing and infrastructure generally.

Also, Australian students are paying far more for their degrees through HECS loans than in the past. It was 20 per cent in 1989 and is now 90 per cent.

As HECS is administered by the tax system, it amounts to a great big extra tax on young people. Shorten's proposal would shift about $5 billion a year of that burden to companies and their shareholders in the form of lower fees.

The lower fees, one hopes, would mean that graduating professionals, particularly medical ones, would be less concerned with charging more to recoup the cost of their degrees.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his colleagues should take notice. Chalmers has spoken about intergenerational fairness and substantial reform.

You would think that with a massive House of Representatives majority, an easy path through the Senate, an Opposition in disarray, and more than two years before the next........

© The Examiner