Billionaire mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest thinks that the payments of 2.5 million welfare recipients need to be “managed” to prevent them from buying things like alcohol and tobacco.

Described as a “can-do” man, Forrest has really gone the extra mile and put together a massive document – the Creating Parity report – outlining a path to a better Australia.

Strangely, as comprehensive as his report is, Forrest doesn’t tackle the problem of Australia’s biggest welfare bludgers – mining bosses. In the past six budgets alone, the mining industry has collected $17.6 billion in handouts from government, according to research from the Australia Institute.

There is no proposal to quarantine the welfare of those companies. If Twiggy really is the “hard yakka” man he claims to be, he’d surely agree that this just isn’t right.

 These are tough times, folks, and tough times call for tough love.

So as an initial measure, I suggest that those on corporate welfare have their access to alcohol (Grange) and tobacco (cigars) restricted unless they meet some basic mutual obligation requirements.

Let’s start with education. I’d suggest weekly classes run by the traditional owners of any Aboriginal country they want to live in or exploit.

What about work? Those on corporate welfare should be expected to work for their dole.

Such a change will be hard for the billionaires, many having never worked a day in their life. The program is predicted, however, to teach them something about the real world.

Failure to meet these obligations would cut off their welfare. I’m certain that Twiggy would agree this is only fair.