In the midst of an unprecedented mining boom that's creating more millionaires than ever before, rising standards of living and wealth, it is our dark little secret. The Australian of the Year Simon McKeon calls it the elephant in the room.

The prominent investment banker and corporate philanthropist says it's time to shine a light on the big end of town, and what is one of the uncomfortable truths about rich Australia - the lack of generous giving by our well-to-do.

And it begins with the startling fact that in a country where thousands of people earn seven-figure incomes and the richest 200 have built $200-million-plus fortunes, the greatest philanthropist isn't Australian, but a reclusive Irish-American who doesn't even live here.

Chuck Feeney, an 80-year old billionaire who has made his money with airport duty-free shops and gives it away to support health and social projects around the globe, has spent more than $500 million on charitable causes in Australia, mainly in medical research.

And while in the US, tycoons such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are donating the majority of their riches to charity, turning themselves into the Rockefellers and Carnegies of our age, little is heard of comparable commitments by the wealthiest people on our shores.

Fostering giving among the rich is a ''national challenge'', says McKeon, the executive chairman of Macquarie Bank's Melbourne office, who works part-time to pursue philanthropic interests such as the Global Poverty Project.

''I do feel that over the next few weeks it's time for me to elevate that issue. It starts with declaring that there is an elephant in the room: We really are not overly generous.''

The familiar photos of wealthy benefactors handing oversized cheques to charity just doesn't reflect the reality, activists say. While the nation tops a recent World Giving Index of 153 countries in terms of people's willingness to give money, volunteer and help strangers, and proves generous in tragedies such as the Queensland floods and Victorian bushfires, there's a growing sense the rich aren't pulling their weight.

Daniel Petre, an ex-Microsoft executive who worked alongside Gates and has focused on philanthropy after his return to Australia, believes the average worker gives away a larger proportion of their cash than the super-wealthy, ''and that is just appalling''.

''Our wealthy in Australia are morally bankrupt,'' he says. ''Generally speaking, they don't see a moral obligation to give generously to the society in which they've built their wealth.''

''The man who dies rich dies disgraced.'' Andrew Carnegie

It's a situation that puts us in marked contrast to the US, where philanthropy has become a cause celebre among the rich and famous.

Taking guidance from steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie's 1889 The Gospel of Wealth, which called on the affluent to support ''the masses of their fellows … to dignify their own lives,'' philanthropists there have been inspired by his suggestions of giving away their excess wealth during their lifetime, rather than leaving it to the kids, and using their business acumen to spend money on the common good.

The movement was taken to a new level last year, when the country's two richest men, Gates and Buffett, started their Giving Pledge, committing the majority of their wealth to charity and challenging other billionaires to do the same.

About 60 rich Americans have taken up the call, including the media mogul Michael Bloomberg, the corporate raider Carl Icahn and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The founders have been travelling to India and China to recruit some of those countries' nouveaux riches. And there is - unconfirmed - talk Gates may come to Australia later this year.

He'd find much potential to be tapped. Thanks to the mining boom and a budding recovery in financial markets, the number of millionaires in Australia bounced back by almost a third to 174,000 in 2009, holding a combined wealth of $US519 billion ($483 billion). In fact, there are more millionaires now than before the global financial crisis, according to the World Wealth Report published by CapGemini and Merrill Lynch.

Leading up to the crisis, ''people were amassing money far faster than what they were giving away'', found Wendy Scaife, a senior researcher at the Australian Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at the Queensland University of Technology. The dial hasn't changed: While rich people globally gave away between 3 and 11 per cent of their assets; in Australia that number was less than 2 per cent, she said.

McKeon says he was gobsmacked by tax statistics showing that of about 8000 Australians earning over $1 million, ''more than a third made no gift at all'' to charity, claiming not a single $2 tax deduction. ''That one I just don't get.''

Taxpayers claimed $2.1 billion in deductible gifts in 2008-09, down 10.8 per cent from the year before - the first drop in a decade, according to Australian Taxation Office data.

While the number of people overall who claimed gifts rose slightly, the value of donations fell. And the most dramatic decline occurred among the biggest donors claiming deductions of more than $25,000.

It's unclear whether the drop was a short-term blip after the global financial crisis, or a trend. But however you read the numbers - our super-rich are lagging behind: ''In Australia, some evidence suggests that giving at a higher level is something that may not be considered by wealthier Australians: it is a practice that is not widely seen or expected of them,'' Scaife and fellow researchers conclude in a February report on major giving.

Some see it more bluntly, such as the multimillionaire electronics retailer-turned-activist Dick Smith. ''In Australia, it is utter greed and selfishness. You can be very wealthy and be on the BRW Rich List and give nothing away,'' he laments.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

It's not like there aren't any impressive donors around. Former transport magnate Greg Poche is widely seen as the greatest domestic philanthropist, having given $40 million to the Mater Hospital in 2005 to kick-start the Melanoma Institute of Australia, a tumour cancer research centre. He has also spent more than $20 million on indigenous health.

The IT entrepreneur Steve Killelea set up the Charitable Foundation in 2000, which has become one of Australia's biggest private overseas aid providers. John Kinghorn, using funds from his $650 million windfall from listing RAMS Home Loans, has donated $25 million for the construction of the Garvan Institute's and St Vincent Hospital's new cancer research centre.

There have been donations to art, such as last year when the Melbourne property magnate John Gandel and his wife, Pauline, gave $7 million to the National Gallery of Australia. And some of the nation's mining magnates have also opened their wallets: Clive Palmer in 2008 pledged $100 million from his company to establish a new foundation for medical research in Western Australia and support indigenous communities.

The Fortescue Metals founder, Andrew Forrest, has given more than $90 million in shares and options to his trust for underprivileged children (although there was media speculation that tax deductions and falling stock prices might have shaved his net costs to a fraction). He transferred $50 million more shares to range of charities this week, and said he would step back to devote more time to philanthropy.

Yet talk to people involved in the sector, and they'll tell you these are notable exceptions, echoing again and again how there's just no ''culture of giving'' akin to the US, where wealth is not only defined by how much people own but how much they give.

While real estate and racehorses may be the talk of Sydney's dinner soirees, in New York and Boston it's the charities one supports, former expats such as Petre have observed. If you're wealthy in the US and don't give, you're seen as a social pariah - with peer pressure so high that even ''not very nice people'' give, he says.

And the ticket to the ball doesn't come cheap, with sizeable sums expected before one can call oneself a philanthropist. In contrast, Australian millionaires give away peanuts compared to their wealth and get publicity for being generous, the critics say.

''As a nation we have to understand that when a very wealthy person gives a million dollars away it sounds like a whole lot of money,'' McKeon says. ''But if it actually really is a tiny proportion of their wealth … is it right to really associate the word 'generous' with that level of giving? That's a sensitive discussion.''

THE QUIET CODE OF GIVING

So is Australia's elite really just a club of Scrooge McDucks?

People in the sector see various reasons why an American-style ''culture of giving'' has yet to take off. For one, much of the wealth here has been accumulated over the past four decades, compared to the long-held philanthropic traditions of US dynasties such as the Rockefellers.

Australia has no estate duty, or death tax, which could be a powerful trigger for the wealthy to give money to select causes during their lifetime, rather than let the state take it from their heirs. At the same time, there has been a greater reliance on government to provide welfare, with the notion that taxes paid should be enough to cover the bill. And some of our richest simply seem too busy expanding their empires to spend much time finding charitable causes. Take James Packer, who has yet to make any notable investments with the Packer Foundation he set up in 2006 after inheriting a $6 billion fortune from his late father, Kerry.

Yet a key factor in Australia's laggard status may be what Scaife calls the ''quiet code of giving'' - people making donations anonymously in fear of being lambasted for showing off or (perhaps rightly so) for seeking good publicity.

''The tall poppy syndrome is very much alive and well here and people tell us that if they were to talk about their giving publicly they in fact would be shunned.'' Scaife said it wasn't even clear how many foundations there were in Australia, with the latest estimate at about 5000.

The tall poppy syndrome is cited by many, including Deborah Seifert, the head of Philanthropy Australia, who says the US have a ''culture of giving then talking about it'', whereas here ''people have been much quieter about their giving especially in the high net-worth income band.''

But not everyone buys into the argument. ''I believe it's a myth, I believe they don't give,'' Smith says.

Petre argues such secret donations would have to be felt in tax statistics and charities' coffers. ''If you talk to any major charity and you say to them, are you getting in cheques in millions of dollars - no, they're not,'' he says. ''Sure there's pockets of people, but if it was happening at a great level you'd see the money flows.''

Valid or not, there's a growing sense donating needs to become more public to inspire major giving. Some call for philanthropist ranking lists to shame the stingy. Others take a more gentle approach.

The corporate adviser and philanthropist David Gonski, as chancellor of the University of NSW, asks the university's benefactors to make their donations public.

''I have a strong strong view that there are two parts to giving,'' he says. ''One is the money itself and the second thing is the example. If you're giving anonymously that's really a matter for the giver but it lacks the second part which is to set the example.''

''When Bill Gates started his foundation, that was very instructive to the world.''

RAISING THE BAR

And improvements have been made over the past years. ''There's substantial evidence that the wealthy in Australia are giving more than they ever have,'' said Andrew Thomas, the head of Perpetual's Philanthropic Services, which oversee over 450 charitable funds with $1.1 billion in holdings.

He believes comparisons with US statistics are imprecise because of the different tax treatments. Overall, tax-deductible giving has tripled over the past 10 years, he says.

The introduction of private ancillary funds (PAFs), earlier known as prescribed private funds, in 2001 has been a watershed, making it easier for people to set up tax-effective foundations. PAFs have to give away 5 per cent of their assets each year. At the peak of the sharemarket in 2007, about 160 new such funds were set up. Today, there are about 860 PAFS with a combined asset base of more than $2 billion.

Yet Peter Winneke, who helps families set up such structures as head of philanthropic services at the Myer Family Company, believes ''we have the wealth to have 8000''.

He calls for a widespread campaign to promote donations and dispel the myths of our generous nation.

''No one knows the stats,'' he says. ''Most don't even know the contributions made by this embarrassingly small sector in Australia.''

Lawyers, financial planners and tax advisers should be better educated about trust structures, and there should be giving targets such as donating 1.5 per cent of personal income, compared to the national average of 0.4 per cent, Winneke says.

Despite the shortfalls, he is optimistic for the sector: With baby boomers reaching the end of their wealth-creating years and looking to build a legacy, coupled with the mining bonanza, there could be a new wave of giving in Australia. The Myer Family Company just opened an office in Perth, hoping to tap WA's new jet set.

Activists are also hopeful the establishment of the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission next year to better regulate the sector - revealed in last month's budget - could play a key role in establishing trust in the sector.

But the biggest change agent yet may come from peer pressure, as brought on by Gates and Buffett's Giving Pledge. On our shores, Feeney has clearly raised the bar. Having donated more than $500 million through his trust, The Atlantic Philanthropies, mainly in Queensland, he's now seeking to build ''giving while living'' networks across the country, calling on philanthropists to pool their funds for large projects.

This year, he pledged $10 million to the University of NSW's Kirby Institute for infection and immunity in society for its new $80 million facilities - but only on condition that the federal and state governments and the university pay $60 million, and wealthy people donate the remaining $10 million. The university has so far raised about two-thirds of that from wealthy donors.

Call it philanthropic public private partnerships: Feeney hopes to create such networks of rich people in each state and territory by 2015.

''We need examples, people like Feeney,'' Gonski says.

Seeking to inspire a culture of giving on our shores, McKeon is keen to bring American philanthropists here to network and be role models. ''Something is happening in the US that is simply not happening here and it's on a scale that we've never seen before,'' he says.

He plans to use his clout as Australian of the Year pursuing the ''elephant in the room'', meeting with fellow philanthropists such as Smith and seeking to elevate the issue in a speech at the National Press Club next week.

Ultimately, McKeon believes the rich need to realise it's not just about parting with their money but enriching their lives even further.

''I'm saying, do you really want to die as someone who may have established an amazing business … but you had the opportunity to go even further again and without any great expectation to get anything back to give, to give, to give? Because that is a special feeling which unfortunately not that many seriously wealthy Australians have ever experienced.''