Singapore started earlier with national pension schemes - the caning laws and extreme policing aside, the financials of Singapore and support for the population through jobs and life is worth a serious look.

Australia has the 1907 Harvester case that set minimum wage to be indexed at a level which would supposedly allow an unskilled labourer to support a wife and three children, to feed, house, and clothe them. By the 1920s it applied to over half of the Australian workforce. It became known as the ‘basic wage’.

That's been tweaked since, but it still carries weight in wage setting and goes a long way to explaining a lack of tipping culture in Australia.