The finger wharf at Woolloomooloo is 43 kilometres from the centre of Mount Druitt, but it might as well be a different country. At Kingsleys Steakhouse, where John Singleton and and Jack Cowin got physical over lunch on Monday, a scotch fillet will set you back $42, and the famed Rosé starts at $44 a bottle.

"It was a long lunch," Mr Cowin, a director of Fairfax Media, reportedly said. "You know how these things go."

But some commentary around the foreshore fracas has posed the question: what if Singo was on Struggle Street instead of easy street? What if the antagonists were poor and Indigenous instead of white millionaires?

Similar remarks were made after billionaire James Packer and Nine Entertainment chief David Gyngell's brawl in Bondi a year ago. "We will find out soon enough if our two-law system - one for the rich and one for the rest - is rammed down our throats yet again," wrote the Herald's Paul Sheehan at the time. Both men ultimately avoided criminal charges but were issued $500 infringement notices for offensive behaviour.

Singleton used a purposely broken drinking glass. If he was poor or economically ordinary he'd have been charged by now. #singo #glassing— Damien Millar (@damienmillar) May 12, 2015

If you thought Struggle Street showed entrenched dysfunction, consider the drinking, violence, AVO and fast food dependence at Singo's table— Erik Jensen (@ErikOJensen) May 12, 2015

Honestly, these dysfunctional communities.... pic.twitter.com/vvlNLtHgy4— Ben Wyatt MLA (@benwyatt) May 11, 2015

Police have confirmed they are investigating the Singleton/Cowin incident, and commentators have weighed in to say that justice must be done. Gold Logie winning host of The Block, Scott Cam, told KIIS FM charges should be laid. "Glassing is the worst thing anyone can do at a pub," he said - although it does not appear Singleton did any more than threaten Cowin with a broken wine glass.

There are also key legal differences between these elite bust-ups and the sort of assault that might lead to a poor, marginalised person being incarcerated, lawyers told Fairfax Media. For one, the two cases lack a victim willing to co-operate with police and seek redress against their attacker. In Mr Cowin's case, it is not even clear that an assault has occurred.

Barrister and Fairfax Media columnist Charles Waterstreet said police were keen to catch and charge high-flyers when they could. Indeed, he believes Mr Packer and Mr Gyngell copped fines because of their public profiles, not in spite of it. "[But] it's harder to get the evidence if high-flyers don't co-operate, which they have a right to do," he said.

Part of the discrepancy between classes was that wealthier and better-educated individuals were typically more aware of their legal rights and had access to lawyers who could advise them to remain silent, Mr Waterstreet said. Without the co-operation of the victim, charges would "very rarely" be laid in an affray case, he said.

This was also a factor in Australia's high Indigenous incarceration rate, he said, because many Aboriginal Australians were "totally uninformed" about their rights and intimidated by police. Unemployment and feelings of uselessness and alienation also played major roles in the high number of Indigenous people in Australian jails, he said.

In 2014, there were 3220 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people imprisoned around the country for "acts intended to cause injury", compared to 3827 people of non-Indigenous background. Assaults are the leading cause of Aboriginal imprisonment - almost 35 per cent of Indigenous people in jail were there for that category of offence, compared to 15.7 per cent for non-Indigenous people.

Last year Australia recorded its highest Indigenous incarceration rate in 10 years, with 2174.5 prisoners for every 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. Nationwide, Indigenous people were imprisoned at a ratio of 9.5 to 1 - the figure was 15.6 to 1 in Western Australia, 8 to 1 in NSW and 7.3 to 1 in Victoria.

Lauren Rosewarne, a senior lecturer in social and political science at the University of Melbourne, said the public often perceives violence as the domain of the poor, the disadvantaged and ethnic minorities. Incidents such as the Singleton/Cowin "fight" should show this is not the reality, she said.

"Poor people don't tend to have a voice in public life. Rich people don't tend to have a place on the crime pages," she said.

"Rich people commit violent crime and they commit domestic violence and they beat each other. The difference is there are ways for them to keep such stories out of the media."

Both cases illustrated that the consequences of masculinity crossed the class divide, Dr Rosewarne said. "This is about men being thuggish. That has no socio-economic basis. That's just the gendered nature of violent crime."

Mr Waterstreet said Monday afternoon's Rosé rumble also underlined the pernicious role of alcohol as an instigator of violence, no matter the social setting or class denomination.

"Fights break out when alcohol's involved, rich and small. It's only the quality of the alcohol - not the quality of the fight - that follows," he said.

"Maybe there should be a lockout in Woolloomooloo wharf, perhaps after one in the afternoon."