Australia’s billionaires are getting phenomenally richer at the same time. Household financial insecurity This growth sharply contradicts the deepening financial crisis many households are experiencing. Gina Rinehart, the richest woman in the world, controls the Australian mining industry. She’s worth an estimated $38.1 billion, earning her the number one position on the Australian Financial Review (AFR) Rich List for the sixth year in a row.
On that measure, the wealth gap has grown by an extraordinary 202 percent. Today, the average Rich Lister has more than 116,000 times the wealth of an average Australian in the bottom half. This untenable disparity begs the question of how long and how justly these types of economic structures can persist.
Harry Triguboff ranked as Australia’s second-richest person, after Rinehart. He is the country’s largest property developer. His personal fortune increased from $13.7 billion in 2016 to a staggering $29.7 billion by 2025. His accomplishments are a testament to the lucrative world of property development. This industry along with retail and investments has driven the Australian poverty machine over the last decade, accumulating wealth for Australia’s one percent.
The figures are staggering. Billionaires’ fortunes have exploded by an astounding $95,000 per minute since the pandemic began. That all adds up to more than $137 million a day for the last 10 years! Despite this astounding predominantly double-digit growth, millions of Australians do it tough and can’t afford the cost of living. The median personal income in Australia is just $55,062 a year. This photograph powerfully underscores the incredible inequality that exists in our nation both between ordinary Australians and between the super wealthy.
With our concurrent housing affordability crisis acting as an aggravator, these cracks have only spread and widened. And just 0.7 percent of rental listings are affordable to someone working a full-time minimum wage job. For families who have no alternative to two minimum wage earners, a scant 12.8 percent of rental units are affordable and available.
Economic equality advocate Chrisanta Muli shared her thoughts about the dangerous state of today’s wealth distribution.
“It is scandalous and unjust that property continues to be one of the biggest drivers of wealth across the decade while over 99 percent of rentals are unaffordable for people earning a full-time minimum wage.” – Chrisanta Muli
Muli pressed home the point that this wealth concentration is a symptom of systemic failures in the economy.
“Any billionaire is a sign that our economic system isn’t working properly.” – Chrisanta Muli
We can no longer overlook the social costs of increasing inequality. Muli cautioned that this trend is creating serious economic and social hazards.
“This level of inequality is not just morally wrong — it’s economically and socially dangerous. While millions of Australians are struggling to make ends meet, the country’s richest continue to amass eye-watering fortunes, often without lifting a finger.” – Chrisanta Muli
The experience of ordinary Australians could not be further from the gilded life of our nation’s billionaires. As wealth accumulates at the top, millions find it increasingly difficult to put food on the table or secure affordable housing.
The recent conversation around wealth taxation has resonated as a way to help solve these disparities. Climate experts and advocates have long called for a small, progressive wealth tax on the top one percent. This tax would raise tens of billions of dollars per year, delivering much-needed resources to social and physical infrastructure benefiting low-income households.
