Australia has added 17 billionaires over the past year to reach a record 178, with combined wealth exceeding $686 billion, according to analysis by the anti-poverty organisation Oxfam. The report found their collective fortune grew by $25.67 billion in a year, equivalent to almost $50,000 a minute, based on the country’s latest published rich list. It also calculated that the 20 wealthiest individuals now hold more wealth than the poorest three million households.
Oxfam Australia’s chief executive, Jennifer Tierney, said the figures highlighted a widening gap between the wealthiest people and ordinary households, arguing there was something fundamentally wrong with a system in which extreme wealth kept climbing while many struggled to afford the basics. She welcomed recent budget measures to ease cost-of-living pressures and reform tax settings but said the government had not gone far enough, calling for a fairer approach to taxing extreme wealth to fund housing, health care and community support.
The report landed as the government pursued sweeping changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing and family trusts, a proposal that drew backlash from some investors and became the subject of a Senate inquiry. Under the plan, a longstanding discount on capital gains would be replaced from 2027 by one based on inflation, with investors always paying a minimum rate on their gains.
Not everyone shares Oxfam’s conclusions. Michael Stutchbury, of the Centre for Independent Studies, argued the country needed more billionaires rather than fewer, noting that the top 1 percent of taxpayers already contribute close to a fifth of personal tax revenue and that a high top marginal rate risks driving young entrepreneurs to lower-taxing economies such as the United States, Singapore or New Zealand. That, he said, would make the country a less attractive destination for the world’s wealth creators.
Others are more sceptical of the benefits. Roger Wilkins, a University of Melbourne economist, said it was hard to identify clear gains from the rising number of billionaires, contending that much of their wealth derives from economic rents in areas such as mining and property rather than innovative enterprise. He also warned that concentrated wealth can be used to influence policy and public debate, and argued that fostering competitive markets, where wealth stems from innovation rather than the capture of rents, was central to the nation’s long-term prosperity.
