Australia’s wealthiest people made a collective $120 billion in four years, while the fortunes of the world’s ultra-rich grew by $42 trillion over a decade , according to new analysis from Oxfam.
The charity said on Thursday that it amounted to a 70.5 per cent increase in the fortunes of Australia’s billionaires since 2020, and equated to their wealth growing by about $82.2 million a day.
Oxfam did not specify how many local billionaires it believes there are, although The Australian newspaper’s Richest 250 published in March reported there were 159.
Meanwhile, the world’s richest 1 per cent had increased their wealth by a total of $42 trillion over the past decade, Oxfam said.
It said that the $42 trillion figure was nearly 36 times more than the wealth accumulated by the poorer half of the world’s population.
The analysis was released ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers this week, where they are expected to discuss measures targeting the ultra-wealthy, including how to stop tax avoidance among billionaires. Australia is a member of the G20.
The proposal is due to be fiercely debated at the summit on Thursday and Friday, with France, Spain, South Africa, Colombia, and the African Union in favour, while the United States is firmly against.
Oxfam dubbed it a “real litmus test for G20 governments”, urging them to implement an annual net wealth tax of at least 8 per cent on the “extreme wealth” of the super-rich.
“Momentum to increase taxes on the super-rich is undeniable,” Oxfam International’s head of inequality policy, Max Lawson, said.
“Do they have the political will to strike a global standard that puts the needs of the many before the greed of an elite few?”
Oxfam dubbed it a “real litmus test for G20 governments”, urging them to implement an annual net wealth tax of at least eight percent on the “extreme wealth” of the super-rich.
“Momentum to increase taxes on the super-rich is undeniable,” said Oxfam International’s head of inequality policy, Max Lawson.
“Do they have the political will to strike a global standard that puts the needs of the many before the greed of an elite few?”
Nearly four out of five of the world’s billionaires call a G20 nation home, Oxfam noted.
Oxfam Australia CEO Lyn Morgain said inequality had “reached obscene levels” in Australia and across the world.
“The richest 1 per cent of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs,” she said in a statement.
A recent report by global financial services firm UBS found but remains below average when compared to other Asia-Pacific countries.
It found that while Australia’s average wealth had increased 10 per cent year-on-year in 2023, median wealth only increased by about half as much, suggesting wealth in lower socioeconomic brackets rose more slowly than in the higher ones.
Tax rates on the richest have been cut by nearly a third in G20 countries in the last four decades, according to Oxfam’s analysis.
This week, rising housing costs and the soaring cost of living were linked by researchers to and declining fertility rate.
The number of births in 2023 dropped to 289,100 — the lowest annual total since 2006, analysis from KPMG Australia revealed.
With reporting by the Australian Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
