Wealth of three richest Australians has doubled since 2020 as cost-of-living pressures continue to bite
New analysis has revealed the combined wealth of Australia’s richest individuals has more than doubled since 2020, while everyday Aussies continue to be lashed with cost-of-living pressures.
The Oxfam report found Australia’s three richest people – mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest, and real estate developer Harry Triguboff – now earn a staggering rate of $1.5 million per hour – more than double the 2020 rate.
The total wealth of Australian billionaires increased by more than 70 per cent since 2020, while globally the wealth of billionaires grew three times faster than the inflation rate.
Meanwhile, global poverty rates remain at pre-pandemic levels.
The release of the Oxfam report comes as the human rights organisation calls for the Australian government to consider urgent tax reform, including scrapping the incoming stage three tax cuts and implementing a windfall profits tax.
Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgain said the statistics detailed in the report are a marker of “alarming and growing” wealth disparity.
“At the same time as billionaires are hoarding more wealth, rocketing cost-of-living pressures mean that everyday Australians are being forced to cut back on food for their families and heating and cooling for their homes, just to keep their heads above water,” Morgain said.
“We cannot accept a society that promotes the gross accumulation of wealth alongside widespread global poverty.
“One of the best mechanisms we have to address this is progressive taxation.”
Morgain issued an urgent warning for all governments, including the Australian government to combat growing wealth distribution.
Scrapping the stage three cuts, Oxfam said, is essential to prevent increasing inflation and inequality.
The stage three tax cuts, which are set to come into effect in July 2024, will alter the tax bracket system by abolishing the 37 per cent tax bracket and cutting the 32.5 per cent bracket to 30 per cent.
This will mean Australians earning $45,000-$200,000 will sit in the newly created middle tax rate of 30 per cent – effectively meaning high-income earners will pay less tax.
Oxfam said the change will “deepen inequality, increase inflation and fail to respond to the current challenges of the cost-of-living crisis for low and middle-income households”.
The charity is simultaneously calling for a progressive wealth tax of two to five per cent on Australian multi-millionaires and billionaires, which it said could generate more than $32 billion each year.
It believes the revenue could be used to build more than 75,000 houses annually to address the nation’s housing crisis.
“Across the globe, we have begun a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the perilous economic shock of the pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom,” Morgain said.
Oxfam said a permanent windfall profits tax would prevent big corporations from profiteering from global crises after research revealed 722 mega-corporations, including Woolworths, Santos and Woodside, raked in $1.5 trillion a year in windfall profits during the covid pandemic.
Ending fossil fuel subsidies, which made up for $11.1 billion in government spending last year, could also be harnessed to put toward the climate crisis, Oxfam said.
