Number of Australian billionaires more than doubles in 10 years, turbocharging inequality

Oxfam Australia Media Release

The number of Australian billionaires has more than doubled over the past decade, rising from 74 in 2015 to 161 in 2025, according to Oxfam Australia analysis of the Australian Financial Review Rich List.

Number crunching also revealed that in the same period, billionaire wealth grew on average by more than $137 million per day, or $95,000 per minute.

In light of these staggering figures, the anti-poverty organisation is renewing its call for urgent tax reform to address rampant inequality and ensure that Australia’s wealthiest contribute their fair share.

Oxfam analysis also uncovered:

• The total wealth of Australia’s richest 200 people has surged by 160% to $667.8 billion in the past decade.

• The average Rich Lister has over 116,000 times the wealth of an Australian in the bottom 50%.
• Over the last 10 years, property has been the most frequent source of wealth accumulation for Australia’s richest, followed by retail, investments and mining/resources.

As the wealth of Australia’s richest continues to grow, Australians face the worst housing crises in recent memory. Young people are being locked out of the housing market due to high prices, 99.3% of rentals are unaffordable for people earning a full-time minimum wage, and on any given night, 122,494 people in Australia are experiencing homelessness.

The average wealth of someone in the bottom 50% of the wealth spectrum has flatlined across the decade, averaging $28,000, and leaving them with little prospect of home ownership. At the same time, Australia’s largest property developer, Harry Triguboff, has seen his wealth double, from $13.7 billion in 2016 to $29.7 billion in 2025. His current wealth could buy over 30,000 average Australian homes.

Dr. Chrisanta Muli, Oxfam Australia Acting Chief Executive said this level of inequality was morally wrong, while many Australians are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.

“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.

“It is scandalous and unjust that property continues to be one of the biggest drivers of wealth across the decade while over 99% of rentals are unaffordable for people earning a full-time minimum wage.”

Oxfam welcomes the proposed reform to reduce the tax discounts on superannuation above $3 million as an important step forward in reducing the growing inequality in our society.

“The single most urgent, structural, and strategic action that the Australian government can take now is to rapidly and radically reduce the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society,” said Dr. Muli.

“We cannot allow billionaire wealth to continue to rise unchecked while two million Australian households struggled to put food on the table, families skip meals and struggle to pay their bills.”

“To improve the integrity of our progressive tax system, we want to see superannuation and other tax loopholes closed for big corporations and the richest 1%. This is the most effective tool we have to ensure a more fair and equal society. When tax loopholes are closed for the wealthiest, there will be more money in the budget for healthcare, affordable housing, action on climate change and ending poverty,” she said.

Oxfam is calling on the Australian government and all political parties to take bold action, including:

• Conducting a review of the tax system to examine how we can better tax wealth accumulation by the super-rich to tackle inequality and raise the revenue needed to address the budget structural deficit and better invest in public services.

• Introducing a tax on the wealth of Australia’s richest 1%, which could raise tens of billions of dollars per year in revenue.
• Implementing a permanent excess profits tax to stop large corporations from profiteering during emergencies like pandemics, wars and climate disasters.

 

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