‘Obscene’: Australia’s billionaires boosted wealth by $82m daily, as Aussies support a tax on the rich, Oxfam says

Australia’s richest people are becoming nauseatingly more wealthy, increasing their collective wealth by 70 per cent since the pandemic began.

That equates to roughly $82 million per day since 2020, new Oxfam analysis shows.

The wealth gap is widening and 76 per cent of Australians reported feeling concerned about the staggering inequality in YouGov polling commissioned by Oxfam.

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Globally, the richest 1 per cent of the world’s population have hoarded an additional $45 trillion in the past decade.

Australia is currently home to 159 billionaires with a combined wealth of $591.31 billion, according to “The List” published annually in The Australian.

The three Aussies who topped that list — Gina Reinhart, Andrew Forrest and Harry Triguboff — doubled their collective wealth during the pandemic at a rate of $1.5 million per hour, Oxfam found.

Comparatively, for the poorer half of the world’s population, wealth grows by an average of 9c a day per person.

“Inequality in Australia and across the globe has reached obscene levels and, until now, governments have failed to protect people and the planet from its catastrophic effects,” Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgain said.

“The richest 1 per cent of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs.”

The analysis comes as global financial leaders from Brazil, South Africa and France prepare to support a groundbreaking global deal — to be tabled at the November G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro — to increase taxes on the world’s richest.

“This week is the first real litmus test for G20 governments. 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?” Morgain said.

In Australia, 74 per cent of the nation support a wealth tax on those with more than $50 million, according to the YouGov polling.

And 64 per cent of polled Aussies believe the proceeds from that tax should be directly used to reduce inequality.

The world’s richest are currently paying a tax rate equivalent to less than 0.5 per cent of their wealth, Oxfam said.

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