The rich get richer: Australia is at risk of becoming an inheritocracy
It's been a little over a year since I last said this, but once again, there is a record number of billionaires in Australia. According to the Australian Financial Review' s annual Rich List, which names the 200 wealthiest Australians, our island nation is now home to 161 billionaires.
Compared to last year's 150 billionaires, that's a growth rate of 7 per cent over just 12 months. Compared to the first Rich List, which was published in 1984, it's even more staggering. That list had just two people with the equivalent wealth of $1 billion in today's money.
Each year's list always makes for interesting reading. In part because it's a pervy way of knowing more about notoriously private people, sure. But mostly because it tells us a lot about the state of personal wealth in Australia. And while this year's list is no exception, the picture it paints is far from idyllic.
Some of the main takeaways from this year's list: there are only 10 new names from last year's, which makes the list's entry rate just 5 per cent. For comparison, in 2000, there were 40 new entries.
It's also worth noting that only one of the 10 new entrants is a woman, and women comprise just 21 per cent of the total list of 200 (42 people). The most remarkable name among the newcomers list, though, is easily Michael Dorrell, the founder of investment firm Stonepeak, who not only made the top 200 for the first time, but made his way to No.7 with a personal wealth of $13.8 billion.
Then there's the fact that the 'poorest' person on the list has a personal wealth of $747 million. Meanwhile, the richest person in Australia, Gina Rinehart, has a whopping $38.11 billion. She's also held the top spot for six years running.
Collectively, the wealth of these top 200 Australians comes to a combined $667 billion. That's 20 per cent of Australia's GDP. And did I mention that while the rest of us struggled through the cost-of-living crisis that feels never ending, the group's wealth grew by a cool 6.9 per cent compared with last year?
Perhaps most significantly, though, is the analysis of economist Reuben Finighan, which looked at 40 years' worth of Rich Lists (from 1984 to 2024) and compared them in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Here, he found that the spoils of the wealthiest 200 Australians grew 7.7 times faster than per capita wealth over those four decades.
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