Australia has 48 billionaires who hold more wealth than the bottom 40 per cent of the population combined, a new report by Oxfam Australia has found.
It says that with eight new billionaires added to Forbes’s Australian billionaires list since 2020, they are now wealthier than almost 11 million Australians, with more than one third of those — or 3.7 million people — living in poverty according to the latest Poverty in Australia 2025 report by the Australian Council of Social Service and UNSW.
And it is a global trend, Oxfam asserts, with the number of billionaires around the world passing 3,000 for the first time, with a combined wealth of $27.7 trillion. That figure is based on Forbes’s global list of billionaires.
The report, Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Defending Freedom Against Billionaire Power, calls for a net wealth tax on the richest 0.5 per cent of households, with tax rates higher in line with increased wealth.
The Swiss ski resort of Davos hosts the 56th edition of the World Economic Forum this week. (Reuters: Denis Balibouse)
Its release coincides with Monday’s opening of the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The five-day event — the 56th edition — will host more than 3,000 participants from 130 countries, including 65 heads of state.
A 5 per cent wealth tax on Australia’s billionaires just last year could have raised $17.4 billion, Oxfam says, enough to deliver cheap childcare for all families, extend energy bill relief for another two years, and increase the humanitarian budget almost seven times over.
Oxfam Australia CEO Jennifer Tierney said what the organisation was advocating for was a “stronger tax system”.
“Adding an additional 5 per cent to the tax would mean another $17 billion for … things like childcare and housing … as one in three Australians has faced food insecurity over the last year,” Ms Tierney told the ABC.
“The gap between those doing it toughest and those benefiting most is stark, and well evidenced.”
Billionaire wealth in Australia is growing by almost $600,000 a day, Oxfam said.
Jennifer Tierney says the organisation is advocating for a “stronger tax system”. (Supplied: Oxfam)
Concerns over democracy threatened
Ms Tierney said there was a correlation between inequity and inequality in a country and the vibrancy of its democracy.
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“The more and more the wealthy control politics or have influence over politics, the erosion partly because people push back and rise up and understand that they’re not actually benefiting from the system that the government is putting in place.
“There becomes a tension and a lack of trust in democracy.”
The report also notes the second US presidency of Donald Trump has come at the same time as a rapid rise in billionaires worldwide.
Billionaire fortunes have grown three times faster than the average annual rate in the previous five years since the electoral victory of Donald Trump in November 2024, it said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, who was integral to Mr Trump’s campaign success and the first weeks of the president’s second term — became the first billionaire to briefly surpass half a trillion dollars, the report found.
South African-born Elon Musk, who promised massive cuts in US federal spending, is the world’s richest man. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)
“Whilst US billionaires have seen the sharpest growth in their fortunes, billionaires in the rest of the world have also seen double-digit increases,” the report said.
“Actions of the Trump presidency, including the championing of deregulation and undermining agreements to increase corporate taxation, have benefited the richest around the world.”
Enjoying abundant riches meant greater access to power, Oxfam says, with billionaires estimated to be 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens around the world.
The super rich are then able, it argued, to shape the rules of our economies and societies to their greater financial benefit, sometimes to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of people around the world.
It also argues economic inequality plays a major role in the erosion of rights and political freedoms.
Calls to end property tax breaks
In addition to a wealth tax, Oxfam is calling for a phasing out of negative gearing to close loopholes that allow wealthy individuals pay less tax — plus an end to capital gains tax discounts for individuals and trusts.
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The capital gains tax discount is a 50 per cent discount on the tax paid when people sell an asset, like a property, if they have held that asset for more than 12 months.
Negative gearing is the ability to deduct losses on an asset (such as expenses associated with renting out an apartment) from other taxable income, which allows people to lower their tax.
The introduction of the discount coincided with a rapid increase in the use of negative gearing because, together, they encourage investment in property to secure capital gains that are taxed at concessional rates while also enabling investors to deduct losses.
The report also found that the wealth divide had increased dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“In 2022, nearly half of the world population (48 per cent), or 3.83 billion people, lived in poverty,” the report said.
