In Parliament today, Abigail delivered a speech condemning the obscene and growing wealth of Australia's billionaires, arguing that taxing them could lift struggling families out of poverty, if only the Labor Government had the will to act.
Abigail said:
Australia now has 178 billionaires, 17 more than last year. That is an increase of more than 10 per cent, or almost 1½ new billionaires every month. In a year dominated by discussions of the cost of living, hard choices and financial struggles, between them the 178 Australian billionaires received an extra $25 billion, increasing their hoard to $686 billion. In the time since I started speaking, the private wealth of Australia's billionaires grew by $20,000. By the time I finish this speech, it will have grown by a quarter of a million dollars; by the end of the day, $72 million.
I will put that in perspective. If I were to count out loud to one billion without a break, it would take me 24 years. If those billionaires were surrounded by their cash, they would be incapable of counting it in their lifetimes. At the same time, right now 3.7 million people in Australia are living in poverty. Three-quarters of a million Australian children are living in poverty, unable to have their basic needs met. Countless parents this morning spent precious minutes of their time searching for an extra 50 cents to make up their kids' lunch order money. People across our country are struggling to make ends meet, angsting over how to juggle payments on this month's mortgage, energy bill and phone bill without getting cut off. One in three Australian households report they are skimping on food to make ends meet.
The $25 billion in additional private wealth extracted last year by Australia's billionaires could have covered the electricity bills for every single Australian household for that year. It could have lifted one million Australians out of poverty. That grotesque accumulation of wealth was not inevitable. It is the product of a system designed to reward the already wealthy and already powerful. But in a democratic country, it does not have to be that way. In Australia, the voters and not the billionaires still ultimately call the shots, and that means that the government of the day can—and should, if they know what is good for them—take active steps to reduce the power and influence of the uber-wealthy, redistribute that wealth and negate that power, because right now the 1 per cent are not just accumulating wealth; they are buying political power.
Every single person in poverty is a policy failure of the Government and a deliberate decision by the current Government to keep that person poor in favour of allowing extra wealth to accumulate to the already wealthy. Every political donation taken from those with extreme wealth is an endorsement by a political party of not just the economic status quo but also the power status quo. The 20 richest Australians now hold more wealth than the bottom three million households. Taxing just the extremely rich 1 per cent of Australians on their excess wealth could eliminate poverty in our country. We could fully fund dental and mental health through Medicare. We could properly fund the NDIS. We could ensure that every single person in our country gets a fair go. If the Labor Government will not deliver that, people will vote for a party that will. In Australia, the only party advocating for a fair distribution of our national wealth is The Greens. We have consistently argued for a fairer tax system and an end to the influence of large corporations and billionaires in our political system.
Read the transcript in Hansard here
3 June 2026