Oxfam Australia, a part of the worldwide charity network, has highlighted a stark disparity in wealth distribution, revealing that 48 billionaires possess more financial resources than the lowest 40 percent of Australians. This bottom tier encompasses nearly 11 million of the nation’s 27 million residents.

In the past year, the fortunes of these billionaires swelled by a combined $10.5 billion, illustrating a significant uptick in their financial assets.

Take Triguboff as an example; his wealth increase alone was sufficient to finance the construction of 10,600 new homes.

This report echoes a broader global pattern where the combined wealth of the world’s 3,000 billionaires surged by 16 percent, reaching an unprecedented $27.7 trillion last year.

Meanwhile, Oxfam reports that over 3.7 million Australians are grappling with poverty, underscoring the growing economic divide.

One in three households was found to have faced food insecurity last year, which meant they either stressed about or struggled to put food on the table.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Jennifer Tierney said rising billionaire wealth exposed a failing system.

“The gap between those doing it toughest and those benefiting most is stark, and well evidenced.”

Oxfam called on the Australian government to reduce the gap by reforming the tax system to effectively tax billionaires, including ending the capital gains tax discount and phasing out negative gearing.

Greens treasury spokesperson, Nick McKim, who is chairing a Senate inquiry into the capital gains tax discount, agreed that Labor needed to make billionaires pay their fair share.

“The Oxfam report shows exactly what’s broken in our economy,” he said.

“While renters and working people are doing it tough, billionaires are pocketing more than half a million dollars a day, turbo-charged by tax breaks like the capital gains tax discount.

“Ending handouts to the extreme wealthy would free up billions for housing, cost-of-living relief and the services Australians rely on.”

Research by national housing campaign Everybody’s Home has found the federal government was losing tens of billions of dollars each year in forgone revenue through negative gearing deductions and the capital gains tax discount.

But federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled out any changes to negative gearing or the capital gains tax discount after Labor’s promises of tax reform cost the party at the 2016 and 2019 elections.