Labor’s ‘inequality’ claim shot down

Australian Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been repeating the line that inequality is at a 75-year hight. Picture: AAP

Inequality is not at a 75-year high, according to the author of Australia’s largest economic and lifestyle survey, which showed declines in real household disposable income and plummeting rates of home ownership.



The University of Melbourne Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia study showed a typical household’s real disposal income was $76,200 in 2015, down from $77,400 in 2009, while home ownership rates have fallen from 36 per cent in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2015.

However, study author and Melbourne Institute deputy director Roger Wilkins said although the news was grim, it did not back up Labor leader Bill Shorten’s oft-repeated claim that inequality is at a 75-year high.

“I would push back a bit against that very broad sweeping statement that inequality is at a 75-year high, not just because if anything inequality looks like it’s been edging downwards since the GFC, but also because 75 years ago we didn’t have Medicare, we had a much less progressive income tax system, so I think when you take a broader look at the distribution of economic wellbeing across the community, I think Australia is a more equal place than it was even 40 years ago,” Professor Wilkins told Sky News.

Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said the HILDA figures confirmed Labor’s message about growing inequality, particularly among middle and working class families.

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“What we’re seeing is a widening gap between the very rich in our society, and those people who are earning their capital from their hard work,” Mr O’Connor told ABC radio.

“What we’ve seen over time, while it’s fair to say that we’ve had a good story over 25 years about economic growth and uninterrupted growth, there’s been this widening gap and people are feeling that they are being left behind. There’s some very obvious statistics.

“You can stand back and look at, for example, the latest GDP figures that show employees are now receiving 51.5 per cent of income, which is now the lowest in more than 50 years.

“You can see the minimum wage 20 years ago was 63 per cent of the median wage. It’s now down to 53 per cent of the median wage.

“So this gap is widening, and there’s a series of reasons, but one I believe is that there’s significant changes occurring in the labour market. New forms of employment — growing precarious employment, increased casualisation, use of sham contracting and other forms of employment that are really pushing wages down. People quite rightly feel they’re not getting their fair share.”

Assistant Minister for Social Services Zed Seselja said the HILDA survey results, particularly on home ownership, were very concerning.

“All of us want to see Australians have the opportunity to own their own home,” Senator Seselja told Sky News.

“It’s the great Australian dream and unfortunately, particularly in some of our larger cities in recent years, it’s gotten harder.

“I acknowledge that, and that’s one of the reasons if you look at the last budget we had a series of measures that are aimed at addressing that, but there’s no doubt that the supply of land and the choking of the supply of land in a lot of our large cities and not having the infrastructure to service that land supply has been critical. So state and territory and local governments have a lot of work to do.

“We have said we will assist those governments in all sorts of ways and we’ve announced a range of measures, so yes, it is a very important issue. It’s one we’re very cognisant of and it’s one we want to continue to work with states and territories on.”

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