Australia has more billionaires than ever. That’s nothing to celebrate

As of right now, Australia now has more billionaires than ever before in our national history.

According to The Australian, there are 159 billionaires in Australia in 2024. While some on the list have built on inherited fortunes (Gina Rinehart, Anthony Pratt), others are entirely self-made (Mike Cannon-Brookes, Adrian Portelli), and at least one new entrant made the list thanks to a divorce settlement (Nicola Forrest).

The number of ultra-wealthy individuals in Australia has been growing steadily for years.Credit: Dionne Gain

While celebrating the breaking of records and achieving feats once thought to be unachievable is something of a national pastime for most of us, I’d argue this latest feat of financial triumph is less a cause for celebration and more a 10-figured elephant in the room that we urgently need to discuss.

The number of ultra-wealthy individuals in Australia has been on a steady incline for years.

In 2020, the number of billionaires was 117 and grew to 122 in 2021. By 2022, we recorded 131 billionaires, and 139 last year. While growth is generally a great thing, it’s worth noting a few key things in this instance.

To begin with, the number of people becoming billionaires grew throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – a time when both the economy and so many Australians were desperately struggling.

We should be calling on this select group to share their wealth at a time when more people than ever need some help.

That the number of individual billionaires in this country has grown again, by 14.3 per cent in just 12 months, while the vast majority are battling through a crippling cost of living crisis is nothing if not sobering.

So why is an ex-financial advisor seemingly anti-billionaire? Namely, because having that much money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Gina Rinehart, for example, may be the richest woman in the country, with a personal wealth of $50.48 billion, but she’s also been the subject of a number of highly publicised legal battles with her children (all four of whom are billionaires in their own rights and take out spots 27, 28, 29 and 30 on the list), which have seen her kids turn against their mother and each other.

Another example is Nicola Forrest, who as of this year is now the third-richest person in Australia. What’s significant, though, is that Forrest only made it onto the list this year because of her separation from Andrew Forrest and the end of her marriage of 31 years.

What’s more, research from Purdue University – which focused on the link between money and happiness, the general cost of living, local and international economic factors and the habits of over 1.7 million people from around the world – found that the figure needed to make the average Australian happy is worlds away from the heady sums those on this year’s list enjoy.

The magic number needed to hit the sweet spot of what’s known as “income satiation” is an annual salary of $190,819. At this income point, a person is likely to be working hard, but not so hard they’re permanently absent from their families, have a good quality of life and can get ahead without it getting too stressful to the point of impacting mental health and emotional wellbeing.

They can also enjoy the fruits of their labour both without sacrificing major personal milestones, and largely avoid their personal relationships descending into a Succession-style battle royale for who gets what.

If you ask anyone if they’d like a billion dollars, the answer would almost certainly be yes, followed by a rattling off of all the fanciful things they’d do with it.

Billionaire Adrian “Lambo Guy” Portelli.Credit: Kristoffer Paulsen

But if you ask someone currently earning the median Australian salary of $67,600 if they’d be happier earning three times what they currently are, chances are the answer would be a resounding yes.

This would be followed by an outline of how that kind of money would elevate and enhance their lives without entirely changing how they live and spending money in a way they probably don’t really need to (like craning a $3 million car up 57 storeys to sit in a $39 million penthouse apartment, as Portelli did last year).

And when looking at the super-rich, it seems the happiest billionaires (and the best kinds of billionaires in my humble opinion) are the ones who actively work towards not being billionaires.

Mellody Hobson is a multimillionaire in her own right as the chairwoman of Starbucks and former chairwoman of DreamWorks, and is married to legendary filmmaker and billionaire George Lucas.

Rather than aspiring to sit on global rich lists for decades to come, Hobson recently told me, during an International Women’s Day panel, that the pair have a plan in place to donate the entirety of their fortune to charities that will benefit the greater good.

Being a billionaire isn’t an aspiration in and of itself for the couple, but doing good with the resources they have and sharing what they have built is.

Then there’s Mackenzie Scott, who was one of Amazon’s first employees and is the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. With a net worth of more than $US36 billion and a 4 per cent stake in the company founded by her ex-husband, Scott has donated over US $17.3 billion to over 2300 non-profits in the last five years alone, and has pledged to continue donating into the future.

What’s more, Scott transparently shares the details of her no-strings-attached philanthropy via her website, Yield Giving, to encourage others to follow suit.

While 159 people may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, marking a new high of ultra-wealthy individuals is one record we shouldn’t be cheering about.

Instead, we should be calling on this select group to share their wealth at a time when more people than ever need some help. A record number of billionaires downgrading to millionaires due to charitable giving, though, would be something to celebrate.

Victoria Devine is an award-winning retired financial advisor, best-selling author and host of Australia’s No. 1 finance podcast, She’s on the Money. Victoria is also the founder and co-director of Zella Money.

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

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