Census 2021: Ministers are healthier, wealthier, and wiser than average Australian

How does the ‘average minister’ in the Albanese government compare to the ‘average Australian’? They’re healthier, wealthier, and wiser.

The Albanese ministry. Picture: Getty Images

How does the “average minister” in the Albanese government compare to the “average Australian”? They’re healthier, wealthier, and wiser.

It’s a stark contrast to the snapshot of Australia today, as revealed in the 2021 Census, which recorded the rise of the millennials, the decline of religion, and the increase in cultural diversity.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found the “average Australian” is a woman with kids, aged 30 to 39, living in a city and earning an average weekly family income of $3000 or more.

Whereas the “average minister” is a 50-year-old Gen Xer, living in a family with two or three children in a capital city, taking home an average individual weekly income of $6700. They possess multiple homes and university degrees, hail from English or Irish heritage, and have a Christian upbringing, according to analysis by The Australian.

Among the 42 members of the Labor frontbench, 7.1 per cent are millennials, 26 per cent are baby boomers, and 66.66 per cent are Gen X. Men and women make up 50 per cent each.

Across the nation, baby boomers and millennials each make up 21.5 per cent of the population and Gen X 19.3 per cent. There are more women, 50.7 per cent, than men, 49.3 per cent.

More than half of us are either born overseas (first generation) or have a parent born overseas (second generation), with India the fastest-growing country of birth.

That marked increase in migrants is not reflected in the ministry, with 92.8 per cent of them born down under.

Of Anthony Albanese’s key decision makers, 38 per cent are first or second-generation Australians. Only three were born overseas – Penny Wong in Malaysia, Brendan O’Connor in England and Anne Aly in Egypt – and three raised with a religion other than Christianity – Aly and Ed Husic are both Muslim and Mark Drefyus is Jewish.

The top five most commonly reported ancestries in the Census followed previous trends and included English at 33.0 per cent, Australian at 29.9 per cent, Irish at 9.5 per cent, Scottish at 8.6 per cent and Chinese at 5.5 per cent. The largest growing communities come from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iraq and the Philippines.

The Labor frontbench is made up predominantly of Australians on 40.4 per cent, followed by English on 28.5 per cent, Irish on 9.5 per cent and New Zealanders on 4.7 per cent.

Mr Albanese’s father was born in the southern Italian town of Barletta; Mark Dreyfus’ father and grandparents are from Germany; Michelle Rowland’s family is Fijian; Justine Elliot has an American grandfather; and both Tanya Plibersek and Ed Husic’s parents were born in the former Yugoslavia. Ms Plibersek’s parents are Slovenian and Mr Husic’s parents are Bosnian.

There are also two Indigenous Australians in the Albanese ministry, Linda Burney and Malarndirri McCarthy.

Team Albanese is more than pulling its weight when it comes to education, holding 80 degrees between them. The “average minister” has two degrees, one of which is law, likely from a Group of Eight university.

With his single Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University, the Prime Minister is an outlier in his own cabinet. Fourteen out of 19, or 73 per cent, hold more than two university degrees. Six hold three degrees, including Immigration Minister Clare O’Neil who has a Bachelor of Arts and LLB from Monash, plus a Masters of Public Policy from Harvard.

Across the entire frontbench, 95 per cent have graduated university. That’s three times more than the public they’ve been elected to represent. According to the ABS, just 31 per cent of the country hold a university degree as of May 2021.

The frontbench falls short on service in the Australian Defence Force, compared to the rest of the country. Every 20th household has at least one person who served, or is serving, the Census found. No one in Mr Albanese’s ministerial team has served.

The government has fewer “lone” households than the rest of the country, with 90 per cent of ministers living with a partner and two or three children.

The “average minister” owns two or three homes, with a majority opting for a house in their electorate and an apartment in Canberra. There are no renters sitting on the frontbench.

That figure shows the gulf between the government’s power players and the people they represent, in particular the 14.5 per cent of Aussies suffering from mortgage stress, 32.2 from rental stress and those struggling to buy their first home. Roughly 66 per cent of us either own our homes outright or are paying them off, while one third rent. 

All up, almost 80 per cent of all Australian residents live in the eastern states. That figure drops to 73 per cent in the Albanese ministry, which has members from each state and territory. However, less than 20 per cent of the frontbench live in provincial or rural parts of the country.

Politicians also live up to several years longer than the general population, according to a study by British and Australian academics that was published in The European Journal of Epidemiology last month.

At age 45, an Australian federal MP can expect to live another 41.2 years, compared with 37.8 years for a person of the same age and gender. Of the 15 most recently deceased prime ministers (from Ben Chifley in 1951 to Bob Hawke in 2019), the average life span was over 82 years. Of the four former PMs who died this century their average age was over 90 years, with Gough Whitlam dying at 98 in 2014.

When he disappeared while swimming in December 1967, Harold Holt was 59, the same age as Albanese is now, making him the prime minister with the shortest life span.