One is the threat posed to Australia's assumed egalitarian ethos by the growing gap between rich and poor, underscored in an October address at the University of Melbourne by Dr John Martin, who had just stepped down after 13 years as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's director for employment, labour and social affairs. According to Martin, the richest 10 per cent of Australians have gained almost 50 per cent of the growth in income over the past three decades and on the OECD's data, which he conceded may be flawed, Australia's income distribution is the eighth most unequal in the Western world, topped only by the US, Israel, Portugal, Britain, Spain, Greece and Japan.
