Sydney Ideas – Battlers and Billionaires

Economist and parliamentarian Andrew Leigh will be in conversation with technology entrepreneur and philanthropist Cliff Obrecht about Andrew’s new book, 'Battlers and Billionaires: The Updated Story of Inequality in Australia'.

For much of the twentieth century, inequality was falling. Yet in the past generation, the gap between rich and poor has widened again. The top twenty Australians now have twice as much wealth as the bottom two million households. The typical house cost four years’ average earnings in the 1980s, but eleven years’ average earnings in the early 2020s.

Andrew Leigh and Cliff Obrecht will discuss these trends in Australian inequality, why inequality matters, and what we might do about it. Julie Cairney, Professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research – Enterprise and Engagement) at the University of Sydney, introduces this event.

This event is presented with Sydney Knowledge Hub, a startup incubator and facilitator of collaborations with industry that supports research commercialisation at the University of Sydney.

Speakers:

• Andrew Leigh has been a member of the Australian Parliament since 2010. He holds a PhD from Harvard, having graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in Arts and Law. He is the author or coauthor of a dozen books on politics and economics. Andrew is a keen Ironman triathlete and ultramarathoner, and lives in Canberra with his wife Gweneth and their three sons.

• Cliff Obrecht is one-third of the founding team behind Canva, the ubiquitous communication platform which is used worldwide and widely considered Australia’s most successful start-up to date. Born and raised in Perth, Obrecht graduated from The University of Western Australia with an Arts and Education degree, which he credits helping him on his journey through the start-up business world and has become part of the company’s ethos.

• Host: Julie Cairney is a Professor in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research – Enterprise and Engagement) and CEO of Microscopy Australia. Julie grew up in outback Australia in the town of Broken Hill and studied Materials Science and Engineering at UNSW under a scholarship from Pasminco Limited (a former mining company based in Broken Hill). In 2002, she was awarded a PhD (Physical Metallurgy) also from UNSW. The next few years were spent working as a researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK and the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany, before returning to Australia.