It is 30 years since Paul Keating famously said that if you walked into any pet shop in Australia "the resident galah will be talking about microeconomic policy".

There's a good chance those pet shop conversations have now turned to inequality.

During the past week the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, Treasurer Scott Morrison, and even Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe have all weighed in on the topic.

There are different perspectives on what's happened to income inequality recently. But the trend in wealth inequality is fairly clear. Governor Lowe says it has become "more pronounced" over the past five or six years.