The median wealth of adult Australians stands at US$219,500 ($233,504), the highest level in the world, according to the Credit Suisse 2013 Global Wealth Report, released on Wednesday. Median wealth is the midpoint between richest and poorest. When taken on a measure of average wealth, Australians fall back to second with US$402,578 per person, behind the Swiss who were the world's richest on US$512,562).

The number of Australian millionaires increased by 38,000 to 1.123 million people.

Property makes up the biggest proportion of wealth, but given the measure is in US dollars, strength in the Australian dollar during the survey period serves to inflate wealth here compared with other countries.

Australia's inequality is not as bad as in the US, where the richest 1 per cent gained almost half the growth in individual income over the same period, and the top 10 per cent took more than 80 per cent of the gains.

But it was worse than most, Dr Martin told a Melbourne University audience, giving the university's annual Corden Lecture in honour of his mentor, Professor Max Corden, now at the Melbourne Institute.