Australia is not so equal says research By Eryk Bagshaw A new report has found that Australian society was far less equal than previously thought.
The report, commissioned by the NSW Department of Education, used 12 years of the national household, income and labour dynamics survey of 14,000 Australians. 
"We aren't nearly as equal as we like to think," said the report's author Peter Siminski.
"The idea of being the lucky country that is full of equal opportunity is looking less and less realistic."
Dr Siminski and co-author Sylvia Mendolia, from the University of Wollongong, found that the ability of Australians to move beyond the socio-economic status of their family was almost as restricted as those in the United States and Britain, which have some of the lowest rates of mobility in the Western world.
A key measurement of inequality is the increase in income earned between generations, according to the HILDA survey.
"Our findings show that 10per cent higher earnings for a father are associated with a 3.5per cent higher earnings in the son," said Dr Siminski.
Scandinavian countries, with far more intergenerational mobility, report up to 2per cent income inequality. The report's authors argued that the key to a reduction in intergenerational inequality was investment in education.
NSW Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to take a close look at the paper's findings.
The federal government has refused to fund the final two years of Gonski funding which would see hundreds of millions of dollars invested in disadvantaged schools, despite its popular polling with the public and Labor's commitment to see the investment through. The policy has generated deep division between state and federal Coalition ministers around the country.
Mr Piccoli has repeatedly lobbied his federal colleagues to commit to the final two years of funding.