Citizens, be of good cheer, it was a very good year For households, 2012 was not a bad year, not bad at all. We began it with net financial assets of $1321 billion. We ended it with net assets of $1635 billion. We wouldn't mind a few more years like that. That's a net gain of $314 billion, or $14,235 a head, although we had to share it with an extra 382,500 people, according to new population figures, also released on Thursday. No wonder they want to come here if our wealth keeps growing like that. What made it better was that only $70 billion of that gain came from us actually saving more than we borrowed. Much of it was lazy wealth, created in our superannuation accounts or share portfolios because the sharemarket finally had a good year after so many bad ones. The S&P/ASX 200 Index began the year at a humble index reading of 4057, and ended it at a brassy 4649. The Bureau of Statistics estimates the value of our superannuation accounts soared by $185 billion in 2012, but just $118 billion of that came from new contributions. Our private share portfolios rose in value by $47 billion over the year, not bad given that between us we sold $9 billion more shares than we bought. For the first time, the Bureau of Statistics estimates that Australians now own more net financial wealth than we did before the global financial crisis. It estimates we owned net wealth of $1545 billion at September 2007, before the crash sliced that to $1107 billion by March 2009. Taking account of population growth, per capita wealth is still not back to 2007 levels. Taking inflation into account, it is well short of 2007 levels. Part of our 2012 windfall came from a revaluation of the amount the Commonwealth owes public servants under its defined benefit schemes. That rose 62 per cent, from $147 billion to $238 billion. The value of our bank deposits shot up by $59 billion to $672 billion, but that was mainly our own money. The banks remain our second favourite place to put money, behind super ($1478 billion) and ahead of the sharemarket ($537 billion). But the sharemarket has done nicely in the first quarter of 2013. It rose to 5147 on March 11 before reality hit. It closed the March quarter on Thursday evening at 4966.5. That's still almost 7 per cent higher than at the end of 2012 and will add another $100 billion or more to our net wealth when the Bureau produces its March quarter figures. There are, however, a lot more of us to share it. Australia's annual population growth rose to 382,500 at the end of September, the highest since mid-2009, as foreign workers arrive to take the jobs employers say they cannot fill at home. The Bureau reports that net overseas migration climbed to 223,000 in the year, a third higher than the 166,000 who came 18 months earlier. Part of that rise was in WA, where net migration soared to 50,600, overtaking Queensland (45,000) and almost matching Victoria (54,000) and New South Wales (59,400).