Wade made the comments on Television New Zealand's Q+A programme and, as he left the studio, a furious English reportedly wagged his finger at him and told him not to say that again.
Wade - who says he had no clue who English was - later clarified that his 1 per cent comments related more to the US and Britain than to New Zealand. But he says English's reaction shows how touchy politicians are about the issue of inequality. They'll talk about poverty but they won't talk about inequality.
That's despite the income of the wealthiest one-hundredth of New Zealanders increasing at 9 per cent a year - up from 5 per cent in the mid- 80s. It's not as much as the 14 per cent income growth in the UK, and the 17 per cent in the US, but Wade says it is still an alarming statistic. Those figures exclude capital gains, which he believes should be included.
And it's despite Statistics NZ's 2011/12 household economic report showing the top 10 per cent of New Zealanders receive 8.5 times the income of the bottom 10 per cent, after tax and transfers (again, excluding capital gains).
And it's despite Statistics NZ figures showing chief executives' pay averaging $1.5 million in the 2011 financial year - 40 times greater than the average income of $37,970.
Why, though, is it a bad thing for people to earn more, especially if they are also spending more, investing more, employing more? If everyone's standard of living is gradually increasing this century, does inequality do any harm? Is Professor Wade's alarm simply old-fashioned jealousy?
Balcombe-Langridge has no doubt the gap between the very rich and the very poor is widening-but he doesn't see it as a problem.
"You need wealthy people to pay tax to run the economy and good entrepreneurs to create jobs," he says.
"That drives the economyand lifts the standard of living for everybody."
NZ Institute of Economic Research economist Shamubeel Eaqub agrees with the Bentley- driving Balcombe-Langridge.
He cites the Victoria University Tax Working Group's 2010 findings that the top 30 per cent of income earners were net tax payers and the remaining 70 per cent were net receivers-they receive more income and benefits from the Government than they pay in taxes.
"So the tax that they pay on income and GST is more than offset by the transfers they receive from welfare, Working for Families, healthcare, education and all those other bits and pieces," Eaqub says.
"You do need people who are working hard and are good at what they are doing to be able to keep the wheels of the economy turning."
The 2013 NBR Rich List put Balcombe- Langridge's wealth at $75 million. And before you can say "family money", stop. Balcombe-Landridge says he inherited a total of $3000 and that was about 20 years ago.
He encourages young people to work harder and save harder to climb the ladder.
"Some of my staff say 'it's really hard to get ahead'. I say 'why don't you take a second job'.
"They say 'I'm not going to work for $13.50 an hour' but I say to them, 'nobody's paying you that to sit at home and watch television'.
"I think quite a few people expect people to have things handed to them on a plate but life isn't like that, unfortunately."
It could sound like a bit of a lecture from someone out of touch with reality but Balcombe-Langridge practises what he preaches; he still works eight hours a day, seven days a week, at his Metropolitan Rentals Company - from where he also keeps an eye on his Surrey Hotel in Grey Lynn. He lives with wife Glenda on a sheep and beef estate at Brookby, near Clevedon, and it's here he has his private car museum, where those Bentleys and Rolls Royces are on display.
"I have a collection of vintage cars. I can afford nice cars," he says. "That's my reward. You only get it by effort."
Some might accuse Balcombe-Langridge of suffering from what Robert Wade calls the "wealth-empathy gap"; the more money you have, the less your empathy for the worse off.
It's well documented and Wade says a specially adapted Monopoly game watched by psychologists, shows it lurks in us all.
In the game between two players, one starts with $2000, gets $200 each time they pass go and rolls two dice each throw. The other starts with $1000, gets $100 at go and rolls one dice. Time and again, the player who starts with $2000 shows a lack of empathy for the other player by about 10 minutes into the game.
"There is a regular pattern where player A becomes domineering," Wade says. They start raking in the money with relish, they stamp the board and they avoid eye contact with player B.
Reassuringly, Philanthropy NZ chief executive Liz Gibbs believes New Zealanders' wealth-empathy gap is lower than many other countries and for that she credits ou rsmall size.
In fact, New Zealand ranks fourth per capita out of OECD countries for overall generosity. "Unfortunately, for all that fantastic generosity, 20 per cent of children are living in relative poverty, which is completely unacceptable," Gibbs says.
"The more generous we can be, the better it is for thewhole of society."
