Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister Tony Abbott has delivered for the people who think it is fine to raise the GST or cut the pension but who howl with outrage when the Greens suggest a tax on the big banks or the big polluters that would raise the billions we desperately need to fund the services expected in a decent society. We could balance the budget by asking the big miners, the big banks or the big polluters to pay a bit more, but instead the Prime Minister has savagely rounded on the rest of us. It takes guts to stand up to the wealthy and raise the revenue to fund a caring society, but a coward takes the axe to the young, the sick and the poor. This Prime Minister is a clear and present danger to the Australian way of life. We do not have a budget emergency; we have a government emergency.

I first got involved in politics when I was at uni. My dad was the first person in his immediate family to go to university, and his dad before him spent his life working in the post office. My dad went to uni because he could afford it, and my mum and my dad ensured that I got a good education. But it was when the then Labor government started hiking education fees that I got active in politics because I could see that it was going to get to a point where people like my dad would never be able to go to university. I now see thousands like me taking to the streets regularly to demand that everyone in this country has the right to go to university no matter what their background.

I also know that education is vital for our democracy because when everyone can learn, regardless of their wealth, our country is stronger for it. But when education is the privilege of a wealthy few they will govern for those wealthy few. Now that they themselves have had the benefit of free education, the Prime Minister and his associates are pulling up the ladder behind them, turning around and saying a big 'stuff you' to everyone else in the country.

This budget will ruin gen Y and all who come after them. People already face the triple burden of global warming, insecure work and unaffordable housing. But now the divide between the haves and the have-nots and the secure and the insecure is going to become permanent. TAFE or uni will leave you with a debt the size of a small mortgage. Youth unemployment in Melbourne at the moment is 14 per cent, and in Ballarat it is 26 per cent. If you are lucky enough to find a job after having been forced to endure poverty, imagine what kind of workplace and appalling wages and conditions people will be expected to put up with, knowing that if they speak up and get sacked or leave they will go months with no income at all. This is not the kind of country we want.

The Prime Minister has no mandate to create an underclass in this country, and we must now force him to submit his poisonous recipe for a divided country to the judgement of the Australian people. When it comes to attacking young people, lifting university fees or dismantling Medicare, the Greens commit to blocking these budget bills. The Greens relish the chance to remove the Prime Minister before the end of this year. But we cannot do that by ourselves. We need an alliance for a new election. These bastards cannot be kept honest, but they can be kicked out. If the Greens, Labor and the Palmer party accept our significant differences but agree to work together, we can block this budget and have Tony Abbott out of office by Christmas. If the other parties are up for it, we can try to make it happen.

I want Clive Palmer's coal business to stop and for fossil fuels to stay in the ground. I want Labor to stop punishing refugees and adopting the Prime Minister's appalling climate pollution targets. These differences will persist, and I will not give up until this country is grounded on sustainability, compassion and equality. What I also know is that Australia has a chance to become a country we can be proud of if we kick the Prime Minister out first.

I also know that Australia only has a chance to become a country we can be proud of if first we kick out the current Prime Minister. We need an alliance for a new election. We must all agree to block this budget and try to force the Prime Minister to a new election this year. If this budget is passed, Australia may be irreparably damaged and the people know it. Right around this land we are witnessing the people of Australia starting to reclaim their country.

We hear talk from the government that we have to take these measures because there is an emergency because we no longer have the revenue we need to fund the services Australians expect. One answer to that could be to increase our revenue. We could start by keeping the price on carbon. The carbon tax brought in $6.6 billion, which this government now wants to take away. The $6.6 billion currently being paid by the big polluters will, if this government gets its way, have to be paid by people every time they go to see a doctor. We could keep the mining tax. We could get rid of the $11 billion in subsidies going to the likes of Gina Rinehart and, instead, keep education affordable for everyone.

As we have seen today, if this budget is allowed to pass and the Prime Minister prevails, we will be going back to the Dark Ages. We have already seen CSIRO face massive cuts and plans to shed over 700 jobs and closing down entire sections of research. Astronomy and astrophysics now face an uncertain future. One crucial area which could have provided energy security and job security for people in the Latrobe Valley, geothermal energy, is being axed completely. Never mind: there is always enough money left for coal seam gas and for unconventional fuels, but when it comes to a potential, renewable power source, where the hot energy from under the earth could power our lights and warm our buildings, no, we cannot find money for that. We will take the axe to CSIRO. Potentially we have forgone the next Wi-Fi or the next flu vaccine because of this government's short-sightedness. It turns out that knights and dames were not just a distraction; they were actually a real vision of the medieval, antiscience society this Prime Minister has for the country.

We are about to have a situation where someone who has very little money will think twice about getting the lump on their leg checked out because they might not be able to afford the doctor, where people will think twice about taking their family or their kids to the doctor because they know that each time they will have to pay a fee and, if the doctor sends you off for a test, you are going to have another fee, and if there is a prescription, you will have to pay a fee on that as well. Multiply that by your number of family members and it starts to add up.

Why is it okay to have a debate and say that maybe we need to raise the GST or maybe we need to raise doctors' fees for the bulk of the population but we cannot have a debate about asking the big banks, the big miners or the big polluters to pay just a little more? If we had to take this budget to an election and ask the Australian people, 'What do you think is a fairer way to balance the budget, asking Gina Rinehart and the big banks to chip in or taking the axe to the sick, the young and the poor?' I know what the people would say.

We are seeing the government's short-sighted agenda writ large when it comes to the question of funding roads. In this context there has been debate about a proposed increase in the petrol excise. If it helps cut pollution, then lifting the relative cost of fossil fuels can make sense. If it helps the shift to cheaper, quicker and cleaner transport by trains, trams and buses, then indexing petrol excise can make sense. However, making petrol cost more just so the government can build more roads makes absolutely no sense at all. The Liberals should not assume we will help their road-obsessed agenda. This Liberal government is giving $3 billion to a polluting east-west tollway which will wreck inner-city Melbourne and has o business case but then cuts federal funding to public transport. Building more roads to cure congestion is like loosening the belt to cure obesity—it will not work. Lifting the excise on petrol to fund public transport is one thing but using it to build more polluting roads makes no sense. We will be looking very closely at the government's petrol tax legislation. Around the country one thing that cannot be denied is that in response to a government that is attacking the young, the sick and the poor, people are rising up to say, 'Not on my watch.' Angry at a budget that continues the handouts for the big miners, big banks and big polluters, people are defending the common wealth of Australia.

The millions in this country want a society based on compassion, sustainability and equality. We want Australia to be a place where everyone can get to a doctor or a hospital when they need it and a place where, if you do find yourself sick, the first thing that the paramedics and the doctors check is not your credit card but your Medicare card. We want Australia to be a place where people can live with dignity after they have contributed, not be forced to work until they drop and then eek out a grim existence in poverty. And we want Australia running on renewable energy, not polluting fossil fuels. We want Australia to be a place where people under 30 are not kicked out onto the street by their landlords because the government has taken away their income. We want an Australia where people who are already under pressure because of unaffordable housing and insecure work are not left on their own. Because we know that if we leave people on their own and throw them to the wolves, life will just get harder.

To everyone who stands with us, I say that you are the defenders of the true heart of this country, not this government but you, the people. You are the defenders of the spirit of care, of looking after each other and you are looking after the Australia that binds us together. You are the real protectors of what is good about Australia. What people are doing in the streets and around the kitchen table in their homes right now is vital and could change the course of history. The Greens stand right beside you and we will be your voice in parliament. If we work together and defend not the privileged but the common wealth of Australia, we can bust this budget.

I conclude by reminding people that last year the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, came to Melbourne and said 'these Greens are having too much influence in parliament. So I am going to make a captain's call and say I would much rather there be Labor people in parliament and I am going to direct you to put the Greens last.' He said that because on the things that mattered when it came to standing up for a caring society and for raising the revenue Australians need to fund the services they expect, he knew that the Greens would fight him tooth and nail. And so it will be with this budget. We will be the real opposition to this government's cruel and heartless agenda that will make Australia a meaner place. I say to the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, if you want to come and make a captain's call and say put the Greens last; well, game on, Captain. We are up for this and we would relish nothing more than to force you to take your poisonous recipe for a divided society to the judgement of the Australian people and we cannot wait until there is a change of Prime Minister.

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