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

It's going to be crucial for us, if we're to fund the services that Australians need and expect and rely on, to make multinationals pay their fair share of tax. I think there's universal agreement on that, if there hasn't always been universal action. There is certainly a widespread view amongst the Australian people that multinationals are getting away without paying any tax through different structuring of their arrangements across various jurisdictions, transfer pricing et cetera. We've all heard the lingo, but the effect of it is that, even though some multinationals do huge amounts of business here in Australia, they often end up paying little or next to no tax. So there is agreement on that. Certainly, there is agreement on that from the Greens' point of view. We have been amongst the fiercest pushing for multinationals to pay their fair share of tax. That is going to be needed in order to fund services that Australians expect.

One of the concerns is that there is an increasing linking of this by the government to the need, they say, to urgently pay down debt that has been incurred as a result of the response to the coronavirus crisis. And the opposition, in their second reading amendment, point to the question of weakening our economy. It's to those questions in connection with this bill and in connection with that amendment that I want to speak specifically. After years of campaigning against public debt and deficits, the Liberal Party has now delivered the biggest deficit in Australian history. They might feel ashamed, and I'm sure the shadow Treasurer will do his best to make them feel ashamed, because Labor seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from the last few years and are doing their best impression of an austerity obsessed Tony Abbott right now. But they shouldn't be and nor should the government.

Debt and deficits are not good or bad per se. They are a vehicle we can use to improve the quality of peoples' lives. We can use them to get people who want work into a job. We can improve our flagging productivity, and we can use them to build the infrastructure we need to protect us from the climate emergency. Public debt to invest in our future is absolutely critical to the wellbeing of our people, especially young people, who have been hit the hardest by the shutdown. But, if both the Liberal and Labor parties continue down this path of demonising debt and deficits, we will only end up in one place: austerity, and that means harsh budget cuts under the auspices of so-called tightening the belt. And what this means in real life for real people is more misery.

We saw it in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and we saw it as recently as the UK response to the GFC by their Conservatives that led to another 800,000 children living in poverty. History has told us clearly that cutting back on public spending after an economic crisis prolongs and deepens the recession and makes any recovery harder than it should be. If our two parties of government, as they call themselves, keep demonising public debt and deficits, then what austerity will guarantee for our country is economic stagnation, a rising cost of living, cuts to social security and public services, falling incomes and even higher unemployment. We can't cut our way out of this crisis. We have to invest to recover. Yes, we should tighten the loopholes to make sure multinationals pay their fair share of tax—absolutely—but now is also the time to use the cheapest money available in history to build a new future, create jobs and clean up our economy. Hypothetically, even if Australia tripled its net debt it would still be below countries like the US, UK and France. We are nowhere near crisis levels of debt, as some are telling us. Instead, this is our chance to use debt to transform our society and create a cleaner economy and a fairer society. If we can remake our society to protect us from a virus, we can remake it to look after people and our environment. If we choose to invest more now, we can build a better future. What this pandemic and the response to the economic crisis has shown is that the government is able to respond to any big problems we face, so long as they listen to the scientists and the experts and we mobilise the collective resources of society for the common good.

The government has rapidly expanded our public debt to respond to this crisis, but what happens next is just as important. We can't simply cut and save our way out of an economic crisis and hope that big corporations will pick up where government has failed, even if we do make some of them pay their fair share of tax, as this bill is proposing. Because, at the same time as we have these measures, there is talk from the government about lowering company taxes. Lowering company taxes, slashing public spending and eroding workers' rights will only further entrench disadvantage. If the government and opposition genuinely care about what legacy and what burden we are leaving to the next generation, let's ensure that the choices we make now are in the interests of young people, not the government's big corporate donors.

After World War II, government debt hit a record of over 120 per cent of GDP. Yet, it was paid off, effectively, within a decade—just a decade—because it was used to grow the economy and get people into secure work. We can achieve the same results here now if we borrow to invest to grow a clean, fair, caring economy. Expanding public debt in this time of crisis is central to good economic management. If we make the right investments, then by combining government borrowing at record low interest rates, with a better tax system, where the polluters and multinationals pay their fair share of tax, we can increase productivity and wealth and naturally bring the budget back to balance without the need for austerity measures or rushing to pay down the cheapest debt in history.

We owe it to the next generation to take this investment path. Let's not forget that young people were hard hit by the GFC and underemployment remained persistently high for years, even as the general population recovered. Before the coronavirus crisis started, nearly one in three young people in this country either had no job or not enough hours of work. The coronavirus crisis is set to make this much worse. Youth underemployment could be as high as 20 per cent coming on top of years of high youth unemployment and underemployment following the GFC. Right now, we either risk losing a generation to economic devastation and the climate crisis, or we can all recover by investing in a way that leaves no-one behind.

The government has a choice. It can build a better future for all of us through a Green New Deal, with better TAFEs, universities and schools; a well-resourced public health system; a manufacturing revival of green steel and battery storage; and a high-quality universal public service and public infrastructure. All these improvements to our lives require jobs, and lots of them. We get the CSIRO, or other Australian manufacturers, to make the vaccine when it's developed, so that we don't have to rely on Donald Trump or another country prioritising their own distribution. We financially compensate carers, create 40,000 construction jobs and 4,000 apprenticeships to fill the public housing gaps, and create jobs in our regions, especially bushfire-hit regions, through programs of environmental restoration. We can clean up our local habitat and waterways, so that all our lakes and rivers are swimmable. Restoring the health of our country creates lots of jobs—the crucial jobs that the private sector will not provide—which is why the government must step in to lead the way out of this crisis.

We should not be afraid of debt, because, if we use it wisely, we will grow that clean economy and that caring and creative society, and be in a much stronger position in a few years time to pay off that debt than if we just pretend, as the Liberals are proposing, that we can cut our way back to success, or if we listen to Labor and believe that debt and deficits are things to be demonised. This is the choice: a Green New Deal or austerity and misery. It seems that the government and Labor are lining up to stand together on the wrong side of this choice, but the Greens will continue to fight for recovery over austerity and investment over cuts.

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