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

[by video link] This government is contracting out the recovery from the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. Their whole approach, of which this bill is another example, is to take billions of dollars of public money that could be going into direct investment in jobs and services and instead give it to big corporations and just hope that some of it will trickle down to everyday people. We saw with the budget, the centrepiece, which Labor waved through as quickly as it could, was giving above $20 billion to corporations in the hope that they would go and use that money to buy things that somehow stimulated the Australian economy when there were no conditions put on it. For all we know they could be going out to buy cheap office furniture from China or cheap computers that won't do a thing to get people in jobs, and won't do anything to support Australian manufacturing, but will just be another handout to big corporations. This bill continues that approach. This bill is going to give $4 billion to big corporations to help with their wages bill, many of whom may not need it at all.

There are absolutely no strings attached on this bill. This is a blank cheque that taxpayers are giving to big corporations to part pay their wages bill. This could be a slush fund for wage thieves. We have seen many large corporations being brought before the courts, the commission and the media for underpaying workers, many of whom have been young. People have systematically been denied their penalty rates. People have systematically been underpaid, sometimes less than the award. It's taken some very brave unions and some individual workers speaking up, and some courageous journalists to do some digging, to uncover some of that. What we have learned through all that is that some of Australia's biggest corporations are wage thieves and they make their profit in part by underpaying workers, and doing it systematically.

Under this bill those same corporations may now be able to get a taxpayer subsidy to part pay their wages bill, because the government doesn't care about which big corporations they are going to give billions of dollars to. They come with a bill that's only a couple of pages long, that says: 'Trust us. Let us give $4 billion to some of Australia's biggest corporations. They may pay no tax and they may underpay their workers, but we want to give them an extra handout.' Corporations who make their profits by doing the wrong things should be on the government's blacklist, but instead the government comes forward and says, 'Let us give them money to potentially part pay their wages bill.' Whilst the pandemic has clearly been a time of great difficulty for many businesses in Australia, including many small businesses in Melbourne, there have also been some that have done extremely well. Australia's 25 richest people have increased their collective wealth by $25 billion during this pandemic. A couple of weeks ago many of those people earning $1 million a year, thanks to the Liberals and Labor, got a tax cut. The Liberals and Labour said: 'Yes, let's give those people a tax cut. Don't put the million unemployed first. Let's put the millionaires ahead of the million unemployed.' That's what the Liberals, with Labor support, did previously, and it's now going to continue with corporations as well.

What we have seen over the recent times of the pandemic is that, while many of us were, and in some instances still are, under lockdown, some of Australia's richest corporations got richer. The billionaires got richer. The top 25 increased their wealth by $25 billion during the time of the pandemic. What does this bill do? This bill says that, even if your corporation did well during the pandemic—say you were in charge of making the cardboard boxes that everyone is getting things shipped to their homes in during the pandemic because we can't go to the shops and we've ordered online; or perhaps you're a mining billionaire who's continued to make billions because state governments like the Queensland government give you a freeze on mining royalties every time you ask for it—and even if you are a company that has been paying dividends, you're going to be entitled to a subsidy to part pay their wages bill. Just think about that for a moment.

This bill isn't just aimed at helping businesses that are doing it tough. It's going to go to businesses that are in rude financial health and that continue to make a profit during the pandemic. If a corporation is able to make a profit during the pandemic, why should the public be part paying their wages bill? That should not happen under this bill.

This bill deserves the highest level of scrutiny. Instead, we've seen the strange spectacle today of the bill coming forward. It's only a few pages long. It's got next to nothing in it and no safeguards. The Greens have been demanding the release of the full scheme and the regulations before we vote on this bill, but the government hasn't done that. They've just said, 'Trust us.' Now we're debating it today because, oddly, the Labor Party has said this bill, which is only a few lines long, with no scrutiny and no protections, needs to be rammed through and gagged, if necessary today. With an opposition like that, no wonder the government feels happy that its budget is going to get through and they're going to deliver on their $99 billion a year in subsidies to the big corporations, including with this bill. Anyway, here we are.

We're debating this bill today with next to no information about how the bill is going to work, because the government is just after a blank cheque to let corporations—some of whom might be underpaying employees and some of whom might be turning a profit already—now get part of their wages bill paid for by the public.

The bill being put forward contains no safeguards. The purpose of the bill is supposedly to assist with young people being unemployed, but I'll come back to that in a moment, because that is a crucial issue. For all we know, this bill could result in young people being sacked. Why is that? It's because the detail in this is so thin that so much is left up to the minister on a 'trust me' basis. It says, 'Let me go away and write the so-called protections in afterwards.'

Under this bill there seems to be nothing stopping a corporation sacking someone who's employed now, including a young person, and then rehiring two young people at the minimum wage on part-time hours. That way the corporation gets two lots of the subsidy, versus keeping one person on who might get zero lots of the subsidy. The way that this bill is drafted, because it contains no protections or safeguards, might actually work against people, including young people who've got a job at the moment.

We shouldn't be, in this parliament, party to passing something that might result in people getting sacked. Why are we in this situation when we know that, with some of these schemes, if they don't have proper protections and processes built into them, they don't do the job that the government says they're going to do? When we have got record levels of unemployment—certainly in living memory for most people—and when young people are being hit extra hard, and young people are in the industries that are going to take longer to recover from the corona crisis as well, why are we in a position where the government's bowling up something that might actually work against young people getting a job in this terrible, terrible recession that we find ourselves in? It's because the government has an ideological opposition to doing the one that thing would create jobs and help us tackle the other crises that we're facing at the moment, like the climate crisis, the inequality crisis and the jobs crisis that is working against young people and women.

The government, right now, should be directly investing in public schools, in public hospitals, in doctors and nurses and in university education. The government should be directly investing in aged care. The government should be directly investing in building more public housing. The government should be directly investing in public manufacturing to kick off a manufacturing renaissance in this country. That way, we would grow jobs, we would be able to do it quickly, and we would tackle the climate crisis and the inequality crisis that we're facing as well. When you go to the doctor and the doctor says, 'You've got three things wrong with you, and I can give you medicine that fixes one, or I can give you medicine that fixes all three,' you take the medicine that fixes all three. That's what a Green New Deal—investment by the government in public projects that would build the economy—

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