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

[by video link] This is a budget that puts the millionaires ahead of the million unemployed. This budget is a trickle-down con job. Budgets are about choices and this budget has chosen to ignore the massive problems that Australia is facing at the moment and instead give $99 billion a year in handouts to big corporations and the super wealthy.

Just today we were told that we are facing a climate crisis of incredible proportions here in Australia, with the Bureau of Meteorology telling Senate estimates that on current trajectory, including this government's targets, we could see 4.4 degrees of warming in Australia during the lifetime of today's primary school students. That means creating a hell on earth in this country. We're facing a climate crisis. We're also facing an inequality crisis in this country. Inequality is at a 70-year high. You can work full time in this country but still be living in poverty, and that's because we have a third crisis in this country, which is a jobs crisis. Before the coronavirus pandemic even started, nearly one in three young people in this country either didn't have a job or didn't have enough hours of work. Of course, those numbers have gone up since the coronavirus hit.

In the face of the climate crisis, the inequality crisis and the jobs crisis, this budget could have been a green recovery, a Green New Deal, a plan of investment and action in industries that will tackle the climate crisis and make Australia a more equal and caring society—things like investing in free education, aged care, renewable energy. All of those things could have been done by the government in this budget and they would have addressed not just the economic recession we find ourselves in but the inequality crisis and the climate crisis as well. What has the government done? The government has done exactly the opposite. The government has made a choice to prolong this recession, to keep unemployment higher than it needs to be, to increase inequality in this country and to fast-track the climate crisis. In short, with this budget the government has chosen to make the problems that Australia is facing even worse. Why has it chosen to do that? Because this budget is a trickle-down con job written by the big corporations for the big corporations, who also happen to be Liberal Party and Labor Party donors. That's why the government, instead of directly investing to create jobs and provide the services people in this country need so that we can have a more equal society, are writing out huge blank cheques in this budget to their big corporate mates.

Let's look at some of the budget measures that were proposed by the government and waved through last week with the support of the Labor Party. One of them is giving big corporations a $27 billion blank cheque from taxpayers to spend as they like. The government say: 'Trust us. We'll give money to big corporations and let them make lots of purchases, and we'll hope that some of that wealth trickles down and finds its way into job creation.' The problem is that there are no strings attached to the money given out in this new tax break for the big corporations, many of whom are already profitable and in fact have increased their wealth during the course of this financial crisis. They could buy cheap computers from China. They could go out and buy office furniture from overseas. It could be something that will not create one new job, but it will give them a tax write-off. The Greens in the Senate said, 'If you're going to give this $27 billion blank cheque to big corporations, at least make sure it's Australian-made.' No, Liberal and Labor voted against that. We said, 'At least make sure it doesn't go into making the climate crisis worse.' No, Liberal and Labor voted against that. So in this budget we've got $27 billion in handouts going to the big corporations courtesy of Liberal and Labor.

We've also got from the government a scam of a scheme that is going to help McDonald's and others like it line their pockets to help subsidise wage costs. The bill we saw pass the parliament yesterday when the government wanted to bring it on and Labor said, 'You're not bringing it on quickly enough; let's pass it through,' will allow big corporations like McDonald's to employ young people at the minimum wage for 20 hours a week and get 200 bucks a week for it. Even companies that have been so profitable during the crisis that they've been able to pay dividends, even corporations that have underpaid and ripped off their workers—companies that have been engaging in wage theft—are going to get some of this $4 billion thanks to the legislation that was rushed through yesterday by the Liberals and Labor.

Then we come to the other centrepiece of this government's budget, again supported wholeheartedly by Labor—that is, giving tax cuts to millionaires. If you've managed to keep your job throughout this crisis and earn more than a million dollars a year, you don't need a tax cut. The priority should be the million people who are unemployed, not going into debt to give a tax cut to millionaires and the superwealthy, the likes of Clive Palmer. They don't need a tax cut, to be frank. We shouldn't be going into debt to give money to them. We should be looking after the million unemployed in this country not only by keeping JobSeeker where it is and making sure that they have got enough money to live on until the economy gets back on its feet again and jobs are available for everyone who wants one but also—instead of giving tax cuts to millionaires, as Liberals and Labor want—by using the money to invest directly in government services that will make Australia more equal and will create jobs directly.

In this budget, what's going to happen? Someone earning $1 million a year gets 2½ thousand bucks; someone who is among the working poor might get $250; and, if you're unemployed, you get a kick in the teeth. And what the establishment parties won't tell you about the tax cuts they fast-track through is that, if you're a middle-income earner, you only get them for one year; after that, they disappear. It's a one-year-only deal if you're on a middle income. But the millionaires keep getting the tax cuts forever, which keep getting bigger and bigger because the Liberals, with Labor's backing, have put the millionaires ahead of the million unemployed, because they are in the pockets of their corporate donors.

We know that this recession is hitting young people the hardest. It's hitting women hard and it's hitting young people hard. The jobs that young people worked in were the hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, but the support that the government offered discriminated against young people, with a million casuals, many of whom were young, locked out of government support; and jobs in universities excluded from government support. Not only were young people in the industries that were hit the hardest; the government then deliberately turned its back on them. But it's going to get even worse, because many of those jobs that young people either had or the industries they were hoping to get into might take the longest to get back on their feet after the coronavirus recession, especially here in Victoria, when many of those jobs are in arts and entertainment, hospitality, retail and tourism, which might take a very long time to get back on their feet because the social-distancing restrictions will still be in place. Add on top of that an insecure job market, expensive higher education, unaffordable housing and the climate crisis, and you understand that we risk creating a lost generation.

The government, in this budget, has turned its back on those young people. I have heard countless stories from people in my electorate who, in the midst of this crisis, have had their JobSeeker payment cut, while the government, with Labor's backing, gives out tax cuts to millionaires. I have heard stories from people like Julie from Abbotsford. She was a chef in the cafe industry, who lost work when we all stayed at home and followed the restrictions to tackle COVID-19. For Julie, the new rate of JobSeeker after the government's cuts will not cover her rent, let alone anything like food or bills. For Jessie in Carlton North, a cut to the JobSeeker payment means not being able to afford medication, food, or psychology appointments. Jay in Princes Hill told me, 'The reduction in the rate is likely to destroy my career, my housing security and financial future.' That this government is prioritising tax cuts for those still employed but abandoning the millions of employees who have paid taxes for decades is deeply distressing. That is dead right, Jay: a tax cut doesn't help you if you don't have a job.

That is why it was wrong for the government, with Labor's backing, to prioritise tax cuts for millionaires and people who have kept their job, putting them ahead of people who have been left behind and are doing it tough. If budgets are about making choices, which they are, then this government is choosing to give $99 billion a year in subsidies to big corporations and the very wealthy and, with Labor's backing, give tax cuts to millionaires, while dropping people on JobSeeker back into poverty. I say, very simply, if there's money in this budget for a tax cut for millionaires or there's money to keep people out of poverty, the latter is where the money should be going.

Even if you don't believe in the basic fairness of keeping people out of poverty, we know that tax cuts are a terrible stimulus if you give them to people who have a lot of money, because they're likely to save it, whereas, if you increase JobSeeker, lift the minimum wage and lift minimum incomes for people who don't have a job, they are going to go and spend that money and assist in the economic recovery. So, even if all you were concerned about was the economy, you would prioritise lifting up those at the bottom over giving more to those at the top and hoping it would trickle down. Instead, this trickle-down budget, which got pushed through last sitting week with Labor's support, is just going to make the inequality crisis worse in this country—and it's going to prolong the recession.

I want to make a critical point here. The government in this budget forecasts six per cent unemployment for years to come. In fact, the Treasurer has picked six per cent unemployment as his target and said, 'As soon as we get to six per cent in a couple of years time, we'll be able to start cutting.' Six per cent unemployment means two million people in this country without a job or without enough hours of work. That's not a target where you can say mission accomplished when you hit six per cent unemployment; that is a crisis. Two million people without enough work or without a job at all is a national crisis.

I say it's a choice because, with the government going into the debt that it is, the question is: what are we going to spend it on? The government could choose, as governments did after World War II, when we had to rebuild, to spend this incredible debt on job-creating, nation-building, planet-saving projects that would bring unemployment back down to two per cent, like it was in the time between World War II and the 1970s. If the government chose, instead of going into debt to fund tax cuts for millionaires with Labor's backing, to put that into building half a million new public housing units over the next 10-15 years, it would create 40,000 job and 4,000 apprenticeships in the process. Put that money into building new public housing and into getting Australia running on 100 per cent renewables and exporting our sunlight. Put that money into expanding our aged-care sector, because, if there's one thing we've learned from the coronavirus crisis, it's that privatisation has failed. It's failed the people in aged care it's and failed the workers there. Instead of giving tax cuts to millionaires, put the money into expanding free education and free childcare across the country. Put it into healthcare because, as we know, women have loft jobs at higher rates than men during this crisis. All of those are industries where there are going to be women employed in potentially greater numbers.

We can have a recovery right now that doesn't involve giving billions to millionaires and hoping some of it trickles down but instead involves investing directly in public housing, in making schools and universities genuinely free, in making sure that everyone in this country not only has a roof but a secure, decent job if they want it, where we can offer a jobs guarantee that means everyone who wants a decent job could have it and where we could lift people out of poverty, which would not only make their lives better but help businesses and everyone trying to recover from the recession. We could do all of those things if we just stopped giving $99 billion a year in tax cuts and handouts to the superwealthy and big corporations. That is the choice that the government in this budget has failed to make.

We had the chance with this budget to invest in public housing, public schools, public education, public healthcare and expanding the jobs that are available so that we could go to every young person and say, 'we can guarantee you a decent job and an income that you can live on. Instead, this government has actively chosen six per cent unemployment. It is criminal to be giving tax cuts to millionaires, which is what Labor and Liberal have just done, while there are a million people unemployed and while people are wondering whether or not they will have JobSeeker or JobKeeper or even just any kind of a job come the end of the year. This budget is not only an opportunity squandered; riding in these tax cuts, as Labor and Liberal have done, where 80 per cent will go to the top 20 per cent of income earners, will make life harder for future governments unless we've the guts to stand up to the big corporations, make them pay their fair share of tax so in this wealthy country of hours we can all live a good life.

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