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

Since November 2019, refugees have been detained cruelly and indefinitely in Melbourne, first at the Mantra hotel in Preston and now at the Park Hotel in Carlton, right in the heart of my electorate. While some have been released, dozens remain, with no certainty about their future. They have never given up in their fight for justice, backed up by community members who turn out week after week in solidarity. I want to pay tribute today to the hundreds of community activists who've turned out day after day, week after week, to demand the release of these men and an end to indefinite detention, both in Australia and in the cruel offshore prisons of Manus and Nauru. I want to thank the 536 academics and researchers who have signed an open letter, not only demanding the release of the remaining men but demanding that our government fulfil its obligations under international law and abolish cruel temporary protection visas.

Until both Liberal and Labor abandon the cruel, punitive policy of offshore detention and accept refugees, as is our international obligation, Australia can never claim to be a compassionate country on the world stage. Solidarity today and every day to the men, women and children held in cruel indefinite detention. We'll never stop fighting until this cruel policy ends and refugees are released.

During the pandemic, many big corporations and billionaires made huge profits off the back of public handouts. Meanwhile, the number of people in this country on income support increased by 100 per cent to over 1.6 million people, and over two million people either didn't have a job or didn't have enough hours of work. After caving in to pressure, the government finally introduced the publicly funded JobKeeper wage subsidy.

The Greens support JobKeeper and support workers, but we don't support big businesses using it to increase their profits and line the pockets of their executives. At least 25 companies receiving JobKeeper also paid executive bonuses worth a combined total of $24.3 million, and 60 corporations recorded profits of over $8.6 billion in the last 18 months. Big businesses like Harvey Norman refused to pay even a single dollar of the over $20 million in JobKeeper—public handouts—that they received despite doubling profits during the pandemic and paying executive bonuses. The Parliamentary Budget Office found that over $1 billion in JobKeeper payments was paid to profitable companies. Last night's budget revealed the government is cutting real support for higher education by over $1 billion. Let's make these billionaires and big corporations pay back the public subsidies they receive despite making record profits and use it to make life better for everyone else.

See this speech in context