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

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the message be considered immediately".

I will speak very briefly on this. I understand we want to finish by 1.30, so I won't take too much longer. But we need to consider this now. We're talking about whether $1 billion in public money that has been spent should be recouped. This is $1 billion that went to corporations and billionaires that didn't need it. It is not every day that we have a message from the Senate that has passed the very significant divergent political positions that are in the Senate and has got majority support in the Senate requesting that the House agree. When it happens, it is significant. It is very, very significant. The message must be considered immediately because we are talking about $1 billion that could be made available for schools and hospitals, for JobKeeper in places like Melbourne, where we are still doing it tough. If we do not consider it immediately then we are turning a blind eye to the Senate's request that we ask some of these profitable corporations to pay their fair share.

What the motion moved by the Senate asks the government to do is very, very simple. It recognises that during the pandemic the government made a number of payments for wage subsidies. The Greens was the first party in this place to call for payments to be linked to wages, and it was widely welcomed when the government decided to do just that. But it was JobKeeper, not 'profit keeper'. It was JobKeeper. It turns out that, because of the poor design of the system, which was left up to regulations and all in the hands of the Treasurer, the money went to big corporations and billionaires that just didn't need it.

So you had corporations like Harvey Norman, with billionaire Gerry Harvey, having literally a captive audience during the lockdown. Everyone was in their homes. You were locked down. You couldn't go out. There was nowhere to go. So people were buying products from Harvey Norman hand over fist. That led to a more than doubling of Harvey Norman's profits. But, at the same time as Gerry Harvey's corporation was making record profits, the public also paid it $20 million in JobKeeper. He does not need it. Big corporations that are making record profits do not need public handouts.

The government is responsible for the design of the scheme but the government can now recoup some of that money. At a time when every dollar counts, especially for people in Melbourne, casual workers are being asked by this government to go for up to three weeks, without work, on $325. Why is it that casual workers in Melbourne get $300 when they need much more but billionaires, who don't need anything, get a $20 million handout and the government turns a blind eye? Robodebt was a shameful chapter in this nation's history when the government hounded people for money they didn't owe, but when you pay a billionaire $20 million he doesn't need the government turns a blind eye.

We are asking the government to apply one-tenth of the fervour that they applied to jobseekers to these billionaires and big corporations that took money they didn't need. Another one is Kerry Stokes with Seven West Media. They saw a big increase in their half-yearly profits. They took about $45 million in JobKeeper to help them along their way to increase profits and then went out, as well as making record profits, and bought a private jet. The chairman went and bought a private jet. If you can afford to buy a private jet, you can afford to pay back JobKeeper. It is as simple as that.

If it considers this motion immediately and then supports it, this government has the capacity to send a strong message to those corporations that paid out executive bonuses or dividends or made a big profit to pay back the JobKeeper that they clearly didn't need. The Senate has thought about what is fair in the circumstances. It is saying, for example, that if you took $10 million in JobKeeper and made $3 million in profit, you don't have to pay back the $10 million. You have to pay back $3 million. That is fair, so no-one's going to fall behind. We're only talking about big corporations, with turnover of more than $50 million, so it's very fair.

What people are voting on, right now—I say this to members of the crossbench, members of the government, members of the opposition—with this first vote is whether to even have the debate or not. I say to people: irrespective of where you would line up on this question of whether big corporations should be asked by the government to pay back JobKeeper, we should at least be allowed to have a debate on it right now. It is very rare that the Senate says it wants the House to concur with a motion about a policy matter like this. It is not often that you get people across the political spectrum lining up to say, 'Hang on, something has gone wrong.' We've paid at least $1 billion, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, to big corporations and billionaires that just didn't need it.

I believe—the Greens believe—that if you can afford a private jet you can afford to pay back JobKeeper. If you are paying profits off the back of JobKeeper, you can afford to pay it back. If you are paying dividends, you can pay back JobKeeper. If you are paying executive bonuses, you can pay it back. Even if you don't agree with all of that or you don't agree with every last word in the motion that has come from the Senate, I say to members of the crossbench, members of the opposition and members of the government: let's at least debate it. It is a critical debate that we should have. We should not gag debate in this House, as the government is trying to do by saying, 'Consider it another day,' because we know that if the government kicks this off into the long grass we will not come to this issue, that we will not come back to this resolution. I would urge all members of this place to, at least, let us have the debate and to vote for the amendment to allow this important motion to be considered immediately.

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