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

Labor's budget keeps people in poverty. It's a big win for the big corporations and the very wealthy, but it's a betrayal of renters, students, jobseekers, young people and everyone doing it tough. At the election, the Prime Minister said no-one would be left behind. Well, Labor's budget leaves millions behind, leaving people in poverty while billionaires get tax cuts.

Tonight, as the cold starts to bite, people are going to sleep freezing in their cars. Tomorrow there will be people who wake up hungry and wonder what they're going to eat. Right now, there are students wondering how they are going to cope with the next rent rise. But Labor's budget spends a quarter of a trillion dollars on tax cuts for the wealthy, with $9,000 a year for billionaires and politicians. It has $16.7 billion of handouts for wealthy property moguls and $368 billion for nuclear submarines.

Labor say they want to be the superior economic manager, but for who? It's not for young people, for students, for renters, for first-time homebuyers. It's not for those on income support or for disabled people; it's for their big corporate donors. 'No corporation left behind' is Labor's new motto. Labor is managing the economy for CEOs, for billionaires and for property moguls. If you own dozens of homes, this budget is for you. If you run a coal and gas cooperation, this budget is for you. If you own a private jet, this budget is for you. If you are rich, Labor's got your back.

But if you are on income support you get $2.85 extra a day. That's barely enough to buy a loaf of bread. If you receive rent assistance, you will get an extra $1.12 a day. That's not going to cover the rent increases that are rising ten times faster than that in capital cities. It's a $1.12 a day to cover skyrocketing rents, while billions go to wealthy property moguls. For 5½ million renters who don't get rent assistance, there is nothing at all in the budget.

Meanwhile, the government is collecting more from Labor's increase in student debt than from the changes to the tax on big gas corporations. Labor boasts that they are in surplus, but you can't use a surplus to pay the rent or buy food. Every dollar of surplus is a dollar not spent lifting people out of poverty, including the single mothers and single parents that Labor excluded from undoing the damage of their attack on single parents over a decade ago. Disabled people are facing $74 billion in cuts to the NDIS. These aren't tough choices, as the Prime Minister likes to say; they are just bad choices. They're making everyone else make the tough choices.

Despite the Treasurer failing to mention climate change once in his speech, the Greens have secured more than a third of the new climate spending, with a $2 billion package to help households, businesses and public housing get off of gas. However, Labor's still spending $41.4 billion on fossil fuel subsidies, more than the $29½ billion dollar climate spend.

When the budget legislation hits parliament, the Greens will fight to make the big corporations and billionaires pay more tax and will fight for more support for people who need it now—right now. The Greens will be fighting for renters and against the billions in handouts to property moguls. We will be fighting for the climate and the environment and against handouts for coal and gas corporations. The government has the power to tackle inequality and the cost-of-living crisis, but instead they're making it worse. They say no-one left behind, then they betray young people and those in poverty. They say they're ending the climate wars and then hand out billions in fossil fuel subsidies. They say they want to tackle housing, but they give nothing to 5½ million renters and refuse to directly invest in building more public housing.

Labor could work with the Greens to tackle the crisis that we face. Instead, Labor is betraying people and leaving them behind. Voters elected this parliament to act on climate, the environment and the cost-of-living crises. If Labor work together with the Greens, we could immediately stop new coal and gas mines, lift people out of poverty, freeze rent increases and wipe student debt. That's what the Greens will fight for when this budget legislation hits the parliament.

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