Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

You would think, in the context of one of the worst housing and cost-of-living crises we have seen in generations, that everyone in this country would be doing it tough. But there is one group who are actually doing very well right now, and they are coal, oil, gas and other large multinational corporations, who are driving this cost-of-living and housing crisis with their massive price gouging and huge corporate superprofits.

We know that over 30 per cent of the entire Australian economy goes to the profits of big corporations. As a result of analysis of this cost-of-living crisis, we know that, over the last few years, Australia's 500 biggest companies made $98 billion in crisis profits. That includes Woolworths and NAB, one of the big four Australian banks. So, while you're paying more at the supermarket, getting price gouged; paying massive amounts on your mortgage; and being forced into vicious financial stress, some of Australia's largest corporations are getting away with massive corporate superprofits.

Why is this happening? In large part it's because those same corporations, whether it be Santos, Chevron or NAB and the three other big banks—who happen now to be represented, by the way, by former Labor premier Anna Bligh—wield enormous power over our political system on both sides of politics, both Labor and the Liberals. We know they both take millions of dollars in donations from those same corporations who benefit from incredibly favourable tax arrangements that, for instance, in one financial year, saw three out of five coal and gas corporations operating in this country pay zero dollars in tax—none. They're exporting our coal, oil and gas overseas. That means that $100 billion in income across 54 companies saw them pay zero dollars in tax. In fact, in the 10 years between 2014 and 2024, all the teachers in the country paid twice as much tax as the entire oil and gas sector. This is despite the fact that Australia is one of the largest exporters of fossil fuels in the world. We're in the top three—in the top three.

Despite that, we're in a situation where millions of people are living in poverty in this country, where you've got single mums choosing between feeding their kids and paying the rent, and where you have families coming to free meal programs because they can't afford to feed their family every night because they have to cover their mortgage that goes to one of the big four banks that records massive corporate profits. But the banks get away with paying very little tax on that, compared to the amount of income they make, which then means the government decides not to invest in the cost-of-living relief that those people need.

We know that, even if we just taxed our fossil fuel industry at the same rate as Norway tax their oil and gas industry, we would raise hundreds of billions of dollars more in income that we could put towards real cost-of-living relief. It's worth thinking about it in these terms: every time you have to skip seeing the dentist because you can't afford to pay, that's in part because governments will not properly tax our multinational corporations—one third of them get away with paying zero dollars in tax—or tax our oil and gas industry, and that means there's not the revenue there to bring dental and mental health into Medicare. Every time you're struggling to pay your student debt and it is weighing down on you and preventing you from getting a home loan, that's because this government, and both sides of politics, have decided they'd rather have large multinational corporations and coal, oil and gas corporations paying sometimes zero dollars in tax than provide you with relief, wipe your student debt and make university free.

If you're a pensioner or on income support, every time you're forced into poverty because the cost of living goes up faster than your income support payments, and you're forced to live on poverty payments—and, if you're a renter, cop massive rent increases that you can't cover—that's because both sides of politics, Labor and the Liberals, decide that they would rather multinational corporations and the big oil and gas corporations paid very little in tax, sometimes zero dollars in tax. It has been revealed, for instance, that when the government's latest gas tax was being drafted, in the room sat some of Australia's largest coal, oil and gas executives. You don't get to see ordinary working people sit in the room with senior officials and write tax policy, but you do get to see large multinational corporations and their executives have enormous influence over our political system.

Here is the bottom line. Australia is an incredibly wealthy country, but right now an overwhelming amount of that wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a small few. If we did properly tax our coal, oil and gas industry, if we did properly tax multinational corporations, we could bring dental and mental health into Medicare, we could scrap HECS debt and make university free again, we could bring the pension and income supports above the poverty line, and we could invest in a government builder and developer that goes and builds hundreds of thousands of good-quality homes that are sold and rented at prices people can actually afford, just like this country used to do and like countries around the world do right now.

Politics is about choices, and right now both major parties have decided to choose poverty, immiseration and suffering, in some cases, with millions in poverty. They've decided to choose that over properly taxing multinational corporations. The reality is that the only way we're going to stop this is with a people-powered movement that wields more power over the major parties than the coal, oil and gas industry does over the political systems. We know that former Labor and Liberal MPs have gone on to work for, to lobby for, the coal, oil and gas industry. We know that the former Labor Premier Anna Bligh is now the head of the Australian Banking Association. We know the power these corporations wield. The only way we're going to push back is with a movement more powerful than them so Labor and the Liberal Party realise that people are sick of being taken for granted by a political establishment that far too often chooses to leave them in poverty and immiseration over taxing big multinational corporations.

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