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

The Greens will be supporting this bill and voting for it, but we should be clear. This tiny tax-tweak budget is a massive missed opportunity for real cost-of-living relief, like getting dental into Medicare—73c a day in 15 months time won't help that much when your rent has gone up by hundreds of dollars already.

Everyday people are being asked to wait over a year for a very, very small amount of relief. Meanwhile, big corporations continue to laugh all the way to the bank right now. Under Labor's budget, one in three big corporations pays no tax. They could be raking in billions of dollars a year. Exxon Mobil brought in $15 billion in revenue one year and paid $0 tax. When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, something is deeply wrong, but that's what Labor's budget delivers.

When it comes to coal and gas corporations, it's closer to one in two of them paying no tax at all, and, most of the time, they don't even pay for their gas in the first place. You show me any other business that gets its materials free, paid for by the government. Restaurants don't get that. Offices don't get that. Factories don't get that. But, if you're a big gas corporation, this government's budget gives you the gas for free, and then they don't ask you to pay any tax on it. Under this budget, under Labor's budget, by 2028, everyday Australian beer drinkers are going to be paying twice as much tax as the gas tax collects, because that is Labor's priority. This budget was a massive missed opportunity to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax. One in three big corporations are paying no tax at all. When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, under Labor, something is deeply wrong.

It is because the government has refused to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax—it has been happy to take their political donations but has refused to make them pay their fair share of tax—that we see this tiny tax tweak coming for people in over 15 months' time while the big corporations continue to get massive support and massive subsidies now. There are $56 billion in subsidies, in handouts, paid for by the everyday taxpayer to the fossil fuel industry. There are $176 billion in handouts to wealthy property investors. But everyday people, well, they get told they've got to wait over a year for 73c a day, even though their rent has gone up by hundreds of dollars and their mortgage has gone up by similar amounts.

The Greens have a plan to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax to deliver real cost-of-living relief, like getting dental and mental health into Medicare, like wiping student debt, like making public school genuinely free so people don't have to pay those so-called 'voluntary' fees of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every year. We could do all of that. But it's going to take a bit of courage to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax and not keep shifting the burden onto everyday people.

Right now, people are skipping meals to pay the rent. People are avoiding going to the dentist because they can't afford it. People are skipping going to see the GP because of low bulk-billing rates. There are things we could do about this right now. We could not ask people to wait 15 months but deliver some real cost-of-living relief to people right now. That's what this place should be about; it should be about acting in the public interest, not acting in the corporate interest. But that's what this budget does.

The government say, 'No, you've got to look at all of the tax cuts we've put in together.' Well, even when you do that, billionaires and politicians still end up getting four times the tax cut as a low-income earner. People are really doing it tough and need assistance right now. We could deliver it if we said to those one-in-three big corporations that are paying no tax, 'You've got to start paying tax.'

The Greens have outlined a plan to make big corporations pay tax, and it will deliver over $500 billion over the next decade. That would help fund getting dental into Medicare now, getting mental health into Medicare now, making it free to see the GP now. But what are this government's priorities? In this week, which is the last week of parliament before the election, we could have legislated to lock in tripling the bulk-billing incentive for everyone, something the Greens announced months ago and pushed for months ago. The government came on board and said it was a good idea, and we said: 'Let's legislate it now to Dutton-proof it, to ensure that it can't be undone in the future either by a hostile Senate or by a hostile minister. Let's get it into legislation.' No, the government didn't want to do that.

We were the only ones at the last election saying we've got to wipe student debt. It means people are never able to get ahead. We're becoming a country where, even if you do all the things that are asked of you—you work hard and you study hard—you still can't afford a place to rent and you still find yourself with a massive debt to pay that influences so many decisions over your whole life. We pushed and pushed at the last election and all the way through this parliament, saying, 'We've got to take action on student debt.' The government came along and said, 'Well, tell you what, we'll wipe 20 per cent.' And we said: 'Okay. That's a good start. Let's legislate it. Let's Dutton-proof it. Let's not hold it ransom to the outcome of the election. Let's start legislating it and deliver relief for people right now.' No, the government didn't want to do that. The government wants to hold help for students and former students and families ransom to the outcome of the next election when we could be delivering it now. So the government don't want to legislate cutting student debt this week and they don't want to legislate being able to see the GP for free, even though they say it's their policy and, 'Just trust us; we'll do it after the election.' They don't want to legislate those.

What they did find time to do this week was work with the coalition to gut our environment and climate laws simply because the Leader of the Opposition asked. They found time to come into this place and rush through legislation that is not just about something happening in Tasmania—delivering for the rotten salmon corporations, as the government wants to do—but that is going to have an impact across the whole of the country. That's why the Australian Conservation Foundation has said today that this is a sell-out and that—get this, Deputy Speaker—environment protections were stronger under Scott Morrison than they are under this Prime Minister. That's where we're left at the end of this parliament. That's the verdict. That is the verdict of Australia's biggest conservation organisation.

The government didn't find time to legislate to wipe student debt and deliver help to people right now, nor to legislate to triple the bulk-billing incentive even though they say it's their policy, but they did find time to deliver for the big corporations and gut our environment and climate laws and leave our environment laws weaker than they were when Scott Morrison was in power. They didn't find time to do any of that, but they did find time to bring forward legislation that won't have an impact until 15 months time.

This is why people are shifting away from the major parties in droves. This is why we have a situation at the moment where less than a third of the country votes for the government and a bit more than a third of the country votes for the opposition. About a third of the country is now voting for someone else, including the Greens. When governments are in and they don't use their power to make people's lives better now, then people lose faith in governments. That, in turn, leaves space—as we've seen overseas—for the likes of Trump and for the likes of the Leader of the Opposition here, because they feed off that discontent.

There's an antidote to this. There's a way to prevent Trump-style politics coming to Australia, which is to use the power of government to make people's lives better now—to say that in a wealthy country like Australia everyone should be able to afford the basics: a roof over their head, groceries and housing. That's what government should be for—to help now.

Instead, we've seen rents go up by 30 per cent and mortgages soar as well, and the government say, 'There's nothing we can do about it.' We've seen student debts soar, and the government say, 'We can't legislate about it in this parliament.' We've seen people avoiding going to the doctor because they can't afford it, and the government say: 'You just have to trust us; we might do something about that next election. There's plenty of time to gut our environment and climate laws and plenty of time to ensure that Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer continue to get billions in subsidies, but, sorry, no time to help you people.' That is what gives rise to discontent in our community. It sees the gap between the haves and the have-nots grow. And then along come the likes of the hard right, the Trumps and the Leader of the Opposition, and they feed on that discontent. We should be using this place just to make people's lives better. That's what we should be doing, and we should be doing it now.

And we could do it now. Stop tinkering around the edges, Labor. Stop saying, 'We can only do something in 15 months time.' Let's use this place to make people's lives better now, to deliver real cost-of-living relief. Because the thing is, in the long run, doing something like getting dental into Medicare, legislating so that we can see the GP for free or making it genuinely free to send your kids to a public school, funding it by making the big corporations pay their fair share of tax—that's the action that people want to see, and when it happens people will reward you for it. Instead we have a government addicted to timidity and an opposition that would be terrible.

That is why, in this environment where a third of the country is now saying, 'We don't want either of you'—and that figure is growing—I'm actually a bit optimistic. I'm optimistic because this election gives us a once-in-a-generation chance to keep Dutton out and get Labor to act. The experts are all saying there is going to be a minority parliament. Last time there was one, the Greens got dental into Medicare for kids, we got action on climate that saw pollution starting to come down and we got $13 billion for clean and renewable energy. This is our chance to get dental into Medicare for everyone.

We know, because we've just witnessed three years of it, that the opposition is going to try and tear everything down, which is why the Liberals need to be kept as far away from power as possible. But, even when they've got the opportunity to, Labor won't act. At best, we get tinkering around the edges. At worst, they take us backwards, like the environment groups have said has happened with our environment laws. Imagine that—what a badge of honour to have the biggest environment organisation now say environment protections were better under Scott Morrison than under this current Prime Minister! But that is why. We have seen over the course of this week an object example of why we need to keep the Liberals out and get Labor to act. And that will happen with more Greens in the coming minority parliament. We got dental into Medicare for kids last time. Let's get it in for everyone else now.

You just have to look at who's lost out in this budget. People on income support are still living in poverty, there are more cuts to the NDIS and the Treasurer didn't mention 'climate' or 'environment' once in his speech last night. There's nothing new for renters. The cost of AUKUS two budgets ago was $6 billion. It went up to $12 billion. And now, in their latest budget, it's $18 billion. That's for submarines that are never going to arrive, that tie us further to Donald Trump and that paint a huge Donald Trump shaped target on Australia's back. Those are the priorities of this government and they need a shake-up as we keep the Liberals out.

We've seen in this budget that Greens pressure works. We've seen some action on student debt. We've seen a tripling of the bulk-billing incentive. But we've got to, at this coming election, seize the chance to get some real action. People want assistance. People need help right now. We are in a climate and environment crisis, we are in a housing and rental crisis and we are in a cost-of-living crisis. We know that the opposition will tear everything down and deliver for billionaires, just as we've seen Donald Trump do in the United States, which is why we've got to keep them out. As we've seen this week, the only way that we're going to keep Dutton out and get Labor to act is by getting more Greens in parliament.

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