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

[by video link] This budget spends big, but it spends very, very badly. Not only are the 2020s the critical decade to rapidly drive down pollution in a last chance to secure a safe climate; they are now shaping up to be the critical decade to prevent spiralling economic inequality too.

With a Green New Deal, for a debt of about $25 billion a year, we could get to 100 per cent renewable energy; have free child care, university and TAFE; lift JobSeeker above the poverty line; guarantee every young person a job; and build half a million new public-housing homes. Instead, this budget gives $99 billion a year in subsidies to corporations and up to $50 billion a year to the 'tax cuts for millionaires' package, yet it leaves us with high unemployment, high university fees and high rents. Rather than creating jobs directly through public investment, this government is shovelling cash at big corporations; into expanding coal and gas; and into poorly thought through temporary wage subsidies and unfair tax offsets. One in three big corporations in Australia already pay no tax, but a key plank of the Morrison government's plan in this budget is to lift that to two in three companies. And we're just meant to sit and hope and pray for the best? Well, no. This budget is all brown and trickle-down, and I refuse to accept it.

It is remarkable how little we will actually have to show for all these billions spent. It's the kind of money that could build so much for our collective future. Imagine the jobs and opportunities we would have if we spent those billions on public housing, free child care, aged care, free TAFE and university, more teachers; and on restoring our natural environment and building renewables and high-speed rail. Instead, in the worst recession in generations, we're going deeper into debt to put more money into the bank accounts of those that earn more than a million dollars a year. Millionaires will get $2½ thousand, the working poor get $250 and the people who have lost their job get a kick in the teeth.

It is disgusting that the Treasurer has tried to confuse people about how much they will get in this budget. The tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners only last a year, and, when they run out next year, the bottom 70 per cent will get only four per cent of the benefit of the tax cuts. In other words, the top 30 per cent get 96 per cent of the money from these multibillion dollar tax cuts. Frankly, a tax cut means nothing if you haven't got a job or enough work, and, for millions of Australians who had their JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments slashed last week, that is the reality right now.

It is clear that this parliament will need to step up and stop this corporate welfare and oppose these trickle-down tax cuts. And, let me remind you, none of this is a done deal. The Greens will move amendments in the Senate, and we hope the others come on board and stop these tax cuts for millionaires.

Only by aiming for full employment; investing in our renewable energy, our universities and public housing; and lifting people out of poverty can we call it a fairer, smarter, more productive society. That is what a Green recovery would do, and that's why I'm calling for a Green New Deal and why I'm calling for the government to create jobs, to help us get to full employment, instead of being satisfied with six per cent unemployment, as the Treasurer is proposing. We can literally build any future we want if we use the money wisely. I come into this parliament to make tomorrow better, to fight for the future for our children, not make it worse. I simply will not accept that the most important budget of a generation should screw over the next generation instead of giving them hope for a greener, cleaner, fairer future.

The government has made its choices, but that isn't the end of the fight. This parliament now has some very important choices to make. The Greens are clear in our choice. We will be standing in opposition to these unfair tax cuts that benefit the very wealthy and the corporate welfare in this budget that runs into the billions. Rather than racing out of the box to lock in unfair tax cuts, I urge Labor and the crossbench to take the time to properly scrutinise these bills and to work with us to amend them. I urge them to work with us to transform the government's trickle-down con job into something that actually gives hope to all of those who are depending on us right now.