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

I seek leave to move that so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would allow the Member for Melbourne to give notice for a Bill for an Act which would have the effect of repealing the stage three tax cuts.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would allow the Member for Melbourne to give notice for a Bill for an Act which would have the effect of repealing the stage three tax cuts.

This is urgent. This is the last sitting week before the budget. If we don't repeal the stage 3 tax cuts now, then the budget that will happen in just a couple of sitting days will lock in inequality in this country, destroy this country's progressive tax system and bake in $244 billion of handouts to billionaires and politicians and the wealthy at a time when this country is living through a cost-of-living crisis. This is our chance to ensure that social democracy doesn't head to the chopping block. Instead, this is our chance to ensure that $244 billion in the budget isn't funnelled off to billionaires and isn't given to politicians as a $9,000 a year tax handout that no-one deserves or needs. Instead it should be used to do things that will relieve the pressures that everyday people are facing.

If the budget bakes it in, this money will be a huge, huge impost. It will be ridiculously expensive. It will be one of the biggest expenditures this country will have ever committed to: $244 billion which the government wants to lock in, in this upcoming budget next sitting week. That $244 billion could get dental into Medicare for everyday Australians, it could make child care free and it could build affordable housing. Those are the things that people need right now to deal with wages going backwards, incomes going backwards, and the cost of everything else rising. Government can make a real difference to people's lives, but only if government has the courage to stand up to big corporations and to vested interests like billionaires and politicians, and instead use public money for the public good.

These stage 3 tax cuts will lock in inequality. We know the top one per cent of income earners will get the same out of these tax cuts as the bottom 65 per cent put together. We know that men will get twice as much as women. At a time when the parliament should be doing everything it can to close the gender pay gap, Labor's stage 3 tax cuts will increase the gender pay gap.

We know that the money that will be ripped out of the budget is going to rise and rise and rise. We're dealing with a massive expenditure that Labor wants to book and lock in, in this budget—$244 billion over the next decade. I want people to just think: when Labor say there's no money for free child care or to get dental into Medicare or to do all of the things that would make a difference to people's lives, that's because they will be spending $244 billion on giving tax cuts to politicians and billionaires and people who, frankly, don't need it.

This is why it is urgent that we resolve this today, before the budget sitting: this will be the first time that I can remember in this parliament, but potentially in any parliament since federation, that the government will be locking in $244 billion on a program they can't and won't justify. Not that long ago my colleague the member for Brisbane asked the Treasurer what the economic justifications are for the stage 3 tax cuts. The Treasurer could not even offer one justification for the stage 3 tax cuts. So you have a Treasurer and a government preparing a budget where perhaps the single biggest item of new expenditure—$244 billion on tax cuts—is one that they can't even justify. That's why we need to have a debate today on the Greens bill to repeal the tax cuts for politicians and billionaires and to instead spend that money on making everyday people's lives better.

We've got to do this today before this expenditure gets locked in. It is extraordinary that a government is about to bring a budget to this place and ask for it to be passed very swiftly without offering a justification for the $244 billion that is locked in for the wealthiest people in this country. I have not seen this in my time in this place—they are asking $244 billion to be approved on a program the government cannot even justify. Why is the public being asked to spend $244 billion on Labor's stage 3 tax cuts when Labor itself cannot even justify them? This will widen inequality and this will increase the cost-of-living pressure on everyday people, because there will be less money available in the budget to spend on things that will make people's lives better.

I know the government say that they're concerned about deficits. The government come in and say, 'We can't do the things that we want to do in the budget, because there are now additional pressures on the budget, including deficits.' We've got a different view to the government about the approach that should be taken with regard to deficits, and we don't support an austerity approach that says you hurt everyday people to deal with the deficit. But it's the government who is coming here and saying the deficits are the issue. Why, then, is the government spending $244 billion on giving tax cuts to the richest people in Australia and going further into deficit to give Clive Palmer $9,000 a year? Don't come into this place and ask us to support cuts to services or to ask people to do it tougher in a cost-of-living crisis, when you are prepared to borrow more to give Clive Palmer a tax cut. That is priorities the wrong way around.

The Greens don't want Clive Palmer to get a $9,000-a-year tax cut. We'd rather that money go to putting dental into Medicare so people can afford to fix their teeth. Labor wants Clive Palmer to pay less tax; the Greens want Clive Palmer to pay more tax so that you can get your teeth fixed. That's what this is about. It is urgent that we debate this bill today because, once the government comes back here and locks in this spending in the budget, every other decision in the budget will hang off it. There will be less room in the budget for spending on getting dental into Medicare, making child care free, wiping student debt or building affordable housing—all of those things that we know would make a difference to people's lives—because the government, as its centrepiece, is locking in $244 billion of tax cuts to billionaires, politicians and the wealthiest people in this country.

By supporting this motion and allowing this bill to come up for debate, everyone in this parliament will have a chance to show where they stand. It is one thing to go back to the electorate and say, 'Oh, actually, I don't support this,' or to give drops out to the media and say, 'We're thinking about doing something different,' but what matters is the vote. What matters is how you vote in this place, because this is the place that makes laws, this is the place that can change laws and this is the place that can set the parameters about what is in the budget.

This is the opportunity right here, right now to say, 'Let's debate.' Let's have a debate about a bill that we've got drafted that will repeal the stage 3 tax cuts. The thing to remember is that this isn't asking everyday people to pay more tax than they're paying at the moment. These tax cuts haven't come into effect yet. This budget will be the first moment that Labor will start to lock them in. We are talking about stopping tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this country before they even get them. So not only will this not impact on everyday people—they're not going to be asked to pay more—but also there's going to be more money in the budget from the accounting period starting now and that will mean the government can do more to make people's lives better. So it's a very simple choice for people when it comes to this vote: do you want Clive Palmer to get a $9,000 a year tax cut, or do you want to get dental into Medicare instead? The Greens know where we stand. Supporting this motion will make a big difference to the cost-of-living pressures people are under.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

NDLER-MATHER () (): I second the motion to suspend sessional and standing orders. One of the things I heard a lot when I was door-knocking during the federal election campaign—and probably the most common thing—was that people are completely fed up with politics. Often, they hate it. And one of the primary reasons is that they feel it is completely disconnected from their everyday lives. The question of urgency today I think sums up a lot of the reasons that people hate politics right now. For those pensioners right now having to choose between paying the rent or feeding themselves that night; for those people who have been evicted from their homes into their cars—families, single parents—because there isn't enough public housing to go around; for those people skipping seeing the dentist; for those people having to take time out from their jobs because they can't afford childcare—too often, time and again, this place makes choices about spending priorities that either destroy those people's lives or make their lives tougher, while at the same time doing frankly grotesque things like giving $9,000 a year extra to literally every person in this place!

I cannot see a more urgent question to discuss right now than repealing the stage 3 tax cuts, freeing up $244 billion and using that money—right now—to plan for those people's futures. How often do we go to an election campaign and hear people in this place saying, 'We really care about the cost-of-living crisis.' But, when it comes to the crunch, when it comes to getting to make a decision about repealing the stage 3 cuts, they're not admitting that it's urgent right now that we contemplate how to spend $244 billion, and that maybe it's time to start spending that on getting dental into Medicare, or universal free child care, or scrapping student debt, or building enough public housing to solve the housing crisis. Right now, the majority of this place thinks that we're better off spending that $244 billion on dishing out $9,000 a year in tax cuts to anyone earning over $200,000 a year, including Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and every federal politician in this place. I do not know how you can look anyone in the eye and say you care about the cost-of-living crisis and know that your policy position right now is to give yourself an extra $9,000 a year. That is so absurd.

I think it's remarkable that an entire cottage industry has developed around trying to study the reasons why people don't like politics: 'there's a loss of trust', or, 'people just aren't paying enough attention to the good work that we're doing in this place'. We always miss the forest for the trees, right? It couldn't possibly be that people know a lot about their own lives, and they're fully aware of what goes on in this place! And right now what is going on in this place is that we have both major parties deciding we're better off spending $244 billion over 10 years handing out $9,000 a year to anyone earning over $200,000 a year. It couldn't possibly be that that leads people to deciding that they don't really like politics that much—

And I'll take that interjection: potentially, when you door-knock at those people's houses, you should lead with: 'Hello, my solution to the housing crisis is handing out $9,000 a year to Clive Palmer.' It is interesting to me, by the way, how tetchy Labor get when we talk about the stage 3 tax cuts—because down in their hearts they know that the decision they're making is fewer public homes, more people paying for the dentist, and more people having to choose between paying the rent and feeding their families that night. Time and again, we hear Labor getting upset about the fact that they're being called out for a terrible policy position rather than contemplating the human impact that their policy position has on people's lives. If you walk through this chamber, Deputy Speaker, every person you walk past is going to get $9,000. Labor can think more about that, and about their policy decisions right now and the choices they're making in this place. They're saying that it is not urgent to think about how we free up the cash to make sure that we build enough public housing or to make sure that anyone can see the dentist if they need to. Labor can think about those teachers and nurses who are right now making up for the chronic underfunding of our public health and education: maybe they shouldn't have to make that sacrifice. Maybe we should make that sacrifice here and not pocket that extra $9,000 a year that the stage 3 tax cuts are going to give every federal politician.

I think the message to both major parties is to get less angry about the things we're saying here and more angry about the fact that people in your electorate are suffering—and the fact that your parties' position right now is handing out $244 billion to people like Clive Palmer, rather than contemplating how we get that money and put it towards actually improving the lives of the vast majority of people in Australia. That is why people are fed up with politics. That is why repealing the stage 3 tax cuts is so critically urgent. At the very least, we should be suspending standing orders so that everyone in this place can get up and justify why they think they need an extra $9,000 but we don't need dental in Medicare. It is a sick joke. (Time expired)

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be disagreed to. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133, the division is deferred until after the discussion of the matter of public importance.

Debate adjourned.