Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll be very brief. Considering the lateness of the hour, I rise to speak on the cognate debate on Supply Bill (No. 3), Supply Bill (No. 4) and Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023. The opposition will support the passage of the bills, in accordance with convention. It's important that the appropriate functions of government continue and departments are resourced to effectively carry out their duties when the examination of the appropriation bills through parliamentary processes means there is the inevitable delay of their passage.

Can I say, from my cursory look, there is a lot for us to examine. Labor have confirmed under their government that growth will be lower, unemployment will be higher, inflation will be higher for longer, electricity and gas prices will be higher, and the instant asset write-off for small businesses will end. There is, indeed, a lot to examine, especially on behalf of the 150,000 Australians who will find themselves unemployed because of this budget. What's missing is a coherent plan to bring down the cost of living. We've had lots of announcements, lots of bundling together of election promises, just not a coherent plan. It could be that, once the examination of the appropriation bills has progressed through the House and been considered by the other place, a plan may indeed miraculously appear, but I remain not very optimistic. In the meantime, of course, we will support the passage of the supply bills, in keeping with convention. I look forward to further debate on the issues at hand.

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

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes the Government's first budget gives a $9,000 per year tax cut to billionaires and locks in the $254 billion Stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy; and

(2) calls on the Government to repeal the Stage 3 tax cuts and provide cost of living relief that will make people's lives better, including by putting dental and mental healthcare into Medicare, building more affordable housing, and making childcare free".

People in Australia voted for change in the election in May, but so much of this budget is more of the same. We've been told that energy prices are going to go up by over 50 per cent over the next two years, while at the same time gas corporations are counting record profits. We've been told that revenue into the government coffers from gas is going to decrease by hundreds of millions of dollars in the same year and in the same period as one of the biggest gas booms in our history. We're told that rents are going to skyrocket, but there is no action on capping or freezing rents. We're told that the shortage of public housing is going to increase over this period, and yet the only investment the government is making in public and community housing is for 20,000 homes over the next five years, which doesn't even match the annual increase.

We're told that unemployment is going to be up, yet the perversity of it is that we all sat here, hearing the Treasurer talk about a sensible budget with tough choices, but everyone in this place is going to get an extra $9,000 a year once the stage 3 tax cuts come into effect. What are the tough choices that we're all making here? What are the tough choices that the billionaires and millionaires are making, who are going to get the $9,000 extra a year out of the stage 3 tax cuts? We've been told that life in Australia is going to get tougher over the next few years. The cost of living is going to go up and real wages are going to stagnate, but at the same time we're going to continue to see record corporate profits. Not only that; those same people making those record profits are going to get an extra $9,000 a year.

I once again return to that question asked time and again: why on earth do people in here wonder why people don't like politicians? Time and again we are told that the parameters for what's possible in politics are narrow. We could, for instance, step up and build hundreds of thousands of good-quality public homes over the next few years. We could scrap the stage 3 tax cuts and bring dental and mental health into Medicare. We could bring forward the Paid Parental Leave scheme right now so hundreds of thousands of extra parents could benefit. We could make child care universal and free right now if we scrapped the stage 3 tax cuts.

The amendment we're moving tonight is to highlight the hypocrisy of a government that claims to care about ordinary people but gives $9,000 extra a year to the politicians in this place who are already well overpaid and to the billionaires who already have enough and that takes money away from the people doing it tough. That's why we're moving this amendment, and those are the people—the people doing it tough right now—who the Greens will be fighting for over the next three years.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are different times in this place where either side of politics or the crossbench will do something that's ostensibly viewed as a bit of a stunt to highlight an issue, and I respect that, but I've never seen one like this. The impact, if this were to be carried, would be to negate the bill. That's what would happen. A second reading amendment, if it were to be carried, would negate the bill. That would mean, at best, that we would have to try this again tomorrow for a bill which is not on the Notice Paper for tomorrow.

If leave were not granted, for example, or even if we were to have leave granted, we would then have a problem with transmission and whether or not it got to the Senate in time tomorrow for them to be able to deal with it. That puts in jeopardy the wages of everyone who works in this building, serving us. That puts in jeopardy the wages of every public servant—including, I might add, the public servants delivering the exact sorts of payments that the member might want to refer to. The public servants delivering Centrelink payments are dependent, right now, on the amendment that was just moved by the Greens failing. The stunt that has been moved is to say to the people who work for us in this building, who make this place operate, who we rely on—for the people who every individual on the payment system in Australia relies on—that for the sake of an extra bit of debating at 8.30 pm on budget night, after the press gallery have largely gone home, that you're willing to play a game of putting at risk the wages of every one of those people for the operation of government. What's in front of us right now, I've got to say, is extraordinary.

In terms of stunts there are plenty of bills where you can move a second reading amendment, but to pick supply? To actually pick people's wages, people who work for the Commonwealth, is something that—I thought the sorts of arguments as to whether supply would be jeopardised in Australia were dispensed quite some decades ago. If it were to come back, it had not occurred to me that it might be members of the Greens political party who would raise it.

Be in no doubt, it's not like I am providing something that isn't readily available. It's there in Practice. On the one occasion a second reading amendment had been agreed to it was because the people on this side of the table—neither of whom are in the parliament anymore—weren't paying attention. And for the bill it was on there was no consequence in the timing. There was no urgency.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it's fun. It was a stunt. It was a bill where you could do it without jeopardising people's lives in any way.

The Speaker ruled that the amendment had been validly passed and proceedings on the bill should have ceased at that point. But you really want to put that forward? Really? Of all the different things that we can put in jeopardy and be willing to play some game of chicken with each other don't choose the wages of the people who run the public service, don't choose the wages of the people who deliver the payment system, don't choose the wages of the people who run this building and who we all ask to help us every single day we're here.

I will roll with the punches on different stunts when they are taken, but this one is just low. It's just low doing that on a supply bill, because, I can tell you what, your wages won't be affected by this one. They're covered elsewhere. You'll be fine. But each time someone opens a door or welcomes you through security or cleans your office, each time you talk to someone who relies on the payment system, each time someone wants a government service don't forget this night. Don't forget that a political point was worth threatening their jobs and their wages.

This place is not a university SRC. What happens here is real. What happens here affects the whole of the nation. What is being tried on right now, for the sake of a debate, is a game of chicken on people's wages, people who deserve better. They deserve better from each and every one of us in here.

I recommend people, when this comes to the vote, oppose the amendment. At that moment do not call for a division and risk that we don't get this done tomorrow, because, if we don't, the Senate doesn't sit again until 21 November. The impact is real—

An honourable member interjecting—

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I'll get paid.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He will get paid. But this is one of the silliest, most childish things I've seen. In that last moment don't call for a division. Of all the stunts I've seen in my time here, I've never seen someone threaten people's wages in the way that has just been done.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the coalition I committed to the government of the day that we would progress this expeditiously, in line with Westminster convention, in the time outlined by the government, and the opposition will hold to that, regardless of what the party of the Greens do or do not do.

I say to the House, it is normally an extraordinary thing when the opposition will stand in solidarity with the government. It is a rare thing when it comes to stunts in this place. The Leader of the House and I have been doing this for a long time—a decade and a half—and we've had our fair share of wins and fights, but neither of us can remember a time when a rookie error like this was made. There is a time for every season under the sun, not just in life but in this House. There is a time for standing up for what we believe in quite passionately and moving and using forms of the House for that. I even applaud the member for Watson for the great stunt where his team snuck off to the airport but didn't quite sneak off, whilst our side did, and then they came back in for three or four raucous hours of stunts.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was glorious!

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was something! 'Glorious' is not a word I would use, Manager of Government Business.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leader of the House.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Leader of the House. But the issue was one of consequence and one of form and what was being done. Heaven forbid, my first question time in this place was with one Prime Minister Rudd—I think you were Leader of the House, or was the current Prime Minister Leader of the House?—when a cardboard cut-out of the Prime Minister was brought in.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Fadden will resume his seat. I just remind you that you've already spoken in the debate. I need you to address your remarks to the amendment.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The issue was one of consequence. The House can deal with these issues where it is of little consequence apart from making a point. The issue the party of the Greens has raised—and we'll take it, I think, as read that it's a rookie error and move on—is one of enormous consequence. I'd seek the maturity of the House, probably on behalf of the Leader of the House and myself, for us just to move on and get this important part of the bills done with tonight.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment be disagreed to.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.