Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's 2024 and we're back for our first sitting week of the year. How's the state of the country at the moment? It's not great. In my home state of Queensland it has been another summer of unbearable heat, humidity, relentless rain, floods and two cyclones in as many months. The Bureau of Meteorology has warned of the risk of further bouts of heavy rain. Flooding has become a constant concern for many residents in my electorate. It's taking an emotional and financial toll. In fact, the cost of home and contents insurance has been rising rapidly due to inflation and the increasing frequency of these disasters, leaving even those who shop around facing significantly higher premiums year after year.

Recent research has shown that the cost of home and contents insurance has risen 25 per cent in one year alone. These figures are the average cost. For some homeowners, such as those living in flood-prone areas in my electorate, the premium increases will be much, much higher. It is now at the stage where some homes across Brisbane are uninsurable. Flooding and disasters are so frequent that insurance agencies won't even put a top-dollar price on the risk.

So who is paying for these impacts of climate change? It's not the fossil fuel industry. Australian taxpayers are still spending over $11 billion a year propping them up with financial subsidies. We've learned that the government collects more revenue from HECS fees than it gets from oil and gas taxes. But it doesn't have to be this way. Take Norway for example. They tax the fossil fuel industry to support free university education and countless other benefits to society. But over here we charge students a fortune to go to university so that we can afford to subsidise the fossil fuel industry. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world; we can do better than this. You can't transition away from fossil fuels while you are actively expanding them.

The polluter-pays principle needs to be at the heart of any genuine reform debate. Look at Qatar: they export less gas than we do but collect more than 20 times the amount of tax on it. Instead of propping up corporations, we could be supporting universal services that Australians really need right now, like health care and housing. It's become glaringly obvious how much corporate greed is really costing us. Skyrocketing prices on food, increased rents and bills mean that people simply can't afford life's essentials. While Coles and Woolies make off with huge profits, Australians are struggling to buy food and to keep a roof over their heads. These big corporations have too much power, and they can charge whatever they like. It's these superprofits that are driving a vast amount of inflation.

The finances of so many Australians are being stretched so thin. So many people are coming to the realisation that they are just one rate rise or one rental increase away from homelessness. This is no way to run a society. Residents from across my electorate have contacted me in distress because they are unable to afford or access timely health care, particularly bulk-billing GP services. In fact, just five per cent of new GP appointments in my electorate are bulk billed. Access to high-quality health care, including mental health care, is a basic human right. I have lived in the United States. I have seen and lived the consequences of a flailing health system where people are forced to, quite literally, choose between rent or the medicine that they need to survive. That is not freedom. That is not a choice that any human being should be forced to make, yet it seems to be a future that both the major parties want to create for us. Tinkering around the edges of a healthcare system in structural decline will not solve this crisis.

Instead of leaving basic human needs like housing and health care up to the market and big corporations, the government needs to start focusing on its priorities and to look after people. Instead of propping up the fossil fuel industry we could be building more public housing, getting dental and mental health into Medicare and easing the cost-of-living crisis. We need to build a society and economy that work for all of us, not just those at the top.