Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I had to pop into the bathroom to quickly fix a nosebleed, and I came out and noticed that Senator Macdonald had pretty much delivered my speech, which would be a first. Although there are some fundamental things we disagree on, I am very heartened to hear Senator Macdonald say that we are not doing enough to take money off those entities that can afford to pay rather than taking money off the poor, the needy and the disadvantaged in this country. I was very heartened to hear that and I certainly look forward to joining with Senator Macdonald in asking similar questions about why we are not taking a structural approach to increasing taxation in this country.

Actually I wanted to start with a biblical parable, and it is just coincidence that Senator Bernardi is in the chamber with me today. It tells us that when reflecting on our future—and you will be very familiar with this, Senator Bernardi—we should build our house on stone and not on sand. Figuratively, the house can be our lives, our societies, our communities, our governments. This Tony Abbott budget is looking like it will soon disappear into quicksand because the foundation it is built on is dishonesty and deception and it is proving unpalatable and unacceptable to many Australians—and I am sure that everyone in this chamber has received that feedback themselves in recent weeks no matter what political colour they are.

This so-called budget emergency, the debt crisis, the key justification for these cruel and unnecessary cuts to our country's most disadvantaged, is the biggest deception of all. The idea that Australia is in a debt crisis has been debunked by both the International Monetary Fund, and last week by the Parliamentary Budget Office who, whilst acknowledging that they wanted to see our levels of debt retired, said that it was nonsense to say that we were in some sort of crisis. This is the type of language and emotive messaging that we use in times of warfare or at other times of national crisis and most Australians are smart enough to know when they are being conned. They know when it is time to pull in their belts and do their bit for their country. This is not a crisis or an emergency that requires the types of draconian, cruel and unnecessary cuts that we have seen, for example, to young unemployed Australians under 30 or to pensioners either elderly pensioners or disability pensioners.

The myths this budget dishonesty are built on were recently analysed by the Australian Institute in its report, Auditing the auditors, which I have a copy of here. They showed that Australia's present debt levels are historically low and that by international standards the Australian government net debt levels and current budget deficit are amongst the lowest in the developed world in the OECD. Contrary to this government's propaganda, Australia's current debt levels are the result of tax cuts under the Howard years rather than from recent supposed runaway government spending on things such as welfare, health and pensions. We are the fourth lowest taxing country in the OECD and our levels of government spending rather than being out of control are in line with Australia's average spending over the past 30 years.

The Greens like every other political party in this chamber support sensible measures to raise revenue and manage budgets but, like Senator Macdonald, we want to target those who can afford to pay rather than punishing the battlers in this country. This includes keeping the current tax on mining super profits and going back to the original Henry review and fixing that tax; a price on carbon pollution; a new deposit guarantee levy on big bank profits relating directly to the deposit guarantee they received during the GFC and the benefits that has brought the big banks, which should be paid back to the Australian taxpayer; and the removal of billions of dollars in corporate welfare such as mining diesel subsidies. None of these are considered in this budget. The most common thing I say when I talk to people about the budget is, yes, the coalition did have very clear policies going into the election that they would axe the taxes—getting rid of a mining super profits tax and a price on carbon. But what they did not say was where they would find the revenue necessary to retire debt and run this country. When they were asked repeatedly whether there would be cuts to science, to CSIRO or the Antarctic Division, whether there would be cuts to the ABC, whether there would be cuts to pensioners, to the unemployed or to universities, they consistently said no. There were at least seven direct broken promises, at least seven. This is coming from a Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who campaigned for four years—longer than four years but especially the four years before he came to government—on the supposed lie that Julia Gillard had told, something which I have heard Senator Macdonald, for example, mention at least 2,000 times in my two years in the Senate. One lie by a Prime Minister, one broken promise, but six lies that I have counted so far, one for each month the government has been in power in the country.

And it is not just the fact that we have this deception—and it is obvious to nearly every Australian who is true-blue and knows when he is being conned—it is a matter of trust, and that trust is going to take so long to restore not just for this government but for all of us as members of parliament. Personally, I think the feedback that I have received indicates that we could not possibly be at a lower ebb as parliamentary representatives than we are now because of these broken promises, and the cynicism day in day out of talking about Prime Minister Julia Gillard being a liar and breaking a promise on a carbon tax, yet suddenly it is okay for that same Prime Minister to do exactly the same thing. Six months in power, and how many more broken promises are there going to be? Clearly, promises mean nothing. Integrity and honesty mean nothing in this country, and that is something we all have to fix and we have to fix it soon.

We have already voiced our opposition to the poorly constructed ideological budget initiatives such as the debt crisis levy. Not only is it bad policy, it is a smokescreen, the political gimmick that this government is using to somehow sell its cruel and dishonest budget. But looking at it and pinpointing the details around this policy, it is also bad policy. Let us consider it more detail.

According to the numbers I got from Senator Cormann in estimates last week, this budget repair levy—and I have also heard it called a 'budget crisis levy' and a 'debt crisis levy' and every week the messaging and the language around this seems to change—will raise around $3 billon. Looking at our projected forward debt, $667 billion—and Senator Cormann reminded me last week that if we had some other add-ons it would be $748 billion—on my calculations $748 billion divided by $3 billion, is 0.02 something per cent. So much for repairing the debt crisis in this country! And if it was a budget repair levy—if you want to use that messaging—it works out to about two to three per cent based on the forward estimates for budgets. How is that sharing the heavy lifting, when high-income earners in this country are contributing less than half a per cent to retiring this nation's debt? Clearly, it is not.

I was also intrigued as to when is a deficit repaired, when is debt repaired, when is a budget repaired. I could not get any answers from Senator Cormann last week on what actually would be classified as 'repaired' and whether this levy would stay in place if the budget was not repaired or the debt and deficit not repaired. We all know that the forecasts for the next three years and beyond rely very heavily on receipts and increase in economic activity. None of us have crystal balls. We do not know whether that is going to eventuate and, if it does not, then it is likely that we are going to have significant trouble paying down our debt. Yet, under this legislation, high-income earners still get let off the hook.

On the other hand, we have permanent changes to pensions and permanent changes for the young who, potentially, if they are not from a loving family, get thrown out on the street if they lose their job. Imagine a young person now facing the prospect of much higher fees at university but committing himself to going down that road—and this is only just one sample—and committing himself to those payments and getting though the degree and getting a job. It is a kick in the teeth for any young person—or any young person for that matter—who loses their job. How much more stress will they face now knowing that they have got six months with no income, six months where they are going to have to find, scrap, beg and borrow? As an economist, I think that through. If I were a young person and I had that uncertainty in my life, I would save my money. Maybe it will be good from a national savings point of view, but that is not going to be good for consumption or for investment. Why is it that consumer confidence has crashed in the last month? It is for exactly for the same reason.

We live in a society, in communities, that full of anxiety. It is a dog-eat-dog world we live in. Now we are only making it harder and harder particularly for young people after the commitment they are going to make to training and to bettering themselves. We are going to raise the levels of anxiety and ultimately, in my opinion, the levels of stress and mental illness, all things that afflict out society, because we implement stupid policies like the ones we have seen in this budget. They are cruel and unnecessary, designed by people who are totally out of touch with reality.

At a forum in Glenorchy last week, I met 60 or 70 disability support pensioners. At the end of the forum, there was a question put to me that I was not prepared for. An elderly gentleman, sitting with four of his friends, got up and said, 'My friends have discussed this and we believe that this government has set this budget up to fail. Can you tell me what possible reason they would have in setting this budget up to fail?' I said that I could not think of a reason and that I did not think that was the case. He said, 'Well, how can they be so stupid? How could they do this? How could they be so draconian, without consultation and without going to an election saying that they are going to increase the age of retirement or change the indexation of pensions? How could they do this? It does not make sense to us.' And I said, 'The only thing I can come to terms with, sir, is that they are totally out of touch.' Totally out of touch with average Australians; with people who have a right to live with dignity. And I challenge the government senators, if I have not done it already, to go down to Centrelink and meet these people. A lot of them are very good people who are desperately trying to get out of their circumstances. They are not people who are laying back on their pillow of entitlement. Sure, maybe there are some; I have no doubt there are some, but the majority are not. You cannot take a cookie-cutter approach to people, to human beings. What we need in this house in the next few weeks is some compassion and also some courage to stand up and say, 'This is stupid.' A lot of these measures need to be blocked, and the Greens will certainly do that.

In relation to this particular levy that we have in front of us, as I mentioned earlier, how can it be a repair levy if it is only repairing 0.02 something per cent of our national debt? I asked Senator Cormann that as well, and he said: 'It's like a boulder—it's going to get the ball rolling. High income earners are going to put their hands in their pockets and contribute.' I then said: 'Are you planning to cut taxes in this country going into the next election? And Senator Cormann said, 'Because of bracket creep, it's a natural thing for governments to cut taxes.' I said, 'All right then; can you guarantee you will only cut taxes in line with bracket creep?' And the government could not do that. Once again, I hate to be cynical, but it seems to me that that is exactly what this government is doing. They are building a war chest to go pork-barrelling and to provide tax relief and tax cuts across the income streams in this country going into the next election. So much for high-income earners doing their bit.

The Greens would like to see, in line with what Senator MacDonald said, structural changes to this tax so that it is permanent. How is it fair that the poor in this country suffer permanent cuts but the rich only get a temporary levy for two to three years? And—I will not go into it, because I think Senator Wong has already covered it—up to half a billion dollars of it could be avoided in the first 12 months due to loopholes. Also, a number of small businesses—and I know this from my own experience—could also avoid paying the levy by simply reshuffling their own dividends and incomes that they pay themselves within their businesses. So it is very unlikely to even raise anywhere near the $3 billion, let alone repairing the levy.

There are things we can do in this country to raise revenue when we need to. We can take on tax cheats; particularly offshore. It was estimated—and I went through this in estimates last week as well—that there is half a billion—$500 million—in at-risk revenues that this government could chase. We could also have the courage and conviction to take on big business and to see through the structural reforms that the Henry tax review recommended. This reminds me of a quote from one of my favourite Australian authors, Gregory Roberts, who wrote the book Shantaram. He said, 'There is only one thing more ruthless and cynical than the business of big politics, and that is the politics of big business.' This is a big business budget, and when the two come together—when the self-interest of this government and the self-interest of the large multinational corporations that make so much money in this country come together—we get the perfect storm. That is what we have in this budget, where a treasurer is happy to get up and say in his budget speech that he is redefining the role of government in people's lives. And I haven't the exact words, but I noted he made a comment the other day that it was not a government's role to tackle inequality. That is not why I am here. I am here because I think it is the government's role to do what is necessary to tackle inequality, and that is why my colleagues and I will stand up against these cruel, harsh and unnecessary budget measures we are going to see come to this House in the coming months.

I encourage all senators in here to go out and hear people's real stories and to have the compassion and the foresight necessary to not only help build our communities but also address why it is that we have these problems in our communities. Do not just address the symptoms; address the causes. Saying people are lazy and somehow feeling like they are entitled is not the answer. We need to be prepared, as Senator MacDonald said, to put in place permanent higher taxes. The Greens have a policy—a longstanding policy—on progressive taxation, particularly to millionaires. We also have a policy of taxing bags and taxing pollution. To give you a very quick idea, removing the carbon price is going to lose us around $12.5 billion. But reducing tax avoidance by taxing discretionary trusts would provide $3.3 billion; applying a millionaires' tax—50 per cent over a million—that is $907 million; and implementing the original super profits tax—$35.58 billion dollars. That is the exact amount of expenditure cuts—almost the exact amount that this government is taking in its budget that could be recouped from our mineral wealth and shared by all Australians if we had the guts and the courage to do it. Placing a $2.00 per ton levy on thermal coal would provide another billion dollars; and a public insurance levy to pay back taxpayers for providing deposit guarantees—$11 billion. There you go—and that does not even include some of the easy other low-hanging fruit that we need to tackle in this country.

The Greens will be opposing this measure, as we will other measures in the budget.