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

It never ceases to amaze me that the ultraconservatives like Senator Bernardi are fairly happy to talk to us about the role of government. They do not see any role for government in our lives except when it comes to social issues that you rely on the government to step in and regulate, such as same-sex marriage and other issues.

Let us talk about Bernie Sanders. It is a really interesting point. Why has Bernie Sanders been so successful in the US in the primaries today? It is probably the same reason that Donald Trump has been so successful. This is an international hot topic. I heard a really good summary from none other than Mr Kim Beazley on TV the other night, on Lateline. He said that the reason that US politics seems to be going haywire is that white males of middle income brackets have had no change in real income in the US in the last 20 years, whereas Australian incomes have increased 3½-fold. In the US, trickle-down economics has failed. Trickle-down economics, small government and leave it to the market have failed the American people. That is why we are seeing such an interesting race in the US primaries.

Tax reform is partly about revenue raising; it is partly about balancing budgets; but mostly it is about having a fair and equitable society. It is using the levers that we have in tax reform to get outcomes that we want to have a more prosperous and sustainable society. My party, the Greens, have been very proud to have led on the biggest tax reform of our generation with a clean energy package, putting a price on carbon, trying to tax the superprofits of mining companies.

This government ruthlessly and cynically campaigned at the last election to rip up $18 billion worth of good policy that raised significant revenue for our country. But what they failed to tell the Australian people was how they were going to replace that revenue. In their first budget, which we all remember very well, they were going to attack pensioners, students, single parents, the sick and the elderly—and it failed, because they had no plan. Since then we have gone through a green paper process and a white paper process, constantly ruling in and ruling out what we are going to look at in tax reform. In our party, the Greens, we just want to have a sensible debate.

Talking about sensible, sadly we lost the clean energy package and now we are paying polluters billions of dollars. But we have done a good job of getting some outcomes on tax transparency. That still has a way to go, but we are convinced we are on the right track there. We have delivered a small business package, which has helped small business get up. They are the engine room of our national economy. We have delivered pension reform. That gives an increase in pensions to the least well-off this country, those who need it the most. We have constantly stood up against the GST, not just because it is a regressive tax but because it is lazy. It is lazy politics, when there are so many other things we could do. We have been out there suggesting these constructive alternatives for some time now.

I am very proud to say that my partner in crime here, Senator Ludlam, has been campaigning on negative gearing for at least 18 months, if not longer. I sat in the Press Club nine months ago debating negative gearing and capital gains tax with Judith Sloan and the Grattan Institute. This is something we have been talking about for some time. We have constantly had policies on removing negative gearing, removing the capital gains tax concessions and having superannuation tax reform. We have been happy to put those costings out there. We have been happy to lead on this. I am proud to say that we now have the support of the Labor Party in a couple of these things and, in a constructive process, they have joined us to campaign on tax reform around these issues. Adam Bandt was on the front page of The Australian last week saying that he was holding out a fig leaf to the government: 'Come and talk to the Greens about super concessions, come and talk to us about capital gains tax and come and talk to us about negative gearing. Together we can secure $22 billion of revenue and make this country fairer.' It is no surprise to me that, three days later, Labor caucus finally approved their negative gearing plan, 12 months after Chris Bowen started talking about it. Thank you for the leadership from the Greens and thank you, Labor Party, for entering the fray.

We also have a vision for infrastructure spending around this country. We have a vision for getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies and other areas where we know we can get up to $80 billion worth of revenue in this country, which we can redirect into schools, into hospitals, into affordable housing, into where it is needed, and look after those who are least well-off in this society. That is the role of government—not what Senator Bernardi said. The role of government is, when markets fail, being there to protect those who are vulnerable.