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

I would like to indicate today that the Greens will also be supporting these bills because we will not block supply, but it is extraordinary that we are in this Senate chamber debating supply bills before we have even seen the budget. That may be tabled later this evening, but it will no doubt immediately follow the Treasurer's budget speech, which we will also have no time to consider. Let us talk about what an extraordinary time in Australian politics this is. It is extraordinary because we are about to go into a double dissolution in the week that a budget has been delivered. We are doing that because of the political ambitions of Mr Malcolm Turnbull, our Prime Minister. He is forcing this country to go to an early election, taking the extraordinary measure of dissolving both houses of the parliament, to save his own political skin. He is not doing this for the Australian people; he is doing this for the Liberal Party and his leadership. The Australian people are not stupid—they are going to see through this. They know this has been a pantomime for weeks, including the very expensive proroguing and recalling of the parliament so we can come back here while this pantomime plays out. They will judge the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party on election day. I certainly hope that they vote for a change of government.

In recent days we have heard that today's budget will be about 'substantial reform'. Those two words are very important. What we have heard about in the media so far is not substantial reform. Raising the thresholds of tax brackets to provide a very small amount of money in the hip pockets of some Australians is not substantial tax reform. I must say, Mr President, while you are in the chair, that very few Tasmanians will benefit from that; nearly 82 per cent of Tasmanians earn less than $80,000 and only 12 per cent of Tasmanian women who work earn $80,000 or more. That is quite a remarkable statistic. Multinational tax avoidance measures, while welcome in principle, are baby steps towards what we need to do to eradicate tax dodging by big companies. While welcomed, I would not classify that as substantial tax reform. Spending $50 million for a study into infrastructure and how we can generate more revenue for bankers when we could have an infrastructure revolution around this country is not substantial reform.

Let me tell you what substantial reform is. Substantial reform is reducing inequality in Australia and making this country fairer. Budgets are not just about raising revenue or reining in spending to meet some arbitrary figures—it is about making our country fairer for all Australians. We have the chance to pull levers in budgets to make Australia a better place to live—a more prosperous place for all Australians. Substantial tax reform is removing perverse incentives like negative gearing and some capital gains tax provisions. It is the wealthiest in this country who benefit from those incentives, and they have been in place for too long. We need to look at making housing more affordable for Australians. We need superannuation tax concessions so that wealthy Australians can no longer use superannuation as a rort to reduce their tax. We are looking for leadership in this budget, and so far no detail has been provided on that. Substantial tax reform is putting in place hard policies to stop the wealthy dodging tax; putting in a Buffett rule, a floor on wealthy income earners, so that they pay 30 per cent guaranteed in tax over $300,000 income. That is substantial tax reform. That not only helps makes our tax system more progressive and fairer; it would also raise $7 billion in revenue. Removing subsidies for dirty polluters—the diesel fuel rebate for the big miners—would raise another $4 billion. Taking action on climate change—putting a price on carbon that actually will have an impact on emissions—is substantial tax reform.

The Greens have led on all these issues for years and we are confident that we have the courage and the vision as a political party that the Australian people want to see this election. That is what they want for their leaders—they want courage and they want vision. Because we are having a budget the same week as we are having a double dissolution, I challenge the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party, when they release their budget documents today, to show us what their courage and their vision is for this country's future. Do not just play a small target, a low-risk strategy. You are about to force the Australian people to an early election and you are dissolving both houses of parliament—an extraordinary step on the back of an ideological piece of legislation, the ABCC. We have actually passed some good legislation in the Senate in the last three years but we are being forced to go to an early election because of the leadership ambitions of our Prime Minister, because he rules over a divided party. That is why we are going to an early election. Tonight is your chance to show your vision and leadership for the Australian people. If substantial tax reform is what you have said it is going to be then we look forward to seeing the details of how you are actually going to reduce inequality and make Australia a fairer place.

There are little memories for me in this place. During the reply speech to the Governor-General when Prime Minister Tony Abbott first started, I was sitting next to Kevin Rudd, because everybody had to come into the chamber and there were not many seats. He sat there throughout the reply speech and he kept muttering to me: 'This man has no vision. He has no ideas.' We know what ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott's ideas were: they were to rip up the carbon price and the mining tax and to stop the boats. That clean energy package showed courage and vision in tackling a problem that is now on everyone's radar screen. Everyone in my home state of Tasmania has seen this summer. They have seen the dams dry up. They have seen fires in places we have never seen them before. They have seen the fish dying because water temperatures are 4½ degrees above the average, nearly 30 per cent above the long-term average—salmon farms with fish dying, the oyster industry devastated by viruses because of warming waters and yesterday the abalone industry ringing the bell on the damage that they have received from dangerous runaway climate change and global warming. These things are happening every day around us now. In Greenland there is a massive spike in the ice melting and of course we have heard in recent days from my colleagues the deep and profound sadness of going to the Great Barrier Reef last week and seeing that nearly 70 per cent of the reef now suffers from massive coral bleaching. If the penny has not dropped for Australians and for parliamentarians I really do not know when it will. The budget that is to be delivered tonight must address global warming and take every possible avenue we can to impact on this problem. This is about intergenerational equity. We have to take the strongest possible actions and measure and manage these risks.

The cuts to the CSIRO, which the committee I have been chairing has spent so much time scrutinising, are totally unacceptable. We should be investing more funds and research into climate change and into how we are going to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Never has there been a more important time to invest in the science that helps us better understand global warming and how we are going to deal with it. Never has there been a more important time. I hope that in tonight's budget we see some real action from this government on what I think will be the most important issue at this federal election in the next couple of months: action on climate change. I have no doubt after listening to the Tasmanians I have spoken to—and my colleagues are providing similar feedback from farmers and people all around the country—that they have never seen a summer like this. The science and the data tell us exactly the same thing: we have never seen a warmer year. We have never seen bigger storms in the northern or southern hemispheres than those we have seen in the last 12 months. We have never seen a bleaching episode like this on the Great Barrier Reef. We have just signed COP21, the Paris agreement to reduce emissions, yet we continue to play the politics of whether we have met our 2020 targets or how we are going to achieve them. It is not enough. It is not making a difference. Tonight is a chance for the government to show leadership and courage.

So, while we are standing here today debating supply bills before we have even seen the budget, at this extraordinary time in Australian politics I say to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Australian Greens: tonight is your chance to show some courage and leadership on the issues that actually matter to the Australian people—on reducing inequality in this country and tackling the biggest threat that we currently face, which is global warming.