Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We make no apologies for seeking to suspend standing orders this morning to debate the budget, because this is less a federal budget than it is a blueprint for ongoing intergenerational theft in this country. Make no mistake, this budget continues to rob from the future to pay for today, and of course it is young Australians who will overwhelmingly bear the brunt. This budget continues to shaft young Australians. It continues to shaft them around uneven and inequitable wealth distribution and it continues to shaft them around inequitable property ownership opportunities in this country—and the great public policy challenge of our time, which is climate change, barely rates a mention in this budget. It is fiddling at the margins on things like housing affordability, while the big levers, like negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, continue to gather cobwebs.

It punishes young people for not having a job—these jobs that are so scarce. There are not enough jobs in our country for everyone, and many people who are working do not feel they have enough job opportunities. But instead of helping them it seeks to punish them, and it punishes the most vulnerable jobseekers, many of whom have health issues around drug and alcohol addiction. Well, what about a breathalyser on the front door of this place where, if you blow over 0.05, you actually cannot come in here and vote? But we are, of course, not going to have that. We are going to pick on the vulnerable and pick on the marginalised and then, if they do fail these tests—which I might add are the result of profiling, through the Department of Social Security—we are not going to help them but instead are going to punish them further by putting them on the cashless card. (Time expired)