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

It's a shameless plug for a very serious issue. And my dog was involved with it as well! Just to get Senator Bernardi's interest in this particular debate, my dog was in the bath with me! This is an issue that the Greens have taken very seriously, every estimates. Let me go back to two years ago, when I took over the Greens Treasury portfolio and we put the issue to the Treasury secretary at the time: 'What are you doing about housing affordability? What's the holistic approach? What's the package?' It was directionless—aimless. This government, if it is doing anything now, has been dragged kicking and screaming to this issue by the Greens, and recently by Labor, who jumped on the bandwagon with negative gearing changes and, hopefully, also, capital gains tax concessions. It's simple: let's get rid of these investor subsidies that are allowing investors to outcompete first home owners in our heated markets, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. We know we can do that over time, we can grandfather it or we can go for a more radical approach of removing them immediately.

You want to talk about other money that's sitting out there, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle? There's your home state of Western Australia. We have recently heard about the WAxit debate from the secessionists in the Liberal Party there who want to form their own country. Good luck with that! They complain about GST revenue, but what about the $238 billion—I will say it again: $238 billion—in tax deductions that the wealthiest oil and gas companies in the world have been given through the petroleum resource rent tax deductions? Two hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars—that's money that we could use for schools and hospitals, for fairness in this country, and it could underwrite some really good economic policies.

So there are plenty of places we could look to to raise revenue to help make Australia fairer, but we just need the political courage to do that. And it's actually not that hard. We've been campaigning on these issues now for many, many years—and I'm glad that the Labor Party have become more progressive in recent times. Whether you call them socialists or not doesn't bother me. If all of us in here are focused on getting good outcomes for the Australian people, on tackling inequality and on having a fairer country then I think that's a good thing and you're to be congratulated on it. (Time expired)