Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I, of course, along with the rest of the Greens, will be opposing this legislation. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017 sacrifices massive amounts of taxpayer revenue and gives it to some of the largest corporations in the country. We've heard continual repetition by various speakers from the government of the assertion that providing these tax cuts to big corporations would somehow lead to wage growth and employment growth. The simple fact is that there is almost no evidence of that. There is, instead, a very large body of evidence to the contrary, most notably and most recently in the United States, where very large tax cuts have not led to wage growth and employment growth at all. What they have led to, as always happens, is growing calls to make up the cost by cutting back services to those in the community who are least well off.

This is a measure that, quite rightly, many government MPs are keen on seeing dropped and not proceeded with by their own party because they know that it is not supported by the majority of the electorate, and the electorate is right not to support it. Many government speakers have also, understandably, pointed to past comments by Labor Party leaders and ministers in support of doing just what this legislation does. And it's reasonable for the government, when it's trying to make its case, to point to the Labor Party and say, 'Well, they've said the same thing previously.' That merely points out that the Labor Party, at least at the time, also bought into this myth that giving big tax cuts to the big end of town would somehow create jobs and increase wages for those who are least well off rather than just give money to those who are more well off.

Whether the Labor Party's shift is because of short-term political opportunism now that they're in opposition or whether it's a sign of a genuine philosophical shift within the party, I don't really know. Certainly, you don't need to be as old as I am to be very cynical about either Labor or the Liberals saying one thing in opposition and then doing the opposite when they get into government. That is all the more reason why the Australian public is looking more and more to choices other than the two traditional parties of the political establishment. There is a growing amount of public support for candidates and parties outside of those two established political power blocs that have been basically trading power between themselves for over a century now in Australia.

The simple fact is that this legislation will deprive the Australian public of tens of billions of dollars that could otherwise be invested in better funding for schools—funding increases that have already been removed or reversed by this government. That money could be used to provide better health care, particularly in regional areas. It could expand the resourcing of the public health sector. It could be put into dramatically expanding public and community housing to deal with the significant number of homeless people and the significant number of people under extreme housing stress due to insecure housing in our community. It could, of course, go towards increasing the rate of Newstart, which has not shifted in real terms in nearly a quarter of a century—leaving more and more people in absolute poverty. It could also support people on pensions and other sorts of allowances.

We all know—and, hopefully, the economics of this is not disputed at all—that, if you put significant amounts of money, such as the tens of billions of dollars we're talking about here, into increasing the payments for people on social security and increasing the income of people on low incomes who really don't have discretionary income, then that money would flow straight into the economy. There is no better way to more directly stimulate the economy and to more directly generate jobs and economic activity than to ensure that poverty is addressed. What the Greens would like to see is a genuine commitment from either Labor or Liberal to tackle poverty. That is not just an ethical issue and a social justice issue; it is a clear economic imperative. Reducing economic inequality not only strengthens your social fabric but also enhances employment and adequate wages for people on lower paying jobs. That's the direction in which we need to be taking our economy.

In a separate debate earlier today, I spoke about how both Labor and Liberal have basically been driven to swallow the Kool-Aid when it comes to the false promises of neoliberal economics. Whether Labor's shift on this issue is a sign that they're shifting away from their previous commitment to a fundamentalist free trade, 'let the market rip' type of approach which has been shown not to deliver, or whether it's just political short-termism whilst they're in opposition, we'll just have to wait and see. But it's all the more reason why you need other voices in the House of Representatives—to ensure that, if we do get a change of government, there are people there to keep that new government honest, keep them to their promises and make sure they don't switch back, in the way that they've done so many times before, when they finally do win power, should that happen.

The vote coming up fairly soon about whether or not to finally pass this legislation is important. I'm sure various people and the commentators up in the press gallery will be unpicking the political ramifications of it. Don't worry. There isn't actually anybody up there; they're all somewhere else. I'll just gesture up in the direction of the press gallery. It would be a rare day that someone from the press galley actually turned up in the press gallery to watch the Senate. Nonetheless, the press gallery will no doubt go over the political meaning of this legislation and what it means for various people in the government and their opportunities for promotion or demotion. I don't care about that and, to that extent, I can certainly assure the government that the Greens' position on this has nothing to do with the short-term politics of this situation and has everything to do with our consistent approach to significantly changing the economic direction of this country.

We need to transform our approach to one where an economy delivers for all of us—not just for the big end of town, with the rest of us hoping that somehow some of it might magically trickle down. That is now a massively discredited approach. The Australian public knows it. I think more and more people in this parliament know it, but either they're so beholden to the big end of town and the big donors that they can't shift away from it or they don't—or perhaps that and they don't—have any clear ideas about where they need to shift to.

The Greens do have clear ideas. We put them forward in great detail at the last election. We'll be doing an even more comprehensive economic package leading into this election, because the Australian public are in desperate need of change. They need clear alternatives to the two parties of the parliamentary establishment that have failed to deliver for them over and over so many times. That is all the more reason why this bill should be voted down, and, to put everybody out of their misery, it should be voted down at the second reading stage so we don't have to go through any committee stage and look at amendments toing and froing and we don't have to continue any of the speculation about political ramifications.

The public need certainty on this. They need it out of the way. They need to know that at least some of the revenue coming from big business is actually available to be spent on services. And let's not forget that, when we're talking about corporate tax, one of the big aspects of this that really hasn't got the attention it deserves in this debate is: how many of those corporations are not paying the amount of tax they should be at the moment? Let's focus on making them actually pay their fair share now. That is where we have the real opportunity for economic gains, for revenue gains and for a fairer economy that will deliver for all of us.