Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Senate is a house of review—we're a house of review. Our job is not to be a rubber stamp for the executive. Our job is to scrutinise legislation. Our job is to slow down the pace of legislation, particularly when it is as far-reaching as some of the legislation that has been before this chamber.

Our job is not to work to a timetable dictated to by a by-election because you mob knifed your own Prime Minister and now have to face the consequences of it over the weekend. Our job is to be deliberative. Our job is to take our time. Our job is to scrutinise legislation, debate on the details of that legislation and then make considered decisions about it. That's what the role of the Senate is. We Greens take that role seriously. We take our role in scrutinising government legislation, particularly when it's legislation that this government wants to rush through at the eleventh hour on the eve of a by-election, very seriously.

Our role in this place is now being frustrated by the government, and it seems with the support of the Labor Party, for absolutely no reason other than to work to a timetable that is dictated to by a by-election and to help the Prime Minister stay in the Lodge for a few more months. I'm sorry, but we are not going to commit to reducing Australia's revenue base by $10 billion and spend less than an hour considering the implications of that.

One of the two bills that we're discussing today enables the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—another deal between the Liberals and the Labor Party to give more power to corporations, shut the community out and ensure that when it comes to protecting environment or public health, or indeed labour laws in this country, that we're handing over a blank cheque to huge multinationals. Yet, here we are looking to rush that legislation through at the eleventh hour because we've been dictated to by a Prime Minister who's more concerned about keeping his job than he is about looking after ordinary Australians.

And now we've got a second bill that's going to be rushed through in the next hour and a half that's going to cut taxes for companies with a turnover of up to $50 million. The government and the Labor Party are spruiking this as tax cuts for small business, but in no-one's definition is a threshold of up to $50 million a small business. These are significant medium-sized businesses—some of them large businesses—that need to make a contribution to the prosperity of this nation.

This tax cut won't take effect until July 2020, when the tax rate moves to 26 per cent; it will move to 25 per cent a year later. It's not this year; it's not next year; it's the year after that. Yet here we are rushing this legislation because the government wants to deliver certainty to small businesses, to medium sized businesses and to large businesses. It's two years out, and you're talking about certainty. You won't even be the government next year! You talk about certainty, and you're responsible for undermining certainty when it comes to some of the most significant businesses in this country. In the energy sector, where's the certainty? You've got no climate policy and no energy policy. You're undermining the only policy that's working at the moment, the Renewable Energy Target. You have been responsible for introducing massive uncertainty into the energy sector, and you've got the gall to talk about certainty for business. What a joke!

We're not going to see bakers making more bread tomorrow because you pass this legislation and rush it through the Senate in the next hour and a half without giving the opportunity for the Senate to do its job and scrutinise the legislation. There's not a single business that's going to employ one additional staff member because you rush through this bill in this time frame and move the company tax rate in two years time! Spare us the insults.

The reality is the government has decided that we will not uphold the important democratic principles on which this chamber is founded—that we are a house of review that exists to scrutinise government legislation, particularly those pieces of legislation that rip billions of dollars out of our schools and our hospitals. This is money that could be spent on increasing Newstart, addressing the homelessness crisis in this country, addressing domestic violence, closing the gap with Indigenous Australians, protecting the Great Barrier Reef, investing in climate change and addressing economic inequality in this country. Instead, you want to ram through a piece of legislation, with the support of the Labor Party, that rips billions of dollars from those areas we know desperately need it.

What's your argument? 'We've got to deliver certainty.' How remarkable! The only certainty you want to deliver is the certainty of knowing that you're shoring up your chance in the Wentworth by-election. That's the certainty you're after; it's not certainty for small business but certainty for your preselected candidate that is what you want. Do you seriously believe that a local cafe in Brisbane is going to stop making coffee if you don't pass this legislation without the scrutiny that it deserves within the next hour and a half? Do you seriously think that? Are you insulting our intelligence by doing what you're doing? Of course you are.

This isn't about being competitive on tax in 2021. It's about being competitive in Wentworth on Saturday. That's what it's about. The only reason we are being told to rush through this piece of legislation is that the Liberal Party dumped their Prime Minister. That's why we are being forced to rush it. That's what happens when you have a government governing for their own internal reasons rather than governing for the nation. Of course, we've had the latest iteration. You want to talk about certainty? How about the certainty of knowing who the Deputy Prime Minister of this country is. Let's start there. Here we are on the eve of a by-election with the prospect of Barnaby Joyce becoming the Deputy Prime Minister again. You are an embarrassment. You are an international embarrassment.

The world is looking at the Liberal Party right now and you have turned Australia into a laughing-stock. Now we're supposed to wave through a $10-odd billion hit to budget revenue because some focus group in Wentworth said it might help you shore up your chances there. There's a huge cost in doing what you are doing. You have demonstrated that you are prepared to trash our democracy when it's in your narrow political interest. That's what you've done. You've shown it time and time and time again. You've shown you don't care about democracy, you don't care about the way this chamber works. Only a few weeks ago you cancelled parliament because you were in an effort to roll the Prime Minister of this country. You've shown—when it comes to orchestrating raids on union offices and having the media there before anyone else—that you don't care about democracy. You've shown with your attacks on charities and other advocates that you don't care about democracy. You've shown with those massive corporate donations that line the pockets of the Liberal Party that you don't care about democracy. You've shown in your reluctance to support a national anticorruption watchdog that you don't care about democracy. You've shown in the way that you privilege lobbyists in this building, without any transparency, keeping the public out but keeping big business in, that you don't care about democracy in Australia.

Here we are with the motion before the Senate. Let's go to what that motion says. That motion says that within the next hour and 40 minutes we are going to debate the passage of two pieces of legislation, and in an hour and 40 minutes you will gag any further debate and we'll be forced to vote on it. We won't have the opportunity to talk about your promises around what these cuts to big business do. We won't be able to use the committee stage to interrogate the assumptions on which that policy is made. We won't be able to use the committee stage to talk about what the other options are for that $10 billion in revenue and what it could be used for.

Here we are, only a few weeks after a huge international report, the IPCC report, where nearly 100 scientists came together to sound a warning shot to the rest of the world—saying that if we don't transition our economy away from coal to renewables, we're going to lose our coral reefs; we're going to see more extreme weather; the drought that we're experiencing right now, that is crippling rural Australia, will become a regular phenomenon. Yet, you have a renewable energy sector riven with uncertainty because of the actions of this government, and you have the gall to talk about the need for certainty in the business community.

What does a tax cut do for the Great Barrier Reef? It does nothing. What does a tax cut do for those people who are sleeping rough tonight? It does nothing. What does a tax cut do for those people who can't put food on the table because Newstart condemns them to living in poverty? It does nothing. What does a tax cut do for those people on a hospital waiting list who are waiting to get their hip or knee replaced? It does nothing. What does a tax cut do for the 90 per cent of kids in public schools who won't get funding to the bare standard that they need? It does nothing. What does a tax cut do for those people who are fleeing domestic violence and can't get access to crisis accommodation? It does nothing. Yet, here we are with $10 billion ripped out of the services that we know need them and, in a desperate rush in the lead-up to the Wentworth by-election, a government, supported by the Labor Party, trashing our democracy and preventing the Senate from doing its job. We won't stand for it. We'll take this opportunity now and we'll continue to take it all the way up to the next election to highlight your hypocrisy and to highlight who you represent. You don't represent business in this country; you represent yourselves. This is a desperate pitch in the lead-up to the Wentworth by-election because you are so worried and so concerned that you're prepared to do and say anything in a desperate attempt to hold on to power. Look at that disgraceful decision to consider relocating our embassy to Jerusalem. It was met with international condemnation. You're prepared to trash the relationship with some of our most important partners. You're prepared to side with One Nation.