Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

One hundred million dollars is the amount of corporate donations that the Labor, Liberal and National parties have taken since 2012—$100 million from industries like the banks, big mining, property developers, alcohol, pharma and gambling. They're just some of the industries that have paid the Liberal, National and Labor parties to put their private profits ahead of the needs of our community. One hundred million dollars isn't even the full picture. It doesn't include money paid to attend so-called business forums or cash for access meetings, and it doesn't include money that's funnelled through fundraising bodies.

We actually don't know just how much money corporations pay into the Labor, Liberal and National parties each year, because our political system lacks the transparency it needs, but we can see what those donations are buying. They're buying influence in political decisions and policies. Big mining, the big banks, developers, and alcohol, property development and gambling companies donate tens of millions of dollars to the big political parties because it gets results, not because they believe in the institution of strong democracy. Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars for their election campaign coffers while big corporations get the access and the policy outcomes they need to boost their profits. And the politicians themselves? Well, they get wined and dined and, when they step out of politics to 'spend more time with their families', they walk into cushy lobbyist jobs in the very industries they were supposed to regulate.

The cosy relationship between the Liberals, the Nationals, Labor and their corporate donors impacts all of us. Since 2012, the fossil fuel and resources industries have donated over $7½ million to both of the major parties. They get $6 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies. That's cheap fuel and accelerated depreciation that the rest of us don't get. That's a pretty good return on investment. It's about $2,000 in subsidies for every dollar they donate—a very sound investment on their part indeed. Those generous donations have also bought them a Liberal government that is completely paralysed by the words 'climate change'. We've got half the government ready to tear up the Paris Agreement and lock Australia into a future of more extreme bushfires, crippling droughts and floods and the other half of the Liberal government able to admit that we should do something about it only once they've left the party. So now we have a Liberal-National government with no climate policy at all, which is of course not surprising when you remember those $7½ million in donations and, of course, the time our Prime Minister brandished a lump of coal in parliament and gleefully told us all: 'Don't be scared. It won't hurt you.' I reckon the folks in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania who've suffered through some of the worst droughts, bushfires and, now, floods that their states have ever seen would beg to differ.

Labor are not much better, sadly. They're taking the Liberals' energy policy to the election—the very same energy policy that the Libs binned and turfed former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over. Let's also not forget that no coalmine or coal seam gas project has ever been rejected federally by this government or by the opposition when they were in government. Thanks to the cosy relationship the Labor, Liberal and National parties have with the fossil fuel industry, the only plan they've got for my home state of Queensland is more coalmines—and at a time when the rest of the world is turning its back on coal. It is negligent to lock our state into an industry that destroys other industries, destroys nature, destroys our very safety, won't be profitable in years to come and won't deliver on the promises that it makes. Labor and the Liberals are both backing dirty great coalmines and the pollution that they bring. They're backing a boom-and-bust cycle that cripples communities while wilfully turning a blind eye to the coal industry's rapid move to full automation, which will leave Queensland workers in the lurch, unable to pay their mortgages.

Another major donor to the major parties has been the banking and financial sector. It's given about $60 million since 2012 to both sides of politics. It's been obvious for years that the banking sector was ripping customers off and acting like it was above the law. Of course, essentially, it was, and comfortable with the fact that the major parties were too addicted to their donors and their donations to pull them up. Both of the major parties had to be dragged to the banking royal commission, following scandal after scandal and the public backlash over their inaction. Labor caved earlier, it must be said, but the Greens first started campaigning for the banking royal commission in August 2014. It took two years after that for Labor to come on board and it took another year and a half after that for the Liberals to come on board. Of course, they voted against it 26 times. You have to wonder how much faster it would have happened if the Liberal, National and Labor parties weren't on the payroll of the banks, with those corporate donations.

The fossil fuel and banking industries are far from the only sectors that have bought the government. There is a suburb not too far from where I live in Brisbane. The population of this suburb has doubled in the last few decades. High-rises have popped up. It's a suburb fairly close to the city and it's a very convenient place to live. But the issue is that, while the number of people choosing to make this suburb their home has gone up, the amount of public space has halved, sold off to private developers. There has been no increase in public transport services to the area, there are no new schools, the existing local schools are bursting at the seams and the roads just get more and more congested. So the time that we all get to spend with our families doing the things we love is shrinking.

The winners in this scenario are the property developers who build the apartments, the construction industry, the real estate sector and the banks. And, wouldn't you know it? Developers and construction companies have donated over $20 million to both sides of politics since 2012.