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

Thanks for listening, Senator Gallagher. I'll tell you what cost you government. It was a failure to sell your policies and a failure to actually stand up for significant action on climate change. That's what cost you the election—your failure to back in a proper rewrite of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and your complete disconnect with younger people in this country.

You've just heard from the youngest senator in this place, a fantastic representative of young people in Australia, about how we are engaging in intergenerational theft by passing these tax cuts. We are stealing the future of young people because we are bequeathing to them a climate that is breaking down, that is almost, if not already, past the point of no return. We are bequeathing ecosystems that are collapsing before our very eyes. We are bequeathing them a future where most of them can have no opportunity even to buy their own homes. Because, of course, the Labor Party won't take reform policies on capital gains tax and negative gearing to the next election either because they will be too fearful to do it. This needs to be on the record: we are smashing up the progressive tax system in this country today.

I want to talk a little bit about the deals that are being done, because there is an unacceptable opacity around these deals. We understand there's been a letter written by someone in government to Centre Alliance around some gas policy, but we haven't seen it. It hasn't been tabled in this Senate. It should be tabled, because the Australian people have got a right to know what deals Senator Cormann has stitched up to get the numbers to get this over the line. We also need to know what deal Senator Lambie has done with the government.

I want to briefly talk fractionally about the public housing debt in Tasmania. The Greens in Tasmania—I sat in the Tasmanian parliament for a long time; I had the honour and the privilege of leading the Tasmanian Greens in the state parliament for many years—were campaigning to have the debt forgiven well before Senator Lambie came along. I agree with Senator Lambie. I agree with her: that debt should be forgiven. There is no doubt about that, but I want to know if Senator Lambie has got a deal to get that debt forgiven. And, if so, what is the nature of that agreement with the government? I asked Senator Cormann to address those two points in his closing response, once I've finished this speech and, if he doesn't do it, I'll put it to him again in the committee stages of this legislation. These taxes are going to hamstring the capacity not only of this government but future governments to deliver the public services that so many Australian people rely on.

In my home state of Tasmania—I want to put this on the record—the number of people earning over $180,000 a year is fewer than the number of people in just the Prime Minister's seat of Cook that earn over $180,000 a year. I'll say that again: there are fewer people in Tasmania earning over 180K per annum than there are in the seat of Cook that the Prime Minister represents in the other place. And, in the Treasurer's electorate, there are over twice as many people earning over $180,000 per annum than there are in the whole of my home state of Tasmania. So senators voting for this deal, Tasmanian senators—and that will be every Tasmanian senator except me and Senator Whish-Wilson—are selling our state down the river, because they are making it harder for future federal governments to help Tasmania's health system, to help Tasmania's public education system and to help support people, for example, on Newstart, who are obviously overrepresented in Tasmania compared to the rest of the country. So any time any senator for Tasmania in the future calls for an increase in Newstart, calls for more money to go into the Tasmanian education system or the Tasmanian health system, I will be reminding them: 'You destroyed the chances of that today.' I'm very disappointed that this has occurred. I will be proud, when the division bells ring at the end of this debate, to sit on the 'no' side of this chamber with my friend and colleague Senator Whish-Wilson and my colleagues in the Australian Greens—proudly a party that calls for increases in public services; proudly a party that says, 'Now is no time for these rampant tax breaks, the overwhelming majority of which will flow to the very well-off and the superwealthy in this country.'

Collectively, colleagues, we are making one of the biggest mistakes that I have seen in my 17 years in politics. Believe me, I have seen a few catastrophic stuff-ups by parliaments in my time, but I have rarely, if ever, seen a stuff-up as bad and as damaging to the fabric of our society, to the fabric of our community and to the Australian people who most need the help of this parliament and this government as the stuff-up that we are about to commit in this parliament. The senators supporting these tax cuts are making a $158 billion choice to starve future governments of the revenue that they will need to support our most vulnerable people. I can only agree with Senator Steele-John's political analysis.

To be frank, I expected nothing better from the LNP—the party of the elites; the party of the big corporates; the party that deliberately designed a social security system to punish vulnerable people; the party that put in place the robo-debt system, which has cost lives in this country. People have taken their own lives because the government falsely accused them of owing a debt that they, in fact, did not owe. I expected nothing better from the LNP, and I've learned that consistently over my time in politics. But do you know what? Like many Australians, I do expect better from the Australian Labor Party—I genuinely do—but I think I'm going to have to re-evaluate my expectations in that space because they are walking away from vulnerable Australians today. Remember, the ALP didn't even take a policy of raising Newstart to the recent election. They had a mealy-mouthed review that was actually going to take 18 months to do if they'd formed government.

This is yet more confirmation, if anyone needs it, that the neoliberals have an overwhelming majority in this place. Their ideology, their neoliberal ideology, their trickle-down ideology, holds that, if you pump up the top end so they can get their new model Porsche or BMW, that wealth will somehow magically trickle down to the people at the bottom, in the face of every piece of evidence that you would ever want to see, over decades. We've seen people at the bottom waiting for this trickle-down magic, holding their hands out and waiting for just one drop of the trickle-down magic, for decades, and they've still got dry hands because it's just not trickling down. Trickle-down economics does not work, and these tax cuts are a living, breathing embodiment of trickle-down economics. They hold that, if you look after the top, the bottom will be looked after, but it's not going to happen.

So, Minister, in the short time that I've got left—I know you were taking advice, and fair enough too, at some stages during my speech—I do ask you to address the agreements you have made with Centre Alliance and Senator Lambie. I ask you to table any documents, letters or any other information you might have about those agreements, or at least place on the record what those agreements are. I specifically have interest in any agreement around the housing debt that the state of Tasmania owes the Commonwealth and whether there has been any commitment to relieve part or all of that debt as a result of your negotiations with Senator Lambie. And, if we don't get that from you in your response shortly, Minister, I put you on notice that I'll be raising it in the committee stage of this bill. While Tasmania's housing debt to the Commonwealth absolutely ought to be abolished, even if that is the deal, that is still a dud deal for Tasmania. Senator Lambie's got three years to leverage her position in this parliament—plenty of opportunities—and she should not have made this deal to do over Tasmanians' public services in the way that she has.

So, despite the mutterings from the Labor Party, I stand by the Australian Greens commitment to actually play the role of an opposition in this place. Remember: when the motion was put earlier today for this bill to be referred to an inquiry so that we could understand the true costs, that was voted down, not just by the government but by the Australian Labor Party. They don't even want to know the full story here. This is a political decision made by the ALP. It is not a decision in the best interests of the people they purport to represent in this place.