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

(—) (): Our response to this pandemic will, quite literally, determine who lives and who dies. It will determine the social, economic, family and personal future of every single Australian. But it's not just the way we manage our response to this pandemic that we will be judged on, nor just the way we look after people during this crisis. We will be judged on how we rebuild our society and how we rebuild our economy when the time comes, and we will be judged on what we rebuild them into. What is clear is that business as usual—which too often means putting business first—just isn't going to cut it anymore.

COVID-19 has shown us that running down our public services, firing public servants and cutting scientific research all to give away tax cuts to big corporations and high-income earners has left us more exposed and worse prepared than we should have been. Today, for example, we are seeing lines around the corner at Centrelink offices around the country. Centrelink is completely ill equipped to manage this predictable influx, and that was no accident. Politicians driven by neoliberal ideology have changed Centrelink from an institution staffed by people trying to help other people into a swarm of robots hounding down people in many cases for debts they never owed. Neoliberal ideology in the years leading up to this pivotal moment has been about extracting budget savings from public services, rather than looking after people.

What this crisis has exposed is that government should always have a crucial role to play in our economy. We simply cannot go back to a cycle of unrestrained public greed and inequality—rampant inequality in the good times and socialising the losses in the tough times. Hopefully, this crisis sounds the death knell for neoliberalism and the rebirth, painful though it will certainly be, of a more caring economic and social framework.

These bills that we are debating have not been guided by neoliberal ideology. Why is that? Because the ideology of free markets is completely and provably unable to look after people. It completely and provably destroys nature. It does those things in the good times and the bad. We are all in this pickle together, so let's make sure our economic framework reflects that reality. We should leave no-one behind during this pandemic. We need to learn lessons and make sure that we never leave people behind once the pandemic is over. Let's not just go back to normal, because for far, far too many people 'normal' meant 'really, really difficult'.

The isolation, the deprivation and the alienation that we are seeing now as we close down our society and our economy did not begin during this crisis. Before the crisis, there were more than 100,000 Australians without a home. Before the crisis, too many Australians could not afford groceries or to pay their bills or to pay their rent. Before the crisis, people were working long hours in poorly paid and insecure jobs without fair reward and without basic workplace rights. So, when we come out the other side—and we will—we should not plan for things to go back to the way that they were. That means we need to make sure that the superrich and the big corporates pay their fair share and that we use the money we raise to look after each other and to properly fund our public services and public institutions.

It also means that we need to tackle the climate emergency with the same whole-of-society mobilisation and response that we are seeing today in this legislation. We have to try to emerge from coronavirus with an economy that matches the values of our society, not the other way around. That means well-paid, secure work, with strong protections for the tough times. It means clear plans for the essential work that needs to be done: building renewable energy, caring for people, rewilding and reforesting, farming and building the things we need here in Australia. It means a strong safety net for everyone, not pushing everyone on income support back below the poverty line once this is all over. The work on a fairer economy starts now, and it starts with the government's legislation, which we are currently debating. We will support these bills, and we wish the government all the best with keeping people in good health and out of poverty. But we do have very real concerns that the government's package does leave some people behind.

The government's response has not been fast enough, it's not been strong enough and it's not been fair enough. A lot of these payments don't kick in until this time next month. People who aren't getting shifts or who have lost their jobs need support now, not after they've been evicted or had their internet or electricity cut off. One in every three working parents in Australia have no paid leave. Think about the consequences of letting them fall through the cracks: they can't pay rent, have to keep paying childcare fees or lose their spot, face eviction and have no home of their own to care for their children. Students and carers who worked casual jobs for extra income will have their shifts taken away. Unlike others, who will be relying on income support, they won't be eligible for the $550-a-fortnight COVID-19 supplement. They will be left in poverty. Where is our plan for them?

We've heard last Thursday's plan for $30 billion of public money, pouring onto the balance sheets of the banks, for residential mortgage backed securities—the very products, I might add, that spawned the global financial crisis. But where is the plan for more intensive-care beds in Australia? Where is the pledge that beds and medical equipment locked up in the private health system will be available for everyone on the basis of need, not just for the wealthy? The Greens have moved amendments to deal with some of these concerns and other concerns that we have with the government's package, and we will continue to pursue these issues as we move through extraordinary times.

The biggest recipients of the government's package are the big banks. Two-thirds of the money is going straight onto banks' balance sheets. These are the same banks that came out of the GFC stronger than they went into it. Have we learnt nothing? The world's experience of so-called unconventional monetary policy, or quantitative easing, is that it's helped financial markets and speculators more than it's helped the real economy and productive activity. Government investment should be for the future. It should be for people. It should be to look after nature. It should be to respond to climate. It should be for infrastructure that creates jobs and sets us up for a clean future. It should not just be for short-term sugar hits or favours for suddenly-impoverished financial speculators. We need to use government bonds to put money in the pockets of people who need it right now.

The UK will pay, up-front, 80 per cent of a worker's wages if they are kept on the books. Denmark is doing the same, at 75 per cent of a worker's wage. We need the government to come back into this parliament and legislate to do something similar to keep people in work. When we all come out the other side, we need to get building and creating the jobs of the future. The high level of government intervention that has been necessary to keep us safe and secure during coronavirus is the same approach we need to keep us safe and secure from the climate crisis—the mobilisation of a workforce, all hands on deck, to do what needs to be done to keep us safe. Just as we need to build medical equipment like ventilators here in Australia, we need to manufacture and build a climate-resilient society as well.

The UN has estimated that the long-term losses from this pandemic will be $3 trillion to $4 trillion. That is huge, and it's possibly an underestimate. But the expected losses from staying on a four-degree trajectory of global warming, as we are on, are a minimum of $630 trillion over this century. That is why we need to create jobs and clean industries, which a Green New Deal would provide us. This is our chance to use the powers of government to not only keep us safe over the next few months but allow us to prosper when we come out of this pandemic and face the next great human challenge: bringing our emissions under control. We're all in this together. I do have confidence in humanity to navigate these challenges, because we don't have any other choice.

I want to end by thanking all of the people who work in our allied health system. The coming weeks and months are going to be so, so hard for you. Many of you will become infected, and, tragically, it is likely that quite a few of you will die because you will sacrifice yourself for the greater good and for the rest of us. Thank you for the sacrifices you have made, are making and will make in the months ahead. Thank you so much. Let us all be prepared to make the sacrifices that we need to make to try and keep safe not only our health workforce but every other Australian. Do the sensible things and follow the medical advice. If you don't need to leave home, just don't. I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add:

", but the Senate is of the opinion that the Government must develop and promptly present its plan to at least double the number of intensive care units, ventilators and the necessary medical equipment immediately, and then further increase these supplies in line with the advice of medical experts so the Australian people can be confident that no one will be left to die unnecessarily from this pandemic".