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

Here we go: the fix is in—a dirty, secret deal between the government and the Labor Party to jam the tax cuts through this Senate with no inquiry whatsoever. What we can tell from this dirty deal is that $18 billion of government expenditure, based on a flawed, trickle-down, neoliberal model that we know is not going to work, is now going to be jammed through this Senate with no opportunity to scrutinise the details whatsoever. Labor isn't even bothered to go through the motions of being an opposition party in this place. What is actually the point of the Labor Party anymore?

Bringing forward the stage 2 tax cuts will mean that the millionaires get $2,500 a year, the working poor get 250 bucks a year and, if you haven't got a job, you just line up for your regular kick in the teeth from the neoliberals in this place. The Labor and Liberal parties are trying to con this country and con Australian people into thinking these tax cuts are going to trickle down. Well, I'll tell you something: it's been 40 years since Hawke and Keating, while we've been waiting for trickle-down to work, and the people at the bottom are dying of thirst.

This is a sad day for democracy. It's a sad day for this Senate, but do you know who this is the saddest day for? It's the Australian Labor Party, who are capitulating again to the neoliberals, capitulating again to the government. They don't even want an inquiry into $18 billion worth of government expenditure.

Senator Watt interjecting—

Seriously, why don't you just go and join the Liberal-National Party, Senator Watt? You can interject all you like, but you might as well just join the LNP, sit over there and form the neoliberal trickle-down economics party. You're a disgrace and you should be ashamed of yourselves.