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

I can't let Senator Bragg's contribution go without responding to it briefly, particularly his claim that we were in a strong position going into the pandemic. Senator Bragg, the planet is actually cooking. The climate that sustains all life on this planet, including human life, is breaking down around us. We're living through the sixth mass extinction event in the history of our planet. Your policies and those of your neoliberal colleagues in the Labor Party have priced an entire generation of young Australians out of the Australian dream of home ownership. What the pandemic has done is expose the fault lines that already existed in our economy and in our society.

We also hear about this idea that we have had sustained economic growth for 30 years, as if somehow we can keep on growing infinitely even though we live in a finite ecosystem. Then we get the 'jobs, jobs, jobs' mantra. We're used to hearing that from the Liberals, and we're clearly going to hear a lot more of that from the Australian Labor Party given what we've heard from them this week. Well, if you're going to set yourself a test of providing full employment for the people of Australia, you've both failed it abjectly over the last few decades, since Bob Hawke and Paul Keating turbocharged neoliberalism in this country. No matter what stripe of government has been in place since then, they haven't been able to get the unemployment rate below five per cent for any significant length of time. This means, of course, that one in every 20 Australians who is looking for and wants work can't find any. If we actually calculated the unemployment rate properly and fairly, the real unemployment rate would be in double figures in this country, well over 10 per cent of people because, at the moment, if you work one hour a week you are not classified as unemployed. What all of this has led to—environmental and ecosystem collapse; neoliberalism and trickle-down economics, much beloved of both major parties in this place—is mass economic inequality in this country, intergenerational inequality where young people are watching their wages flatline while property prices go through the roof. We are at record highs in the property market in this country, and that is one of the things that is leading to crushing inequality in Australia.

The policies of this government, the Liberal-National government, are designed specifically to make the crushing effects of economic inequality even worse. This government is doing everything it thinks it can get away with to increase economic inequality, to inflate the housing market and to put downward pressure on wage growth. Massive tax cuts which flow overwhelmingly to the top end of town, with more to come—supported, I might add, by the Australian Labor Party; negative gearing for property investors; capital gains tax discounts for property investors; HomeBuilder, which hands out public money for kitchen renos; the RBA printing money hand over fist, as fast as it can, and pumping it into the banks so that they can write yet bigger mortgages; deliberate suppression of public sector wages; regressive IR policies that constrain working people from organising to take effective action to support wage rises; and, of course, keeping income support, JobSeeker so far below the poverty line that people are basically starving in this country, having to choose being paying the rent and putting food on the table. The Liberal Party decided long, long ago that economic inequality was something that it wanted to continue to see grow in this country.

As far as property prices are going, the Liberals decided the line must go up no matter what. Now, that might be okay if you own your own home, and if you're very wealthy—the super rich, the elites of this country—so much the better, because the government will slash your taxes. But if you are in the one-third of people in this country who don't own a home, who don't own property, the Liberals have cut you loose. They've basically said you're on your own, because not only will this government do all they can to drive your rent up; they're doing nothing to increase your wages. In fact, they want to give your bosses more power to cut your wages.

The Liberals are doing nothing to help people who are out of work or who don't have enough work hours to pay the bills. Australia is at the bottom of the pile in the OECD in terms of income support. We are below countries that are much less wealthy than we are in terms of GDP. This is a policy choice. It's a policy choice by the Liberal government to condemn Australians who can't find work or can't find enough work—not because of anything they did but simply because there are not enough jobs to go round—to poverty, starvation and homelessness.

At this time, when people, understandably, have a feeling of precariousness about the future, what is the government trying to do? It's trying to unleash the very worst practices from the banking sector. The kind of dodgy lending that helped cause the global financial crisis and was revealed during the Hayne royal commission is something that this government wants us to go back to. Despite the primary recommendation of the Hayne royal commission being not to change our responsible lending laws in Australia, that is exactly what this government is trying to do.

Why would the government be looking after a banking sector that was exposed by a royal commission as being criminal, having a toxic culture and being driven by greed? Why would the Liberals want to let the predatory banks back off the leash? Well, I'll tell you: because the major banks pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Liberal Party's pockets every year. And, of course, in the very definition of hedging, they do the same for the Australian Labor Party. These donations are nothing more than legalised bribery. But I'll tell you what: the banks are getting a damn fine return on investment. A couple of hundred thousand bucks a year into the pockets of the Liberal Party and the government moves to abolish responsible lending laws in Australia.

The way that this parliament came together in response to the pandemic—by supporting increases in things like JobSeeker and by putting in place programs like JobKeeper—showed how possible it is to alleviate poverty in Australia. It's actually really easy. It's not rocket science; you just give people enough money to have a dignified life. That's all you have to do, and don't tell us you can't afford to do it. It's very simple. It's very simple to raise enough money to give people in poverty what they need to lead a dignified life. The way you do it is to tax the superwealthy and the big corporations. A third of the hundred highest-earning corporations in Australia pay zero tax. We don't even have a wealth tax in this country. We should be taxing billionaires out of existence. There is no excuse for having billionaires while other Australians are homeless or can't afford to put enough food on the table to sustain themselves.

We've got to tax the big corporates, particularly the big polluting corporates; we've got to tax the superwealthy. We've got to make them pay their fair share of tax so we can fund the public services that Australian people expect and so we can give people a dignified life in this country, no matter whether they've got a job or not and no matter what their level of ability is. We know we've got enough money to do those things, but, tragically for Australians who are doing it tough, alleviating poverty doesn't appease the Liberals' big donors. I'll tell you what does appease the Liberal big donors: handing over cash to the big corporates and the super wealthy. That's exactly what we are seeing happen in Australia. It is those who are living below the poverty line, those who have no work or not enough work or whose work is too low paid and those who don't own their own property who are paying the price while the billionaires and big corporates are making off like bandits. We are a better country than this, and we can do better. It's all about the choices that we make.