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

Listen to this. No, listen to this. Workers in Australia today are taking home the lowest share of domestic income on record. And it's why, on the other side of the coin, the greatest share of domestic income on record is going where? It's going to corporate profits. Now, if you want to argue with those facts, be my guest, but those are the facts, and those facts are celebrated by the LNP, particularly those with a pedigree in one of the various free-market so-called think tanks that promulgate this nonsense on behalf of their corporate backers like Gina Rinehart.

What the neoliberal ideology boils down to is the brute power of the big corporates to corrupt our democratic institutions with a clear modus operandi to corrode whatever workplace protections and whatever social safety nets have been put in place and hard won over the centuries by working people in this country. Neoliberalism is about the corrosion of democracy itself so the wealthy can get even wealthier. If you think that's an overstatement, have a listen to the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D Roosevelt. In an address to Congress in 1938 he outlined what he described as two simple truths about the concentration of economic power. First, he said:

… democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism …

Well, hear hear, late President Franklin D Roosevelt! That is, in fact, in its essence, fascism. The second point he made in that address to Congress is:

… democracy is not safe, if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

In other words, the safety of our democracy depends on curbing corporate power and influence and on ensuring the equitable distribution of wealth, including through fair wages and fair working conditions. Those things, fair wages and fair working conditions, and full employment are everything that neoliberalism stands against. That is why, through tax cuts or winding back responsible lending laws or attacking workers' rights, what this government stands for is more power for its mates and more money for its mates.

Colleagues, the social contract is starting to fracture underneath us and we collectively will pay a very, very heavy price as more and more people start to realise that neoliberalism and trickle-down economics are letting them down. And it's cooking the planet at the same time. (Time expired)