David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Today, on budget day, it's important to remember that the budget is about priorities. I believe it's time to rethink some of those priorities. Last financial year the federal government spent more on fossil fuel subsidies than on our public schools. This year fossil fuel companies are enjoying record profits as a result of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Tonight we will see more fossil fuel subsidies in the budget, subsidies that grow the profits of multinational companies while those Australians on low incomes are left behind. We can no longer subsidise companies making record profits when Australians are facing such huge cost-of-living pressures. Low-income earners, young people and jobseekers are being left to live on $48 a day by the government.

The research is now so clear: telling people to live on $48 a day is telling them to live in poverty; it is forcing them into poverty. In the ACT alone 38,000 people are living in poverty, including 9,000 children. Across the country, one in six children are now growing up in poverty. This is something we should be talking about when we talk about the budget and priorities. It's time to start putting the lives of people and children ahead of the interests of fossil fuel companies. It is time to stop underwriting profits. It's time to tax them their fair share so that we can pay for the services that Australians really need.