Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the three appropriation bills being considered. Just last month, Labor handed down their second budget within their first year of being in office. There's been much discussion about the government keeping their election promises. It seems to me the only promise Labor are okay with breaking is their promise that no-one will be left behind. This budget portrays everyday Australians caught up in the cost-of-living crisis currently happening, managing high inflation and high interest rates. This budget is a slap in the face for people who are made to choose between paying their rent, buying medication and groceries, and heating their homes.

Budgets are about choices and priorities. Labor chose—and I will reiterate that word; they have made a political choice here—to put forward a surplus for a political win instead of prioritising people who are doing it tough. Labor chose to raise more money by indexing student debt instead of making meaningful changes to the PRRT. Labor chose to give $41 billion in fossil fuel subsidies and only $14.6 billion to those who are struggling most. And the daily increase of $2.85 to JobSeeker won't even buy you a loaf of bread or a five-pack of noodles in this country.

I don't believe any government when they say they can't afford to do something. The truth is that they don't want to. If the government can afford to spend over a quarter of a billion dollars on stage 3 tax cuts, they can afford to lift everyday Australians out of poverty. With $41 billion of fossil fuel subsidies being given to companies who have absolutely no respect for free, prior and informed consent for First Peoples of this country, in their lands and waters, it seems our fight is as much with the government of the day as it is with the coal and gas billionaires who are destroying our sacred meeting places for both ceremony and cultural business as well as our ancestral songlines and trade routes—which are in fact the social and spiritual fabric of our culture. They are, in that attempt, wrecking the oldest-surviving culture in the world.

It's frankly laughable that this government has positioned itself as ending the climate wars. Their emissions reduction target doesn't even come close to what's needed. They continue to push that gas is in fact a transition fuel. We don't need any more gas. We don't need any more new gas projects being approved; in fact, the 116 currently in the pipeline are what we don't need. Traditional owners don't want them. Climate scientists and environmentalists don't want them. Everyday Australians don't need any more gas than what we already have access to, so everyday Australians want you to stop gaslighting us and stop telling us that that's what we need, because it's for the greedy exporters that are making billion-dollar profits off exporting that gas. That's happening from the Beetaloo to the Barossa to Narrabri to Scarborough. First Nations people across this country have been strongly opposed to the destruction of their country and their cultural heritage. And this is all in the name of corporate gain.

The Tiwi Islands' traditional owners took Santos to the High Court over their Barossa gas project. Santos have claimed that consultation with First Nations people was about sending two emails and making one unanswered phone call to the Tiwi Land Council. Tiwi Islanders argued that this was in fact not consultation, and the High Court agreed. I think most Australians would also agree that this is not what consultation looks like. The fact that this project was approved in the first place shows that there are absolutely serious issues with the consultation requirements for offshore oil and gas projects in this country. The burden of those regulations is absolutely placed on traditional owners. It's placed on them to prove and to challenge those approvals in court, which is not just an expensive process; it's a time-consuming process that some of these traditional owner groups cannot afford to pay for. They don't have a big bag of cash lying around that they can just go to.

The Greens and I were thrilled to see $5.8 million in the October budget for the initial work to establish a makarrata commission. This was a huge step at the time that indicated the Albanese government took the calls for truth and treaty seriously and that they were actually listening to what First Peoples have said. However, there's been no additional money and no additional spending in this budget. In fact we already uncovered during estimates a few weeks ago that $900,000 of this $5.8 million has been spent. We're not even entirely sure what it's been spent on because the bureaucrats didn't actually give us any answers on the day. They said that they would take that on notice. The rest of this money is being held in what's called 'a contingency plan' until after the referendum.

I've said many times before in this place that progress can and progress must happen on all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. We can do this at the same time. Multitasking is not just for some of us. Governments can also do this. We know that setting up the makarrata commission will take time and it will take negotiation. It could take us many, many years—in fact many decades—to get a treaty in this country, so we absolutely have to get started now. The result of the referendum shouldn't impact on that. It should not impact on progress being made towards a treaty or treaties in this country. The government has committed to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full—truth, treaty and voice—and they need to start showing they are serious about this commitment and start making movement across all of those different pillars of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

I was pleased to see the commitment from the government in this budget for a review of consultation requirements, particularly as the spokesperson for resources for the Australian Greens on offshore projects, and this included with First Nations people. However, this commitment was lumped into the review of carbon capture and storage—a method about which, in fact, their own minister has said: 'It has not been proven to work to the scale that is needed to be a viable option to drive down emissions.' Even more disappointing is the fact that this review has already started. It quietly kicked off at the end of May, and we don't know who's involved in this process, what the time line is or even what the desired outcome is. It's like the best kept secret in Australia. This is a huge opportunity. Given that the Barossa project was a pivotal part of First Nations people standing up, using their voice in this country and saying that the regulation of offshore projects in this country didn't identify them as relevant people, the consultation processes weren't enough.

If the government were actually serious about getting this review right, the minister should have gone to the Tiwi Islands people, sat with them and asked what was required, or he would have been out there telling people in the broader public what is actually happening, when it's happening and when people will be able to have their say. My belief is that First Nations people, as the traditional owners, need to be at the forefront of that, as do climate groups, marine scientists and other businesses that are also impacted by those offshore projects.

This review cannot be like the one for the PRRT changes, where a bunch of high executives from fossil fuel companies locked themselves in a room and decided what changes they were happy with. This has much broader implications. I know Senator McKim and my other colleague Senator Whish-Wilson have done a lot of work on the PRRT in their time here. Speaking of the PRRT and the changes that need to be made to the tax in this budget, they are mere pennies in relation to the profits being made. As I said earlier, the government will be raising more revenue from university students than fossil fuel companies. This is state capture at its finest. It's like the government are an extension of the fossil fuel arm in this country. It's unbelievable.

Fossil fuel companies that are making record-breaking profits off the back of high inflation and, as Senator Hughes said, the invasion of Ukraine are paying little to no tax but are still holding ever so tightly onto those tax credits. Nurses pay more tax than some of these companies. The changes to the current tobacco tax will actually raise more money than the PRRT if Treasurer Chalmers continues with the current narrative. With the Greens in the balance of power I look forward to us pushing this government to make sure that this tax actually raises revenue that is proportional to the profits that these companies make. Stop worrying about what your donations are going to deliver at election time.

We are in a cost-of-living crisis and we are in a climate crisis, and this budget fails to address both of those. Labor have described this budget as being a result of making hard choices. I don't know how many times I heard during budget week, 'We've made the hard choices.' But a choice they made was actually to leave struggling everyday Australians behind. They left the most vulnerable in our communities behind. I know Senator Rice has risen many times in this chamber to talk about JobSeeker, raising its rate and lifting people in this country out of poverty in the current crisis we are in. Still we are not seeing action from the government. We thought we had a change of government last May, but we continue to see the same rhetoric from this government.

Even First Nations communities are being left behind. So even though in this chamber yesterday we were debating the Constitution alteration bill about a Voice to Parliament, we are still ignoring the First Peoples in this country when they say they don't want oil and gas projects on their country. We need to start looking like we are representing the Australian public rather than representing the corporate interests of this nation.

At the request of Senator McKim, I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that Labor's second Budget:

(a) gives a $24.85 a day tax cut to politicians and billionaires, but only $2.85 a day to jobseekers;

(b) gives $16.8 billion over the forward estimates in handouts to wealthy property moguls, but no new money for direct investment in new social and affordable housing;

(c) includes $41 billion over the forward estimates in fossil fuel subsidies, which is more than all the investment in Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower; and

(d) is a betrayal of the people who were promised that no one would be left behind".