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

Well, here we are: rents going through the roof, mortgages going through the roof, the price of food going through the roof, the price of essential services going through the roof and millions of Australians struggling to make ends meet—struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. And what's the government doing? What is Labor doing about this? Firstly, they're allowing the RBA to put up interest rates continually and thereby punishing the people who are not actually the cause of the inflation that's happening in Australia.

I say that Labor is 'allowing' the RBA to do this because, of course, section 11 of the RBA Act 1959 gives Labor, gives the government of the day, the power to override the RBA on policy matters like interest rate rises. Labor is not only refusing to use this power but proposing to abolish that power—to give it away—in one of the final surrenders to neoliberalism in this country. It's an absolute disgrace! Labor has to do more; it has to override the RBA and stop the RBA putting up interest rates. It has to back in renters, mortgage holders and ordinary Australians, who are struggling to make ends meet, by overriding the RBA and putting in place a corporate super profits tax that would make it harder for the big corporates to engage in profiteering and price gouging.

The cost of Labor's stage 3 tax cuts is an astonishing $313 billion over a decade: $313 billion, with more than half of the benefit of those stage 3 tax cuts going to the top 10 per cent of income earners. Those earning more than $200,000 a year will get a tax cut of nearly 10 grand a year but people on less than $45,000 will get nothing. Bankers, CEOs, federal parliamentarians, doctors and lawyers will get nearly $10,000 per year while people who are struggling to make ends meet will get nothing from the stage 3 tax cuts. How can Labor proceed with these stage 3 tax cuts for the top end while millions of Australians are getting smashed by rent increases, mortgage increases and the major supermarket chains gouging food prices, making it all the harder for people to make ends meet? Shame on Labor!