Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024. The Greens have fought the unfair stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires, CEOs and politicians ever since they were introduced by Mr Scott Morrison and agreed to by Labor. I'm very pleased that Labor has finally heeded the calls from the Greens, from economists and from ordinary people that billionaires don't need an extra $9,000 every year. But, unfortunately, they are still only tinkering at the edges. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, Labor's revised solution is to give every politician and billionaire $4½ thousand a year whilst giving middle-income earners just $15 a week. Three times as much is still going to those at the top as to those in the middle, and those at the bottom get nothing. Labor can find $4½ thousand a year for politicians but only $15 a week for people whose rent has gone up by $100 or whose mortgage has gone up by $200. It does not add up. Under Labor's package, the wealthiest 20 per cent of people will get half the $318 billion that these stage 3 revised tax cuts will cost the public purse. The poorest 20 per cent of people will get 0.4 per cent of that money. And that's Labor's idea of fairness? That's your idea of leaving no-one behind?

Labor has audaciously packaged their reforms to the stage 3 tax cuts as a win for women, when in reality they will still exacerbate the gender pay gap. The previous stage 3 tax cuts had twice the benefit going to men as to women. Under these revised stage 3 tax cuts, 58 per cent will go to men, with just 41½ per cent going to women. So these tax cuts are still skewed towards men—and wealthy men, at that—even though there has been a slight improvement on those figures when compared with Mr Morrison's version.

At the Press Club, when announcing the revised stage 3 tax cuts, the Prime Minister said, 'no-one held back and no-one left behind'. I think the Prime Minister must have forgotten about all those people who earn below the $18,000 tax-free threshold. I think he must have forgotten about those people who are out of the workforce because of caring responsibilities. He definitely forgot about people on income support. Those people get nothing to deal with this most pernicious cost-of-living crisis. Those people who need the help the most, who are struggling the most, are getting absolutely nothing out of this $318 billion spend of public money.

Instead of funding tax cuts, Labor could have put that money into services that would benefit everyone and that would actually lower the cost of living for everyone: building more public homes, getting dental and mental health care into Medicare, freezing rents and mortgages, wiping student debt, fully funding the NDIS, and making child care free. That's the sort of investment that $318 billion of public money could have actually delivered in benefits to ordinary people—universal services. The revised stage 3 tax cuts will starve the budget by that jaw-dropping $318 billion over the decade. So, whenever the Treasurer says, 'We can't afford things like putting superannuation onto paid parental leave,' it is because the cost of these tax cuts makes everything unaffordable.

What a farce. Labor has shifted on the stage 3 tax cuts because they finally could not deny anymore that they were unfair. When circumstances change, so should a policy position. Well, the housing crisis has changed, too. If Labor can shift on the stage 3 tax cuts, they should shift on negative gearing and on the massive tax handouts that go to property investors. All those property investor tax handouts do—those billions of dollars of public money every year—is to push house prices further out of reach for renters and first home buyers. They should be scrapped. We've seen that pressure works, and the Greens will keep applying the pressure on the government to scrap those property investor tax handouts to the wealthy that are making the housing crisis worse and making unaffordability very, very real for more and more people.

The LNP and the media want to talk about broken promises on the stage 3 tax cuts. Well, the broken promise that should be being talked about is the one Mr Albanese made when he said no-one would be left behind. The revised stage 3 tax cuts are still leaving far too many people behind: $4½ thousand a year for politicians but only $15 a week for middle income earners, whose rent has gone up by 100 bucks or whose mortgage has gone up by 200. That's not fairness. That's asking people to continue to suffer through a cost-of-living crisis. That's ignoring the most needy and wasting billions on the rich, who don't need a tax cut, when that money could be used to fund universal services that could help everyone: things like making university free again, making early childhood education genuinely free for all, scrapping the student debt that hangs over so many students' heads and often gets worse every year because of compound interest, spending money building more public homes so we can finally address the housing crisis in this country, and putting dental and mental care into Medicare. There are so many things that $318 billion—particularly the portion that's allocated to those who earn over $200,000, who don't need the help—could be spent on that would genuinely help people and provide those universal services to everyone who needs them. Yet this government, because they lack courage, have made the smallest of tweaks and are now trying to pour glory on themselves because they've made this small change.

This is a welcome change, but they should have scrapped these tax cuts entirely and funded universal services. So much for 'no-one left behind'. I foreshadow that I'll be moving a second reading amendment in relation to the conduct of this bill.