David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this 'Treasury laws amendment (Labor's not quite as rubbish as the coalition!) bill 2024'. We know what Labor is offering with this bill. They're offering, to people who are on income support or those earning less than $18,000 a year, nothing—nothing. They're offering, to people on middle incomes, maybe an extra $15 a week while giving 4½ grand a year to millionaires, billionaires and politicians. That's the 'Treasury laws amendment (Labor's not quite as rubbish as the coalition!) bill 2024'. And make no mistake: the wealthiest people in this country are laughing at this bill. They're very happy with this bill, and the millions and millions that they've invested—money well spent. And the Labor Party and the coalition—well, they're getting their payoff again from the Labor Party. In a housing and cost-of-living crisis, watching Labor give the very wealthy three times as much as the average wage earner in this country, or more, is kind of obscene. And for them then to be cheering it in, as though they're the party of the working class and the struggler, is pretty hard to stomach.

For comparison, let's look at some of the numbers. The bulk of Australians get about $15 a week with these tax cuts, which is $15 a week more than they otherwise would have had, and I'm sure most people appreciate getting that $15 a week. But let's put it in context. That's less than half of the extra spending that people have had to do in the last 12 months—the $37 a week in extra spending to buy the same basket of groceries that they got 12 months ago.

So $15 in tax cuts pays less than half of the increased cost of a basket of groceries at the supermarket.

And why is that happening? That's because Labor and the coalition, together, have never stood up to the price-gouging of the Woolies and Coles supermarket duopoly.

The lowest 10 per cent of taxpayers will receive about 10 per cent of the benefits of these tax cuts. So the people who need it most get the least. That's the design of Labor's slightly-less-crap-than-the-coalition's tax cuts. The people who most need income support and tax breaks get the least. And Labor wants us to cheer them on in this. Well, we're just not going to.

Inequality in Australia has been growing rapidly, under both Labor and the coalition, for the last 15 years. Since 2009—and we've had Labor and the coalition in, at different times—the bottom 90 per cent of Australians have received just a few tiny crumbs of the economic growth that's been generated in this country, while the top 10 per cent of income earners have taken 93 per cent of the additional wealth that's been generated over the last 15 years. So the top 10 per cent have taken more than nine in 10 of the dollars of additional wealth that have been generated over the last 15 years, under both Labor and the coalition. And, in that time, the share of the economy that's gone to corporate profits has just gone through the roof—at a level we haven't seen since the immediate post-war years, some 75 or 80 years ago. Inequality has been running rampant, and it hasn't mattered whether Labor has been in government or the coalition has been in government, because they've got the same basic economic agenda: they have in mind this kind of trickle-down economy, delivering to their corporate donors and wealthy mates.

When I say 'wealthy mates', we got a lesson in Labor's hugging of billionaires and wealthy mates just on the weekend, didn't we? While millions of Australians were struggling to put food on the table, and hundreds of thousands of Australian families found the last dollar in the bank account to get their daughter a ticket to Taylor Swift, or to pay the electricity bill, or to buy a decent basket of groceries, what was the Prime Minister doing on the weekend? He was trotting down to his mate Anthony Pratt's place—the billionaire packaging mogul; one of the richest Australians, who has, like, a speed-dial to the Prime Minister and the coalition leader. He trots down to Anthony Pratt's place and has a little private concert with Katy Perry. You couldn't make this up! The Prime Minister, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, was trotting down to have a private concert with Katy Perry at the mansion of a billionaire packaging mogul—who also just happened to have been a major donor for both Labor and the coalition over the last few decades—and he was doing it with this group of 200 political and business elites, who were swapping business cards, and working out where they'll go in their post-political career and, 'Who's going to pay for this policy?' and, 'How can we get more corporate profits going?' while listening to Katy Perry and drinking champagne in a billionaire's mansion. That's what the Prime Minister was doing on the weekend. And you want us to cheer in some tax cuts where Labor gives income earners $15 a week. Well, good luck with that. Good luck with selling that to the Australian public.

You see, the Labor and Liberal parties—and the Nats, when they can—take millions in donations from big corporations, and then they write laws here to benefit them, and then they pretend: 'There's nothing we can do about it. This is just how the world has to be. And if you're not well off, we'll throw you a crumb. We'll throw you a crumb, and maybe with that crumb you'll be able to actually pay for the bus to work for that week. And good luck with that.'

'By the way, I'm off,' says the Labor Prime Minister. 'I'm off to my billionaire friend's mansion for the champagne and Katy Perry, but good luck with the 15 bucks a week. Good luck with that'

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, people making above 150 grand a year—that's the top eight per cent of income earners in the country—are going to get 40 per cent of the benefit of these tax cuts in the long run. That's 40 per cent to people who are already earning above 150 grand a year. The top five per cent of income earners, and that includes senators and members of the House of Reps—those making over 180 grand a year—will be getting a quarter of all the benefits. So what does that actually mean? That means over the next decade, that top five per cent—politicians, billionaires and everyone dancing to Katy Perry with the Prime Minister on the weekend—collectively will get $85 billion from these tax cuts.

What else could we have done with $85 billion over the next decade? We could have given everybody access to dental care through Medicare. We could have put dental into Medicare for $77 billion. That's less than what these tax cuts are delivering to the top five per cent. Of course, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the message the Prime Minister got on the weekend when he was dancing to Katy Perry at Anthony Pratt's place. I'm pretty sure Anthony Pratt was saying: 'Good on you, Prime Minister.' Corporate profits are up; corporate taxes are low. 'You're not wasting money,' say the corporate donors. 'You're not wasting money on poor people, and we're still going to get a whacking great tax cut.' If Labor's test, going into the next election, is that they're slightly less crap than the coalition, then this is exhibit A.