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

Labor has presented this budget while the climate is collapsing around us, while ecological systems are crashing and while millions of Australians are getting smashed by a cost-of-existence crisis, and Labor's response to this is not the strong, urgent action that these challenges demand. Labor has responded with a business-as-usual budget that is trying to convince Australians that these great challenges can be solved by continuing the very actions that have caused them or that have allowed them to happen. It's classic modern Labor—talk up an absolute storm and then abjectly fail to take strong and urgent action.

This budget locks in worsening economic inequality, and it will exacerbate the breakdown of the planet's climate and the ecosystems that ultimately support all life on the earth. It's a budget for the ultra-wealthy. It's a budget for the big corporations. It's a budget for the donors that line the coffers of the Australian Labor Party. On so many issues—climate change, the cost-of-living crisis—people are telling us it's getting harder and harder to tell the Labor and Liberal parties apart. This budget makes it even more clear that the political establishment in this place—the establishment political parties that make up the government and the opposition—are growing closer and closer together.

If a fire is burning, the last thing any reasonable person would do is pour more petrol on it. But that's exactly what this budget is doing. The Australian Labor Party continues to pump tens of billions of dollars into fossil fuel subsidies in every budget, and this budget is no exception Labor continues to put money into developing new coal and gas projects, and this budget is no exception. Our planet is literally cooking, and the cooking of our planet—global heating—is caused by burning fossil fuels and by logging native forests, but this budget does nothing meaningful to address those causes.

Not content that the world is now on track for a terrifying 2½ to three degrees of warming by the turn of the century, Labor continues to put public money into mapping new coal and gas reserves and providing the results of that mapping, paid for by the Australian people, to the big coal, gas and petroleum corporations—for nothing. These are public subsidies that underwrite corporate superprofits. Labor has opened up 47,000 square kilometres of ocean for the big gas corporations, the gas cartel, to exploit. Since Labor came into power about two years ago, the government has approved eight new gas projects and five new coal projects. Colleagues, the science is clear: no new coal and gas is the bare minimum that is necessary to ensure a safe climate on this planet. Yet Labor continues to approve new coal and gas mines hand over fist.

The government has also allocated, and it's in this budget, $1.5 billion of public money to develop the Middle Arm site, which will turn Darwin Harbour into a giant gas export facility and a giant petrochemical hub. Again, the petroleum, coal and gas corporations make off with crisis superprofits, and the petrochemical corporations make off with crisis superprofits, underwritten by billions in public subsidies delivered by the Australian Labor Party to corporate donors in the fossil fuel cartel. That's what's going on here. This is necro-capitalism. And this budget, in the face of the great challenges of our times, is an abject failure.

On Middle Arm, three-quarters of that site, which is going to receive $1½ billion in public subsidies, is set aside for gas and petrochemical companies. There is no way that that should be happening while the planet is heating so rapidly and with such devastating impacts on people around the world, on our ecosystems and on so many different species, many of which are on a pathway to extinction. But that problem is not just being permitted and allowed to happen by Labor; it's being facilitated by Labor, bankrolled by taxpayers.

This budget also locks in worsening inequality. We have a cost-of-living crisis caused by decades of neoliberal policies enshrined by the political establishment—Labor and Liberal. They've created an economy in which big corporations make massive profits, the ultrawealthy are making out like bandits and ordinary people are getting smashed. That has resulted in record inequality, and people are hurting. Millions of Australians are struggling. People are skipping meals to pay the rent. People are falling behind on their power bills to pay for GP visits.

Neither Labor nor Liberal will even acknowledge the excessive corporate profits that are driving this inequality and this cost-of-living crisis, whether it's the profits of the banks, those of the supermarkets, those of the energy corporations or those of property developers and speculators. The share of the economy that goes to corporate profits in Australia has never been higher, and the share of the economy that goes to people through their wages has never been lower. Colleagues, if that's not sounding the alarm bells for you then you are simply not paying attention. Of course, that disparity in income and wealth is not a bug; it's a feature of the system. It hasn't happened by accident; it's happening by design. In the Greens, we've done everything we can to reveal the price gouging of the big supermarkets and propose solutions, but instead Labor has decided to chase headlines rather than prioritise genuine help.

The neoliberal parties in this place, the political establishment, have backed in a strategy to make distressed mortgage holders and renters pay more. Rent and mortgages are going through the roof. The solutions are there, but the government won't pull the levers it has to address those issues. We have a full-blown housing crisis, with millions of people—renters and mortgage holders—in housing stress. But this isn't a policy failure from the establishment parties; this is a feature of the policies of the establishment parties. Those establishment parties have created this system by passing laws that benefit big corporations and the ultrawealthy, robbing an entire generation of lower- and middle-class Australians of a future.

Rents are rising faster than wages. People are working harder than they ever have and holding more jobs than they ever had, and they still can't get ahead. People are doing everything that is being asked of them, but they still can't make ends meet. The system, colleagues, is absolutely broken. Politics is a mess, and someone needs to clean it up. The big corporations and the ultrawealthy have got their hooks into the establishment parties in this place, but they haven't got their hooks into the Australian Greens. People understand that politics is a mess. More and more people understand that the system is not working for them. More and more people understand that the establishment parties and the political class in this country are not acting in their interests. They see billions going to nuclear submarines while people can't afford to see a doctor. They see property speculators getting tens of billions of dollars in handouts every year, which makes it impossible for people to buy their first home. They see the climate crisis and the ecological crisis getting worse but the establishment parties giving billions of dollars every year to the big fossil fuel corporations, who are making off with crisis super profits.

Now, we're a year away from a federal election and we in the Greens step into that campaign as the only party ready to take on the big corporations, to take on the ultrawealthy and to fight for people. We want to make price gouging and profiteering illegal. We want to end the tens of billions of dollars in tax handouts going to property investors and property speculators through negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. We want to freeze and cap rent increases, and we want to establish a public property developer to build homes, like we used to back in the day, which can be sold and rented for prices that ordinary people can afford. We are the only party that is in here fighting for renters. We are the party of people who are locked out of housing and facing homelessness. We are the party for people who can't afford to feed their families because they're being priced gouged at the supermarket checkout. We are the party for people who can't afford to see a GP.

It's never been more important to stop coal and gas. We've got a government that has basically thrown its hands up and given up on protecting nature and protecting the environment. We are here to fight for the future of the Great Barrier Reef. We are here to fight for the beautiful, magnificent forests of places like Tasmania and New South Wales. We are here to fight for the rivers that are the lifeblood of our nation, and we need to be very clear-eyed about what is threatening those places. It is big corporations who are only interested in greed and profits, and it is the political class in this place—the establishment parties, the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party—that those big corporations and their corporate donors have got their hooks into. And how have they got their hooks into them? They give them millions of dollars every year in political donations.

The system is broken. The system is cooked. The Greens are here not just to point that out but to fight—to fight for nature, to fight for a liveable climate, to fight for people so they are able to have a fair go, afford food and groceries, pay the rent, pay their mortgage payments and go to see a GP. We are here to fight to wipe student debt. We are here to fight to put dental and mental health into Medicare. We have a bold, positive vision for the future, and we don't take political donations from the big corporations who are making off with crisis super profits while they are cooking the planet and destroying nature. That is the bold vision that the Greens will put before the Australian people at the next election.