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

Here we go again. For the third day in a row this week, the Liberals have come in here complaining about government spending. We all know what that means the Liberals really want. What they really want is austerity. What the Liberals really want is to cut spending on things like health, education and essential public services—the things that so many millions of Australians rely on to even claw their way towards some kind of dignified life. Money that actually helps people live with dignity is anathema to the Liberal Party.

I'll tell you what: if the Liberal Party is serious about wanting to find some savings in the budget, the Greens have got some suggestions for them. Let's start with AUKUS. What a reckless $368 billion! That commitment to AUKUS is quite possibly the biggest waste of money in the history of this colony that we call Australia. Those self-proclaimed responsible spenders in the Liberal Party signed a cheque for over a third of a trillion dollars to the merchants of death in the military-industrial complex, and then they have the gall to come in here and complain about government spending. Let's not forget the Labor Party is right there with them, backing this outrageous waste of money while pretending that they can't afford to do more to help people who are doing it tough by, for example, putting dental and mental health into Medicare. It's free money for the merchants of death and it's austerity, under the establishment political parties in this country, for everyone else.

We've got some more savings. What about the $14 billion plus in every single year of the current budget for fossil fuel subsidies? These are direct government subsidies encouraging people to burn more fossil fuels in the middle of an environmental and climate crisis that the United Nations warns is rendering the capacity of this planet to sustain human life in question. It is $14.5 billion of Australians money handed over every year to encourage the burning of fossil fuels, with many billions of it going straight into the pockets of the giant fossil fuel corporations who are making obscene profits while cooking the planet.

The Greens aren't going to have a bar of it. We will fight against that kind of reckless spending, and I say to the Labor and Liberal parties: if you need any other suggestions about how to cut expenditure in the budget, come and see the Greens. But we will never support cutting expenditure on the help that people really need.