Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech es read as follows—

SUPPLY BILL (NO. 3) 2022-2023

The Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023, together with Supply Bill (No. 4) 2022-2023 and Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023, seeks appropriations to facilitate the continuation of ongoing government business.

The Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023 provides annual appropriations for proposed expenditure on the ordinary annual services of government for broadly the last seven months of 2022-23. Annual appropriations for expenditure on the ordinary annual services of government for broadly the first five months of 2022-23 were provided by the Supply Act (No. 1) 2022-2023.

The Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023 seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just under $49 billion.

The Bill must be passed in this sitting week to provide certainty of supply for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of 2022-23, thereby ensuring the continuity of program and service delivery.

The appropriations proposed in this Bill provide an estimated seven-twelfths of the 2022-23 annual appropriations, which are broadly based on the March 2022 Budget estimates and adjusted for a small number of programs and entities that received more than five-twelfths of their annual appropriations in the 2022-23 Supply Acts. This was to provide flexibility for selected entities to manage uneven expenditure early in the financial year.

The Bill reflects the structure of government in line with the Administrative Arrangements Order which commenced on 1 July 2022.

I wish to emphasise that this Bill seeks only to provide funding for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of the 2022-23 financial year. Therefore, no new decisions taken in the October 2022 Budget are included in this Bill. This arrangement enables conventional parliamentary processes, including Senate Estimates hearings, to be followed prior to the enactment of the Budget Appropriation Bills by the Parliament.

The Bill does not contain a provision for an Advance to the Finance Minister (AFM). The AFM provisions in the Supply Act (No. 1) 2022-2023, being $2 billion for COVID-19-related expenditure and $400 million for other urgent and unforeseen expenditure, will continue pending the passage of Budget Appropriation Bill No. 1.

Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the Schedule to the Bill, the Explanatory Memorandum, and the updated 2022-23 Portfolio Budget Statements tabled in relation to the October 2022 Budget.

I commend this Bill to the chamber.

SUPPLY BILL (NO. 4) 2022-2023

The Supply Bill (No. 4) 2022-2023, along with Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023 andSupply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023, seeks appropriations to facilitate the continuation of ongoing government business.

The Supply Bill (No. 4) 2022-2023 provides for annual appropriations that are not for the ordinary annual services of government, such as for capital works and services, payments to states, territories and local governments, and for equity injections for broadly the last seven months of 2022-23. Annual appropriations that are not for the ordinary annual services of government for broadly the first five months of 2022-23 were provided by the Supply Act (No. 2) 2022-2023.

This Bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just under $10 billion.

The Bill must be passed in this sitting week to provide certainty of supply for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of 2022-23, thereby ensuring the continuity of program and service delivery.

The appropriations proposed in this Bill provide an estimated seven-twelfths of the 2022-23 annual appropriations, which are broadly based on the March 2022 Budget estimates and adjusted for a small number of programs and entities that received more than five-twelfths of their annual appropriations in the 2022-23 Supply Acts. This was to provide flexibility for selected entities to manage uneven expenditure early in the financial year.

The Bill reflects the structure of government in line with the new Administrative Arrangements Order which commenced on 1 July 2022.

As with the Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023, this Bill seeks only to provide funding for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of the 2022-23 financial year. Therefore, no new decisions taken in the October 2022 Budget are included in this Bill. This arrangement enables conventional parliamentary processes, including Senate Estimates hearings, to be followed prior to the enactment of the October 2022 Budget Appropriation Bills by the Parliament.

The Supply Act (No. 2) 2022-2023 established debit limits for general purpose financial assistance and national partnership payments under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 for the full 2022-23 financial year. Therefore, no further debit limits have been included in this Bill.

The Bill does not contain a provision for an Advance to the Finance Minister (AFM). The AFM provisions in the Supply Act (No. 2) 2022-2023, being $3 billion for COVID-19-related expenditure and $600 million for other urgent and unforeseen expenditure, will continue pending the passage of Budget Appropriation Bill No. 2.

Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the Schedules to the Bill, the Explanatory Memorandum, and the updated 2022-23 Portfolio Budget Statements tabled in relation to the October 2022 Budget.

I commend this Bill to the chamber.

SUPPLY (PARLIAMENTARY DEPARTMENTS) BILL (NO. 2) 2022-2023

The Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023 provides appropriations for broadly the last seven months of 2022-23 for the operations of:

This Bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of approximately $155 million.

The appropriations proposed in this Bill provide an estimated seven-twelfths of the 2022-23 annual appropriations, which are broadly based on the March 2022 Budget estimates.

The Bill must be passed in this sitting week to provide certainty of supply for the Parliamentary Departments for the remainder of 2022-23, thereby ensuring the continuity of the Parliament's operations.

As with the other additional 2022-23 Supply Bills, I wish to emphasise that this Bill seeks only to provide funding for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of the 2022-23 financial year. Therefore, no new decisions taken in the October 2022 Budget are included in this Bill. This arrangement enables conventional parliamentary processes, including Senate Estimates hearings, to be followed prior to the enactment of the October 2022 Budget Appropriation Bills by the Parliament.

Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the Schedule to the Bill, the Explanatory Memorandum, and the updated 2022-23 Portfolio Budget Statements tabled in relation to the October 2022 Budget.

I commend this Bill to the chamber.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak briefly on Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023, Supply Bill (No. 4) 2022-2023 and Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023. The opposition will support the passage of these bills. It is appropriate that the important functions of government continue and departments are resourced to effectively carry out their duties when the examination of the appropriation bills continues through the parliamentary process, and the expeditious passage of these bills means that there will be no delay. There is of course a lot that this budget does deserve examination over, and the coalition looks forward to the estimates process that will begin later this week.

Unfortunately, for many Australian families this budget confirms that the cost of living is going up, electricity and gas bills are going up, taxes are also going up, government spending is going up and employment is going down, and real wages are forecast to go down also. Labor's budget last night confirmed that under this government growth will be lower. Last night we heard a long speech from the Treasurer—a lot of rhetoric, but minus a clear plan to bring down the cost of living for Australian families. It's clear that just six months since the election the government has ditched the guardrails on good policy. There is no handbrake on spending. Under this government, spending is up. There is no speed limit on tax and no cap on the Australian Public Service, with an additional 8,000 bureaucrats since they came to government. Maybe—just maybe—when the appropriation bills are progressed to the House and considered by the other place then a plan from the government may become clearer. Unfortunately, the opposition is not optimistic.

In keeping with convention, on the basis of discussions between the government and the opposition, the coalition will support the passage of these supply bills this morning. I also note that two amendments have been circulated in the chamber by the Australian Greens, and the coalition will be opposing both.

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

When Mr Albanese was elected he made a promise to the Australian people. He promised that no-one would be left behind and that no-one would be held back. Well, that promise that he made to the Australian people was broken in his first budget last night. After this budget, we know we're not all in this together. Too many Australians are being left behind, and many more are being held back.

This is a Labor budget in name only. They say they're going to get wages moving again, but wages are flatlining over the forward estimates. They say they're committed to full employment, but unemployment is flagged to go up. They say they're providing cost-of-living relief, but those who are on the lowest incomes are going to bear most of the pain. The Treasurer's buzzword is 'responsible'. But if you're leaving behind the people who need it the most, if you are publicly subsidising the burning of fossil fuels in the middle of a climate crisis, then this cannot be considered a responsible budget. There is more than a whiff of austerity about this budget, because it's the people in our country who are the least well off who will feel the most pain. Meanwhile, in a deliberate policy choice, the stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires, for CEOs and for politicians are baked in. It's champagne for the top end and it's real pain for the people who are doing it the toughest.

But we're facing two crises here: a cost-of-living crisis and a climate and ecological crisis. People's incomes are going down, and people's homes are ending up underwater. Food is getting more expensive. Grocery prices have risen by 17 per cent this year, and too many Australians simply cannot afford fresh fruit and vegetables. And, thanks to the climate-crisis-fuelled floods around this country, food prices are flagged to go up even more. Meanwhile the big corporations like the big two supermarkets are raking in megaprofits. Housing's getting more expensive. Rents are currently rising four times as fast as wages. But if you've got wealthy parents, you're going OK. Young people are being locked out of the great Australian dream of owning their own home. They're being forced into unsafe tenancy just to keep a roof over their heads. Electricity is going through the roof. At a retail level, bills are going to go up by 56 per cent over the next two years, and we are being extorted for our own gas by multinationals who send the profits offshore. We're in the middle of a global gas boom, and our gas tax is so utterly rorted by the big corporations that we're actually going to get less tax as a result. There is a half-billion reduction in the petroleum resource rent tax revenue forecast in this budget.

Child care going up, education going up, transport going up—there is real pain for a lot of people in this budget, but, instead of doing something significant to provide genuine and immediate cost-of-living relief, we've got a Treasurer who's playing at the margins with many measures that are delayed and won't be implemented now, when people need the help. As I said, wages aren't going to move. We've got too many people in insecure work, too many people suffering from wage theft. Short-term contracts and labour hire are driving down wages. Working people need more power in this country because the big corporations have gotten too much power. They're making huge profits. Their share of the economy, the share of the economy that is going into profits, hasn't been this high since the gilded age.

At the same time we are facing, in the short, medium and long term, the collapse of our climate, fuelled by coal and gas corporations and the psychopath that run them. The climate crisis is part of what is driving the cost-of-living crisis—insurance costs, damage to infrastructure, disruptions to supply chains, including food supply, or just your suburb or your town going underwater or burning in a bushfire, the fear, the anxiety and the stress. Burning coal and gas for cash, for profits, is killing people and it's costing us billions of dollars.

So what's the government's response to all of this? Labor's response: baking in the stage 3 tax cuts for the billionaires and handing out billions to fossil fuel corporations. They're driving inequality higher and pouring petrol on the climate fire. Labor is leaving too many people behind. The stage 3 tax cuts will destroy Australia's progressive income tax system. They're going to give a $9,000-a-year tax cut to the billionaires and to the CEOs and to everyone who sits in this place as either a senator or an MP. They will benefit predominantly already very wealthy, rich, old, white men, but they won't benefit many young people. They won't benefit as many women as men and they won't benefit as many people of colour as they do white people.

They'll drive inequality, and let's think about this: $254 billion that could have gone into providing genuine and immediate cost-of-living relief for the people who are actually going to feel the pain from flatlining wages, unemployment going up, the prospect of more interest rates hikes and spiralling electricity and gas prices. We could have helped them out and done much more for them. But, no, the Treasurer made a choice last night to look after the top end and walk away from those people. We could put in place a rent freeze, so people's rents were more affordable. We could wipe student debt so that young people and people who've finished their university degrees would have more money in their pockets. We could make dental and mental part of Medicare. We could make child care free. These measures won't drive inflation, as the Treasurer would have you believe. They will reduce inflation and they will improve people's lives. And I want to remind people: improving people's lives is the whole point of government. It's why we're all here, and the Treasurer made a choice to not do that last night. What his choice was, at a time when people are trying to work out whether they're going to pay their power bills or afford the groceries, when they're making huge sacrifices to keep their heads above water, at a time when inequality is at a record high, was to have a Labor government giving the richest people in this country another $9,000 a year. If you're someone who works in a pub, or cleans in a school or hospital, or looks after a shop, or had to leave home and work during the pandemic, you're very unlikely to benefit from these tax cuts. Remember, there is nothing in the stage 3 tax cuts for somebody on a minimum wage. What sort of Labor Party abandons progressive taxation? The international environment didn't make the Labor Party do this. It wasn't the war in Ukraine. The Liberal Party didn't make the Labor Party do this. It was a Labor choice to do this.

This budget also hands out tens of billions in public subsidies to the big fossil fuel corporations. These corporations are driving the climate crisis, which is turbocharging extreme weather, wreaking havoc across this continent and across the world and wreaking havoc with people's lives. Those corporations in the main send their profits offshore and rip off Australian consumers. The unions understand it. The welfare sector understands it. Many economists in this country understand it. People in the pubs and the cafes and people picking up their kids after school understand that giving billions of dollars to people who don't need it, whether it's the top end of town or the big fossil fuel corporations—a handout during a cost-of-living crisis and a climate crisis—is just dumb. It is dumb and counterproductive.

Labor used to be the party of working people, Yes, Labor have fiddled at the margins on cost-of-living relief in this budget. They're prepared to reduce the cost of child care for some people in a while, at the margins—a bit here, a bit there—and build a few new affordable homes. I might add that it's not a million new homes that this budget is delivering; it's actually 10,000, when you look at the detail. The headline is a million. The budget detail says, 'Ten thousand, and cross your fingers and hope that the private sector builds the other 990,000.' You see in this budget a Labor Party that's lost its appetite and its nerve for nation-building, big reforms.

One of the most disappointing things is that, in this parliament, we've actually got the numbers to change things for the better. If Labor worked with the Greens, we could scrap the stage 3 tax cuts and pass measures which dramatically reduce the cost of living—dental and mental into Medicare, freeze rents, make child care and education free, wipe student debt, expand Medicare. We could make the gas corporations and the fossil fuel corporations pay their fair share of tax. But Labor has lost its nerve. We've been robbed, swindled, scammed and stood over by some of the world's biggest, most powerful and most polluting corporations. They give donations. They get special treatment. They're stealing our gas and selling it overseas, and funnelling their profits overseas. The government of Australia for far too long has been an entity that is owned, lock, stock and smoking barrel, by the resources industry.

If Labor had the courage, we've got the numbers. If we worked together we could pass measures that would drive down the cost of living without increasing inflation. If we got past the now Liberal ideology, if we stood for the people and not the big corporations and the wealthy, we could make a huge difference. We stand ready to raise Newstart to $88 a day so that people don't have to live in grinding, daily poverty. But Labor has chosen not to do that. We stand ready to pass laws to outlaw insecure work and give working people more power so they can secure the pay rises they deserve. Together we could give workers real rights, restore the power of unions and end wage theft. But Labor has lost its nerve; this budget shows that. Its words are hollow. It's rolled over at the first sign of pressure, even from a weak, divided, irrelevant opposition.

Well, the Greens stand ready to work with Labor to genuinely build a million new homes. We stand ready to make the Prime Minister's story about growing up in public housing a reality that will be accessible to everyone. But, instead of ending the public housing waiting list, under this government the public will be languishing on the waiting list for years. We need more than a story from the Prime Minister: we need the foot to be taken off our necks.

I want to say something about inflation, because the Treasurer has missed a fantastic opportunity here. He has missed an opportunity because he's been too busy blaming inflationary pressures on what's happening around the world. And, of course, there are things happening around the world: conflict, climate change, supply chain issues. Of course they exist. But, domestically, what we do know is that it's not wages that are driving inflation; it is corporate profiteering that is driving inflation in this country. And what we need to address that is a corporate super profits tax.

There is no need for the Treasurer to wring his hands and pretend that he has got no levers to pull to address inflation in this country. There is no need for the Treasurer to stand back and watch as the Reserve Bank continues to pile interest rate rise on top of interest rate rise, condemning the less well off in this country to yet more pain. He needs to pull the lever, introduce a corporate super profits tax and rein in the rampant price gouging of the big corporations. I flag that I will be moving a second reading amendment, Madame Deputy President.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It might assist the chamber if you actually move that now, Senator McKim.

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

I move the second reading amendment standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that Labor's first budget gives a $9,000 per year tax cut to billionaires and locks in the $254 billion stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy; and

(b) calls on the Labor Government to repeal the stage 3 tax cuts and provide cost of living relief that will make people's lives better, including by putting dental and mental healthcare into Medicare, building more affordable housing, and making childcare free".

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023 and related bills. The Greens have circulated an amendment to this bill. The amendment ensures that no public money is spent on the drilling program in the Beetaloo basin. We are in a climate crisis, and that means that no new coal and gas should be funded. Continuing to give fossil fuel companies handouts when people are struggling to pay rent and to buy their groceries and other necessities is absolutely insulting, especially to the many people right across the country who've seen their homes and their communities devastated this year by unprecedented flooding events. This is actually insulting to them. These weather events will only get worse, and the government is directly contributing to this by funding the fossil fuel projects that they've outlined in this budget.

Labor's first budget is introducing a new handout for the gas industry through the $1.9 billion to build a gas terminal and petrochemical hub in Darwin Harbour that would guarantee a customer for the Beetaloo basin. Beetaloo is a climate-wrecking project that cannot continue and that absolutely cannot be funded through public money. The government has already given billions of dollars to this project, and in this budget we saw $1.9 billion more. This is absolutely unacceptable.

Fracking in the Beetaloo basin will destroy our environment, wreck our climate and use up the precious groundwater in the Northern Territory. The sheer amount of water that fracking uses cannot be underestimated. It is estimated that one pad alone uses 11.2 billion litres of water. That is almost a quarter of the entire surface water that is used in the Northern Territory in one year—and there are 27 of these pads proposed at just one of the approximately 20 properties that are impacted by this project in the Beetaloo.

Despite what the gas-funded CSIRO fact sheets might say, methane and fracking definitely contribute to climate change, and we heard about that yesterday during question time when I asked the minister, Minister Wong, about this fact sheet and, in fact, the misleading information that was included in there. Just the gas field in the Beetaloo basin could release up to 117 million tonnes of CO2, and we have been warned that there might not be enough carbon credits to offset the emissions from Beetaloo. In other words, we will blow any chance of Labor achieving their 43 per cent emission reduction target, at least without some dodgy accounting like what we saw from the previous government. In fact, as you would expect, if Beetaloo is allowed to continue it will increase Australia's 2020 emissions level by 13 per cent, and we can't afford this increase. We don't have the time to see an increase in climate emissions. We don't have time for Labor to do the bidding with their mates in the gas industry because, let's be real, this is exactly what is happening. This is an act of a government that is too scared to stand up to these companies that are destroying our planet. The resources minister herself has said that if the projects were not financially able to stand on their own two feet there should not be any government injection of cash into them, yet this is exactly what we are seeing in this budget. This amendment simply asks the government to stick to their word.

Origin has stepped away from this project. They saw the writing on the wall. Whilst this is a win, it has sold its interests in this project to Tamboran Resources. This is a company that refused to appear before a Senate committee and only did so when they were about to be held in contempt of parliament, a company that has no issue taking legal action when decisions don't go their way, a company that only cares about one thing—that is, about making money for its shareholders and its executives. In a recent hearing we heard Tamboran Resources describe the Beetaloo Basin as 'Australia's greatest emissions reduction opportunity'. Believe that. What a joke. Our greatest emissions reduction opportunity is to remove public funding from fossil fuel projects, invest that money into renewables, and commit to no more new coal and gas projects in this country. This project is directly linked to the Middle Arm harbour project, a toxic petrochemical plant that is only three kilometres away from Palmerston in the pristine area of Darwin. This plant poses a health risk due to its pollution. It could increase air pollution in the area by over 500 per cent and increase the Northern Territory's emissions by 75 per cent. Now, this to me does not seem like climate action. What about you?

Tamboran have stated that it intends to use the gas from the Beetaloo in the Middle Arm industry hub, which also happened to get a nice little pile of cash in this budget. Now, the science is clear. It has been clear for quite some time, and we know exactly what we need to do. Unfortunately, we are yet to see a government with the political will to do this, and this inaction will impact on, in fact, all of us.

The last election was very clear. What we heard from the Australian public was they want change, they want climate action and they are growing tired of the major parties and their inaction, and last night's budget is in fact proof of that. This money to prop up a dying industry flies in the face of that clear message.

Traditional owners have also sent a clear message: they do not want fracking on their country. You cannot silence the voices of traditional owners for corporate interests. You cannot ignore the traditional owners' sovereignty over their land and their sacred water to support climate-destroying gas projects in this country. If this project contaminates the groundwater it will destroy those communities surrounding that area—their connection to this country and their cultural heritage, their bush foods, the places they take their children—because that water is sacred to them.

This government has claimed that it is committed to First Nations justice. In fact, they talk about the voice in this parliament. How about listening to the voices of traditional owners when they say they don't want these projects on their country? Our voices and our stories—only when it does not conflict with them making money, do they want to listen. This project has strong opposition from the traditional owners, the farmers, the environmentalists, the scientists, the general public and members of this crossbench, so when will this Labor government listen and catch up?

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank all of the senators who've contributed to the debate on the Supply Bill (No. 3) 2022-2023, the Supply Bill (No. 4) 2022-2023 and the Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023. These additional supply bills seek authority from the parliament for the appropriation of money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for, broadly, the last seven months of 2022-23. The total of the appropriations sought through these three additional supply bills is just under $59 billion. The bills must be passed in this sitting week to provide certainty of supply for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of 2022-23, thereby ensuring the continuity of program and service delivery.

The appropriations proposed in these bills provide an estimated seven-twelfths of the 2022-2023 annual appropriations, which are broadly based on the March 2022 budget estimates and adjusted for a small number of programs and entities that received more than five-twelfths of their annual appropriations in the 2022-23 supply acts. I wish to emphasise that these bills seek only to provide funding for the ongoing business of government for the remainder of the 2022-23 financial year. Therefore, no new decisions taken in the October 2022 budget are included these bills. This arrangement enables conventional parliamentary processes, including Senate estimates hearings, to be followed, prior to the enactment of the October budget appropriation bills by the parliament.

I note that the Greens have moved a second reading amendment. Labor will not support that amendment. Once again, I thank all senators for their contributions and commend these bills to the Senate.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An amendment has been circulated in the name of Senator McKim. The question is that the amendment moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.