Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These bills are being put forward in the context of a cost-of-living crisis. There is absolutely no doubt that under the Labor Albanese government Australia is in a cost-of-living crisis. Every time the senators in this place go back to their home states and talk to their constituents, to families in their home states—in my case the state of Queensland—the cost-of-living crisis its impact on Queensland families is underlined to them.

When Senator Hume, on behalf of the coalition, made her opening contribution in relation to this bill she referred to the hearings of the Select Committee on the Cost of Living. The Senate formed a cost-of-living committee to look at the issue of cost-of-living in this context. The committee visited Gladstone, and Senator Hume conveyed to this chamber how, when she visited Gladstone in the context of that cost-of-living committee, Gladstone council conveyed to the committee that there are young people living in my home state of Queensland, in Gladstone, who are making decisions now as to whether they pay the rent or whether they go and see a GP to get medical care. Those are the sorts of decisions people are making today in the middle of this cost-of-living crisis.

I am seeing exactly the same thing where my office is located, in the greater Ipswich region. Most of Ipswich is located within the federal seat of Blair, a Labor-held seat. There was research released this week in relation to bulk-billing rates in GP medical clinics in the federal seat of Blair—indeed, across the whole of Australia. What did that research indicate, Mr Deputy President? It indicated that over the course of 2023—only 12 months—the number of GP medical clinics in the federal seat of Blair, which includes much of Ipswich, fell from 26 to 15—26 down to 15.

So that means, for an adult who isn't on a concession and who contacts a GP medical clinic in the City of Ipswich within the Labor-held federal seat of Blair, that the number of medical clinics offering bulk-billing in the region where my office is located has fallen from 26 to 15, a 36 per cent drop over the course of just 12 months. That is a staggering fall in just 12 months, and that is under the watch of the Albanese Labor government.

We are in a cost-of-living crisis. There is absolutely no doubt about it, and that is why the coalition is not going to stand in the way of providing tax cuts to Australians who are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis—from 19 per cent to 16 per cent. We can't stand in the way of that tax relief for Australians who are doing it tough. But Australians must always remember that this bill which we're debating today means that Australians cannot take the Labor government at its word with respects to any tax matter. Remember when the Prime Minister said, 'My word is my bond'? This bill demonstrates that the Prime Minister's word is not his bond. This bill demonstrates that Labor cannot be trusted with respect to whatever it says and whatever it commits to with respects to taxation, whether it's in relation to negative gearing, capital gains tax, franking credits or superannuation. Whatever it is, this bill demonstrates and is evidence—exhibit A—that the Albanese Labor government cannot be trusted with respect to anything that it says in relation to tax. It will promise one thing before an election and then do something else after an election.

There's one other matter which Senator Hume touched upon that I want to address in my remarks in relation to this legislation. I genuinely think this is appalling. It is absolutely appalling. On the same day that the Albanese Labor government announced $14 million of funding for food relief agencies—and the food bank in the greater Ipswich region, where my office is located, is telling me they're seeing a lot of people and working families they've never seen before. I've actually spoken to a lot of those people at the food bank at Ipswich Assist in Ipswich, and I pay tribute to all of the volunteers at Ipswich Assist—Jason and his team. They're seeing people they've never seen before. On the same day that the federal government announced $14 million of funding for food relief agencies, the coalition discovered that the Labor government is spending $40 million on marketing this bill—this broken promise. Can you believe that?

Just think about it. We're in a cost-of-living crisis, our food relief agencies are seeing people they've never seen before, and the Albanese Labor government is providing $14 million for food relief agencies but spending $40 million—nearly three times as much—to market their broken promise. How contemptible! It is shameful. That is $14 million to help food relief agencies and $40 million on marketing, which is not necessary at all. It is absolutely not necessary. There isn't a question of you needing to apply for the tax cuts under this bill. They work automatically through the ATO. There's no educational component to this whatsoever. It's not as if you've got to educate people to participate in a government scheme. It's shameful, but it is even more shameful when you put that expenditure of $40 million on a marketing campaign against $14 million of relief for food relief agencies. There could be no better example that the Albanese Labor government is out of touch with Australians suffering in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

Just reflect on that: $40 million to market the broken promise represented by this bill but only $14 million to food relief agencies to help Australians in need. This is a government that has got all of its priorities wrong. It should be held accountable by the people at the next election.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak today on the stage 3 tax cut bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024, and the related bill. There are many parts of the world where people are willing to pay higher taxes—particularly income taxes—than we do in Australia. Think about that; there are parts of the world where people are willing to pay more and higher taxes than we do in Australia because they actually trust that the government will spend those funds in a way that benefits the majority—housing, education, health care. There are many examples of these countries—Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark. These are all nations with a higher level of income tax than we have in Australia. They are also all countries that beat Australia in last year's world happiness index.

We have a broken tax system in Australia. Year after year the government fails to spend public funds appropriately. And the result of this broken tax system is that our world-class health system is now pushed to the brink. We have a rental and housing crisis—the worst it has been in generations. Our education system leaves more and more kids behind every single year. And we have a cost-of-living crisis that means that a block of cheese now costs more than a Macca's meal. Just think about how broken that is.

The stage 3 tax cut bill as originally proposed by the Morrison government did the opposite of benefiting the majority. It benefited a tiny minority of high-income earners, most of whom were pulling in $180,000 a year. As someone who would have benefited from the original plan, we should have never, ever been the focus of that legislation. We should not have been the priority. Odds are we would have been more than fine without it. The relief that this government didn't proceed with that plan is palpable. It would have been ridiculous and devastating in terms of its consequences, and that's why the Greens will be supporting Labor's amendment.

But it must not be the last that is seen of this government's supposed generosity. The reality right now is that Australians are being hit from all sides by this cost-of-living crisis. The median income in Australia is around $67,000 annually. For folks on this wage, these changes mean that they may take home about $50 extra a fortnight. In most states, the reality is that is not enough to cover the average cost of the gap payment when you see the GP. In most states—or anywhere in this country right now, let's be honest—$50 a fortnight will not cover your grocery shop. It is not going to get you much closer to covering your monthly or weekly rent. Let's be really clear: the average rental payment in Australia right now is $580 a week. And with Australia's median property value being $750,000 as of last December, if you put this extra money away towards saving up a 20 per cent deposit for a mortgage, to try to buy that home, it would take you roughly 116 years to build up the amount of money to do it.

In this reality, the government says, 'Well, maybe you can put this money aside in a savings account, with a fairly generous four per cent interest rate.' In that scenario, if you did that, if you were the kind of good little saver that the government often suggests people experiencing poverty should be—and let me share from personal experience.

As somebody whose family has always struggled, there is nothing more infuriating, when you are in a position trying to figure out where next week's shop money is going to come from, how you're going to make things work on the DSP and how you're going to cover your specialist medical bills, than to feel that you're being told by people in positions of power that you are experiencing that because you are not as good as you should be at saving. Let's have a look at what that would do if you put that money away in a savings account. It would take you 45 years to build up that 20 per cent deposit. In this context, I do not blame the Australian community for not trusting either side of politics with their money. In a cost-of-living crisis, both sides of politics have left them out in the cold—or more accurately, if you're from Western Australia, in the scorching heat.

These amendments to the stage 3 tax cuts bill are a start, a tiny step in the direction towards actually providing people with the support they need. But Labor must take bolder actions to level the playing field and provide tangible supports and improvements to people's lives. They must listen to the Greens and the community's call for a raise to the disability support pension that allows disabled people to live beyond poverty. They must listen to the Greens and the community's call to bring dental care and mental health care fully into Medicare and to actually tax the billionaires so that the Gina Rineharts and the Twiggy Forrests and corporations like Woodside actually pay their fair share of tax. Without taking such actions, it is hard to interpret this bill as little more than a hollow gesture.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to get into this debate because this is something the Greens, and only the Greens, have been campaigning on now for the last five years. We can go back to when these tax cuts were first announced under the previous government two parliaments ago. The original legislation was supported by Senator Lambie and former senators Patrick and Griff from the Xenophon party. Once their support was secured, of course the now government, the Labor Party, backed them in too.

It took years of Greens pressure to finally get the government to drop the Liberal Party's tax cuts. Pressure works. I've got to say, it may have been the Greens in this place that applied that pressure, but there were a lot of stakeholders out there that were working towards this as well, and I'd like to acknowledge them today. And, of course, many commentators, economists and journalists are raising valid concerns and questions about this legislation on a number of different levels.

But these tax cuts will still make economic inequality in Australia worse by giving politicians, such as me, and others on incomes over $200,000—millionaires and potentially billionaires—significant tax cuts. I think I get as a senator—and I'm not sure what other senators' salaries are in this place, but I suspect they'll be fairly similar—about $5,000 a year in tax cuts. I've been asked about this publicly on the radio. I feel very conflicted about that. I don't feel like I need that money as much as other people in this country do.

The Greens put forward sensible suggestions—that for those on incomes over $200,000, like most of us in this chamber, that money go towards directly benefitting Australians who are doing it tough. There are a whole range of things I'll mention in a second that we could fund if we amended this legislation to make a cut-off at $200,000. On these salaries, we get three times the value of tax cuts compared to the average Australian worker.

These revised tax cuts that we're dealing with today will make inequality worse by providing the poorest 20 per cent of society with only 0.4 per cent of the share of tax cuts in the next financial year. That's compared to the wealthiest of society—that includes us, again—who will enjoy half the total value of these tax cuts. They are predominantly going to benefit the wealthy in this country. We have seen evidence that they will exacerbate the gender-pay gap, with 42 per cent of the tax cuts going to women and 58 per cent going to men. That's obviously a very topical issue in the media today. It'll make inequality in Australia worse by starving the budget by a jaw-dropping $318 billion over the next decade. This massive bucket of revenue means that the biggest unspoken losers from these tax cuts will be people who rely on strong public services, like aged care, the NDIS and income support, and all the families who depend on the public education and health systems. There is only a certain amount of money that is in the pool to go around, and there will be pressure brought to bear to find savings in public services.

At the Press Club, when announcing the policy reversal, the Prime Minister said 'no-one held back and no-one left behind', but everyone on income support and everyone earning below $18,000 a year—and there are a lot of Australians earning below $18,000 a year—get nothing to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. The government could have made these tax cuts quarantine people such as ourselves who are earning over $200,000 a year. That would have freed up billions to invest in things like adding mental health and dental health into Medicare, something the Greens were proudly able to bring in for children back in 2010 that we've never been able to have extended to adults in this country. We've got a state election in Tasmania, and we've been out doorknocking and talking to people who are doing it really tough in this cost-of-living crisis. I can tell you, I met a woman who has been on the public waiting list to get some dental work for nearly five years. She told me how many teeth she'd lost in that period of time, how much pain she'd been in and the number of times she's had to go to GPs. It really hits home how hard it is for some people in this country because we don't have dental care in Medicare. It would be an absolute winner for the current government, or any government, to implement such a simple measure. We could fund that by not giving wealthy people in this country a tax cut that, I would argue, they don't need.

Free child care is another thing the Greens have been arguing for. Wiping student debt and building the clean-energy system our planet needs are others. We could also fully fund threatened-species recovery plans, which have received virtually no funding under respective federal governments in the last 15 years. At a time when we're starting to see the extinction crisis hit hard, there's never been a more important time to invest in a healthy environment than now. It's not just because we're green, we're conservationists and we want to protect nature; we need this in order to have healthy communities. I would argue that that is also a priority.

Perhaps something a little bit personal to me: we are concluding a Senate inquiry into the Australian Antarctic Division, and senators from all political parties have been involved in this. We've heard about a number of critical science programs being cut, delayed or deferred because the AAD is short $25 million. This is at a time when we're seeing the biggest loss of marginal sea ice in recorded history and very real concerns about the temperatures of our oceans and the kinds of things we need to be researching now.

On that point, the ABC ran an article yesterday on the RV Investigator, an absolutely brilliant floating science platform based out of Hobart which was originally a Labor government commitment. I must say, I commend the previous Liberal government for fully funding the RV Investigator for 300 days a year for marine science. We find that their funding has been cut too. They're back to around 180 days, so back to where they started before we campaigned so hard to get the RV Investigator fully funded. I look at that and I think, 'Wow, that's $50 million for doing critical ocean research right now. The ocean is the barometer of our planet's health, weather, climate and so many other things, and we don't have the money to fund our scientists to do this work at a time in history when we most need it.

I look at this $318 billion and I really scratch my head. How is it that we're cutting back on these absolutely critical programs just to give rich people in this country a tax cut? Whenever the Treasurer says we can't afford things like superannuation or paid parental leave, it's because the cost of these tax cuts makes everything else unaffordable. To put the cost of these tax cuts into perspective, here are some more of our policies that the Greens would like to see implemented over the decade. We believe putting mental health into Medicare would cost around $91 billion over the next decade; dental into Medicare, $10 billion; wiping student debt, $17 billion; free child care, $90 billion—that would actually cost less now that we've seen some legislated changes—and, generically, billions into building affordable housing, free public transport, faster rail between our cities and building renewable energy and storage. We need to get to net zero by 2035. Of course, this country is experiencing the costs of climate change right now. Just looking all around the country this summer, the costs of extreme weather events will only get worse. The cost of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. The loss of giant kelp forests in the Great Southern Reef is impacting the fishing industry. The costs of climate change by far outweigh the cost of taking action, and we're just not doing that fast enough or strong enough.

I want to finish my contribution by talking a bit about the home state of Tasmania. Yes, there is a Tasmanian state election on at the moment. Look at what that government's priorities are —not to mention that the Tasmanian Liberal government is the last Liberal government left in the states here in Australia. How much money are we putting towards a stadium at Macquarie Point that no-one wants? Bread and circuses has been a very successful formula since the Roman days, but in this situation we have money for circuses in Tasmania but no money for bread. We've got no money for those who are experiencing firsthand the devastation of this cost-of-living crisis. We have a federal government that wants to put $240 million towards building infrastructure, which is loose code for funding this Macquarie Point AFL stadium—a stadium, by the way, we don't need. We've got a really good stadium at York Park in Launceston that has been used by Hawthorn for many years. It's also getting a $90 million upgrade. It's a state-of-the-art facility, but somehow the AFL has us over a barrel and they want us to build a billion-dollar stadium down at Macquarie Point, a completely inappropriate location.

When you dig into the $240 million, it's not money going directly to the stadium or for other redevelopment at the Macquarie Point site. It was revealed in Senate estimates last week by my colleague Senator McKim that federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has refused the state government's request to provide a GST exemption for any funds towards the Macquarie Point megastadium. That means Tasmania will lose out on $240 million, basically. We're not going to get the GST revenue that we so critically need to try to tackle the public health crisis in my state. We have some of the worst outcomes for public health. We still have ambulance ramping. People are dying in ambulances because there are no beds in our public hospitals. The emergency rooms are full because people can't afford to go to a GP, so they go to the emergency room. That's the only benefit they can get, and then they spend days waiting to be seen. People are dying on ambulance ramps because we haven't fixed that.

That's just one of the problems. We have people sleeping in cars. When the Prime Minister swung into Tasmania last year to offer this money he went past hundreds of people sleeping in their cars. There's no public housing. The state government has built hardly any, and we're yet to see any funds flow.

We've got our priorities all wrong. We are we putting money towards a stadium we don't need—which, I may say, is deeply unpopular in Tasmania, because Tasmanians aren't going to be conned; they're smarter than the Tasmanian Liberal Party, the Prime Minister and the federal government think they are. We all want an AFL team, but we don't want the money to be spent on a stadium when it is desperately needed elsewhere. So, I strongly suggest that both the federal government and the Tasmanian state government have their priorities all wrong.

They've been caught out, too, because Minister Ferguson, the state growth minister in Tasmania, announced this publicly only last week. He sat on the fact that the state was not going to be GST-exempt, right until the last minute, until his hand was forced to release a statement. That means the premier's promises that they would cap expenditures on the stadium are false. There's no way around that. We know, based on other stadiums around the country, that this stadium will blow out. We looked at your stadium in Western Australia, Acting Deputy President Sterle, and a great stadium it is, but it had a significant cost blowout, and we'll see that with a Tasmanian stadium if it's built on that site. There are much better options.

I hope the Tasmanian people can see through this, I hope they vote for a political party that has its priorities right, and that is the Greens political party. The Greens have clearly said that they oppose spending $1 billion on a stadium, that they oppose federal government funding going into the stadium. They would like to see more assistance, whether through maintaining that GST revenue or through direct funding being put into our public health system. No doubt we'll have more to say on that in the weeks to come. We would also like to see the federal government fully funding the rollout of public housing in Tasmania where it's so desperately needed.

When we deal with these priorities, these problems that, by the way, have been going on for decades, then let's talk about a new stadium for the AFL team in Tasmania. I hope the team still goes ahead, because, as I said, we have a perfectly good stadium in my home town of Launceston, at York Park. We don't need to be spending money on a new stadium when there are so many more important priorities. (Time expired)

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the election campaign, Labor promised us a country where no-one is held back and no-one is left behind. Giving massive cash handouts to the rich and crumbs to everyone else seems like a pretty perverse way of delivering that. By proceeding with the stage 3 three tax cuts in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024, even after finally caving to pressure and making amendments, Labor has signed the death warrant on its own claims to progressivism. The single remaining virtue that the modern ALP can claim is that they are marginally less terrible than the Liberals—a party which in 2024 resembles a loose collection of culture war grievances more than a political organisation. Substantively, there is very little separating the old parties anymore. Friendly to big business, backing in more coal and gas, torturing asylum seekers and cutting taxes for the rich, they are on a unity ticket. At a time when we need to be investing more into our public services to support people, Labor is continuing the bipartisan, neoliberal project of shrinking the government and redistributing public money upwards into the hands of the rich.

Members of this government are very adept at putting on their serious faces and talking about how people are doing it tough. People aren't doing it tough. They're working two or three jobs just to keep from falling behind. They're dipping deeper into their pockets to pay for so-called public services like public schools and health care. They're sacrificing meals so that they can buy their kids clothes, and they're worried that their rent is going to go up $100 next month and they won't have a place to live. People are suffering from social isolation. People are poor and hungry. And here we have Labor trumpeting its fiscal rectitude while throwing wads of cash at millionaires.

It's tempting to say that it's surprising that a Labor government is so deeply hostile to the idea of well-funded public services and a robust and fair social safety net, but that would be to ignore the evidence of the last 40 years.

Labor's fingerprints are all over the mess we're in. Take public education, for example. In 2011 the Gonski review handed down its report. It wasn't without its flaws, but its most significant recommendation was that school funding should be sector blind and needs based. To achieve this, governments would need to wind back their spending on the overfunded private sector and ramp up spending on the underfunded public sector. This was roundly endorsed. But Labor, being Labor, blinked. Julia Gillard, who as education minister under Kevin Rudd commissioned the review, undermined Gonski's recommendations almost immediately, caving to pressure from the private school lobby by assuring them that no school would be worse off under the new funding arrangements. Out of this emerged a kind of Frankenstein funding model, where underfunded public schools were put on a pathway up to full funding, while overfunded private schools were put on a pathway down. It's now more than a decade since Gonski, and public schools are still trudging along that pathway. Even worse, since Gonski, on a per student basis, government funding to private schools has increased at twice the rate of funding to public schools. There's that upward wealth redistribution again.

Before and after the election Labor pledged to repair the damage they caused post Gonski by finally providing full and fair funding to public schools. But, having postponed negotiations on new funding agreements by a year to conduct yet another pointless review—and there have been 30 since Gonski—the statement of intent they signed with the WA government suggests they're not planning on delivering full funding at all. In fact, the deal they made, which is the model they intend to roll out to other states and territories, according to the minister, will lock in underfunding for the foreseeable future. That is because Labor has refused to rule out removing the Morrison-era accounting trickery that allows states and territories to include in their share of funding four per cent of non-school costs. I asked the government in Senate estimates to rule these dodgy clauses out of future bilateral agreements, and they would not. On Insiders on the weekend, the Minister for Education was asked if they would remove the clauses. He dodged the question. So here we have a Labor government gifting cash handouts to the wealthy while penny-pinching when it comes to the education of our most disadvantaged kids.

The Greens are the only members of this parliament who opposed the stage 3 tax cuts from day one. We were right to oppose them in 2018 and we are right to continue to call out their unfairness today. It took years of pressure from the Greens, the community and civil society organisations to finally shame Labor into amending stage 3. We were elected to resist Labor's worst tendencies and to push them to go further and faster on the issues that matter, and that is what we will continue to do. These tax cuts are not a win for Australia. While many Australians will gratefully welcome some more money in their pockets, the vast benefit of these cuts will go to the wealthiest Australians, who don't need it. Less than half of one per cent of the total value of these cuts will go to the poorest 20 per cent of Australians, while the wealthiest 20 per cent will bank half of the total value. Politicians and CEOs on incomes of more than $200,000 will pocket three times the value of tax cuts compared to the average worker. The tax cuts will widen the gender pay gap, with 42 per cent of the tax cuts going to women and 58 per cent to men.

Ultimately we will all pay from this wasteful extravagance. Starving the budget of $318 billion over a decade means the government will have less money to fund the public services that are needed now more than ever—things like aged care, the NDIS, income support, public schools, the health system and housing.

Meanwhile, the people suffering the most during this cost-of-living crisis get nothing. If you're on income support or you earn less than $18,000, sorry, you're on your own. Labor can afford to give politicians and CEOs a $4½ thousand annual bonus, but you'll still have to try your luck at the food bank. The government could have quarantined these tax cuts so that people earning over $200,000 a year didn't get anything. That would have freed up billions to invest in things like bringing mental health and dental into Medicare, proving free child care, wiping student debt and making the transition to renewable energy.

Next time Labor complain they just don't have enough money to do the things they really want to do, remember this moment, Madam Deputy President. Remember that they chose to give billions to the rich while services languished, Australians suffered and the inequality gap widened. The Greens will keep funding for well-funded public services, a fair social safety net that lifts everyone out of poverty and precarity, and an end to the neoliberal consensus that harms us all.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the proud tradition of the major political parties of Australia, the Albanese Labor government continues to squib opportunities for significant tax reform. The stage 3 tax cuts promised to Australians by both major parties have not been delivered. More than a million Australians will be worse off. Bracket creep will take an additional $28 billion out of their pockets over the next decade thanks to Labor's broken promise. We were told dozens of times the full cuts would be delivered, while Labor was busy changing them. Labor cannot be trusted.

One Nation can be trusted. If we're in a position to do so after the next election, we'll ensure the full tax cuts promised to the Australian people are delivered. That's because One Nation does not support punishing success and aspiration. We don't subscribe to Anthony Albanese's politics of envy, his class warfare or his tall poppy syndrome. We don't trust Labor with Australians' money. We trust Australians with their own money, and we'd rather more of it were in their hands than in those of this reckless Labor government.

This is especially the case right now, with Labor's other policies directly driving inflation and the national housing crisis. Labor pretend to deliver cost-of-living tax cuts with these bills, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living—Medicare Levy) Bill 2024, but their other policies will negate any relief. Labor's record immigration is driving Australians into homelessness, and Labor's pathetic housing policy will do nothing to prevent it. Labor's reckless rush to renewables is driving up the energy bills of Australian households and businesses. Labor's many attacks on our farmers are driving up the cost of our groceries. Labor's attacks on small business and casual employment will drive up costs for consumers and kill jobs. Labor giveth and Labor taketh away.

Labor cannot be trusted, but One Nation can be trusted. No-one is ever in doubt about what I'm doing, because I tell it like it is. Every Australian I talk to is worried about putting food on the table for their family. Every Australian I talk to is increasingly insecure about having a place to live. Every Australian I talk to thinks immigration levels are much too high. And every Australian I talk to says Labor cannot be trusted.

The major parties must stop paying lip service to genuine tax reform. They must pull their finger out and actually do something. They could start with getting back to fundamentals. Taxes are required to ensure government can fund the things it must do. Taxes are not meant to be used to redistribute wealth or punish success and aspiration. It's time we looked at an overhaul of income tax, and we can start with a flat tax rate. One Nation considers that, above a tax-free threshold, there should be a flat income tax rates of 25c in place of progressive taxation and inevitable bracket creep. A person earning $30,000 a year will still pay 10 times less tax than a person earning $300,000 a year.

This would mean we would not be punishing those who, through hard work and skill, earn more than others. It would still generate revenue, with increased discretionary spending contributing to the GST. They could invest their hard-earned money in Australian property to increase rental supply and relieve Australia's—Labor's—housing crisis. They could invest their hard-earned money in Australian companies and Australian small businesses, creating Australian jobs.

For many years One Nation has also been advocating for taxation reform regarding foreign-owned multinational resource companies. Many of them make billions of dollars in healthy profits from exploiting our natural resources. They pay virtually no tax in Australia for this exploitation. The major parties have squandered our natural wealth for decades, making Australia a cheap dirt mine. We could have had a sovereign wealth fund even bigger than Norway's, which is more than $2 trillion. One Nation considers that even minimum reform of taxation, like the petroleum resource rent tax, could generate $25 billion to $30 billion in additional revenue.

To hear the Greens saying we should wipe the debt from students is ridiculous. There's a debt of over $60 billion owed by students who have gone to universities. They say they're not going to tax students going to universities, and we have people going to universities now who shouldn't be in universities; they don't have the qualifications. If you were to open it up for anyone to attend university, those hard-working taxpayers would then fund people who don't have to pay a cent towards it. If people don't pay and don't contribute, they won't put the work and effort in to it. It is not up to the taxpayer. We have provided universities. Those who genuinely want to improve their lot in life, who want to study and learn, must pay their way. We expect people to fund their own health insurance, so they have to pay for their education. We have free education right up to year 12 for students but it's not a given that you should get free education. Who is going to pay the $60 billion? Where is that going to come from? I have no problem with TAFE colleges, but we are pushing people through a university program where they are being brain washed into an ideology where students believe they have to think that way to go out into the world. These are a lot of the things we need to address.

Taxation is collected by governments. There are only two ways to fund it—through taxation or by increasing productivity. The government are continually raising taxes, and now Minister Plibersek is talking about putting a tax on clothing, which will only increasing the cost of living for the Australian people, because it will be passed on to the consumer. This would rake in in another $37 billion in taxes that the Australian people can't afford. This is all the government do—more regulation and more control and more taxes put onto the Australian people who are struggling. They don't get it and don't understand how people are struggling with the cost of living, because they're only making it worse. I don't see government services getting productivity up. The government are not watching where the spending is going, and haven't even had an investigation into the Aboriginal industry, which I've been calling for nearly 30 years, to find out where the money is going. They wasted $450 million on the Voice, and this money could have gone to taxation relief.

As I said, if we had a fair taxation policy where everyone paid the right amount of tax, if we had a 25 per cent taxation right across the board, more people would actually show that they have earnt that money. They would have nothing to hide. Businesses wouldn't be paying employees under the counter. They would admit they've earnt the money but they would go out there and spend it as well. People would actually save a lot of money in accountants while putting their taxation claims in. The Taxation Office would save a lot of money as well. How much does that cost the taxpayer?

There is no clear thinking or vision for this country at all. All the government are worried about is where they will reap the next round of money from. We have failing defence forces, veterans who have not been looked after properly. The farming sector is being destroyed because of the ideology of going after climate change or net zero, which is a big scam and which is costing the taxpayers billions of dollars to fund.

If they think it's so good, then why don't they stand on their own two feet and prove to the Australian people that they can reduce the cost of it, instead of going for all these subsidies? What I see in this government is incompetency. You really have no idea what you're doing. That's why you ram legislation through this parliament. You don't open up for debate. You won't answer the questions. You can't answer the questions! It's the worst government that I've actually had to see working in progress while I've been in the parliament, from 1996 even to this time that I've been involved in the Senate.

Unless you really truly want tax reform, you have to look at your own before you go taking these tax cuts off the Australian people. It was promised by the PM that he would not touch these personal tax cuts. He's lied again to the people. He is doing it. The fact is that you're trying to fill up the coffers because of the waste of money that you've allowed to happen. As far as I'm concerned, look at real tax reform. Incentivise people to get that second, third and fourth job. As one man up around Rockhampton said, he's got five jobs. How much of that money does he lose because of taxes? Put more money back into the pockets of the Australian people. They will spend it. They will make productivity. They will employ more. Instead of denying people tax cuts, what you should be looking at is working with the states to get rid of payroll tax. Incentivise companies and businesses to put on more employees instead of forcing them to pay a payroll tax through the states. All that people have seen is lies and more lies all the time. When we got the GST, we were told that all these other taxes would go. They never went. That's why the people don't trust governments or a lot of the politicians here anymore.

Just come up with something, will you? Both sides should get together to actually come up with something that is going to help the Australian people, because they are seriously struggling out there. These days, both parents have to go out and work to earn money, possibly even to pay a mortgage or a bill, and they're still struggling. And you keep hitting them with higher and higher taxes, one way or another, like the clothing tax that Plibersek is looking at. It just disgusts me that you can't come up with some decent solutions to actually pay down our debt to forge ahead in this country and create productivity. Your answer to it is to increase the immigration levels. That's all it is. Let's increase the immigration levels to—what was it? Nearly a million people? You're bringing 750,000 students into the country, causing a housing crisis. What are you doing?

You can't even look after the pensioners. That's another suggestion I'll give to you. Allow the age pensioners to work unlimited hours. Whatever they work, let them pay the taxes on the money that they've earnt without it affecting what they're entitled to in the pension and with the healthcare benefits. Get the people of the older generation. You can't get the younger ones to work. You're quite happy to pay for the welfare system of over $250 billion a year. Why don't you let the older Australians get up there and work? A lot of them would dearly love to be able to without being crucified and having to pay these ridiculous taxes that you always want to take from them.

Anyway, as I said, I don't support your bill. I won't be supporting it. I support the fact that it's giving those tax cuts to the people, but, in full, you've lied to the Australian people. It was a promise made. You've taken that promise. But I will fight for the Australian people, if we get control of this Senate at the next election, to give those full tax cuts to all Australians.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson, I will just remind you that, when you're referring to people in the other place, you use their correct title.

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

I simply wish to thank the members who have contributed to the debate. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living—Medicare Levy) Bill 2024 provide meaningful, sustainable cost-of-living relief and will deliver substantial tax reform to the tax system. They will support the hardworking Australians who keep our economy and our country strong. I am looking forward to the debate in the committee stage. It is important that we get these bills passed, because our tax cuts mean every taxpayer, no matter what they earn, will get a tax cut.

Eighty-four per cent of taxpayers will get a bigger tax cut, and that's more tax relief to help with cost-of-living pressures.

We are not just acknowledging that people are under pressure; we are doing something about it as well. With that, I commend the bill to the Senate. I look forward to the committee stage later today.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 1.30, we will now proceed to senators' two-minute statements.