Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to give my budget reply because the allocated time has been scrapped, as this Labor government is too busy trying to gag debate and ram eight bills through a guillotine motion this evening—so much for transparency and so much for democracy. We're living through a cost-of-living crisis, a climate emergency, a housing disaster and a world on the brink of deeper conflict, and what does Treasurer Jim Chalmers hand us? He hands us a pre-election pamphlet dressed up as a budget. Let's be clear: this was not a budget of vision. It was a budget of fear—fear of upsetting vested interests, fear of telling the truth and fear of spooking voters with the scale of the challenge we face. Instead of delivering structural reform, we got bandaids. Instead of building a future, we got a bribe: $5 a week in tax cuts. That's not relief. That's an insult. And don't forget that $5 is across the board, including for those who need it the least, like the wealthy and people in this chamber. This government is too scared to truly rebalance the scales for the needy.

Who misses out entirely in this budget? It's full-time students working part time, the young people hustling to get by, drowning in HECS debt and rising rents. There is nothing for them. I spent years in Young Labor and one term as Young Labor president. I ran the meetings, moved and seconded motions for national platform, prepared for state and national conferences and heard the demands from young members to push for real, brave reform. Do you want to know what they want from their Labor Party, what I wanted? They want action on negative gearing. They want the capital gains tax discount gone. They want franking credits reined in. They want real climate action, not gas expansion. They want big corporations taxed properly. They want AUKUS scrapped. They want a sovereign wealth fund to safeguard our future. They want a gas reservation policy that puts Australians first. They want welfare payments that are raised to livable standards. They want offshore detention to end. They want a foreign policy that's truly independent, not just a rubber stamp for Washington.

All the Labor senators in this chamber know this to be true. These are bold, progressive, commonsense reforms, and—would you believe it?—every single one of them is what Australia's Voice is fighting for. It's so obvious that Labor can't even deliver what's already in their own party platform, let alone take the bold steps needed to meet this moment. They talk big on fairness, then cave to donors. They talk big on security, then sell our sovereignty to AUKUS. They talk big on care, then leave people on poverty payments. This is a budget with no backbone, no direction and no long-term plan. To my former Young Labor crew out there: you know this isn't good enough. You know this isn't the bold, progressive Labor of the old. Don't be scared to tell them.

Jim Chalmers had a once-in-a-generation opportunity—

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Payman, you need to use the correct title for members in the other place.

Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer had a once-in-a-generation opportunity—a $400 billion revenue windfall and a chance to rewrite the future. We could have built hundreds of thousands of public homes, we could have raised JobSeeker and youth allowance, we could have gone all in on the climate transition and energy independence and we could have closed the gap. Instead we're left with a pre-election pamphlet and a pat on the head. Australians are crying out for leadership, not more spin and not more scared-of-their-own-shadow politics. Labor's budget might not spook voters, but it sure as hell shouldn't inspire them either. The truth is we can't keep sleepwalking into a future where governments are too afraid to lead. If this is the best Labor can offer, then it's time for a new voice, a bold voice, Australia's Voice.

David Van (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to congratulate the Treasurer on his budget last night. There aren't many Treasurers who get to do four budgets in one parliament—and, yes, I know that last night's budget was focused on the upcoming election. That's not a criticism; that's just what parties of power do in a pre-budget election.

However, let's look at what the budget is really about. The budget is, first and foremost, about the financial underpinning of our economy. I just want to get on the record that our economy is facing some very significant challenges over the coming decades. Currently, our economy is underpinned by exports of iron ore, coal and natural gas—$138 billion in exports of iron ore, $90 billion in exports of coal and $92 billion in exports of natural gas. It makes up a huge part of our economy. Yet all those things are going to come under pressure, if not disappear altogether, as the world moves towards a low- or no-carbon future.

This doesn't even have to be an ideological argument. Our iron ore is low grade and, as steel furnace plants turn to electricity to be able to do direct reduction furnaces, they need the higher grade iron ores that are going to be available out of Latin America and Africa. To shore up some of these exports, we need to be looking at producing our own green metals, and particularly green iron. But to do that we're going to need to do a large number of things, and very few of them got mentioned in the budget last night.

It was heartening to hear that green metals did get a mention in the budget, under the Future Made in Australia program, which I happily support, although I would argue, and I have argued in this place, for more direct production credits for things such as green iron, green aluminium, low-carbon liquid fuels, sustainable aviation fuel. These are all things that are going to be incredibly necessary in our economy moving forward because to be able to produce all that green iron you need an awful lot of clean electricity. At the moment we can't even get the electricity generation for our own grid down to low or no carbon. We're barely removing any of the coal fleet, and yet we're spending billions of dollars on building more transmission to run that electricity from one coal-fired plant to another.

In the budget last night there was even more money for more transmission, and I think some of it is necessary, with the $10 million Accelerated Connection Fund. It's going to help some renewable generation connect to the grid, but it's a far cry from the $4 billion and $5 billion state interconnected projects that aren't going anywhere, are only going to go up in cost and don't generate one electron, don't store one kilowatt hour. These are not the things that are going to help us go to a clean energy, green metal future.

I applauded the government earlier this year in announcing $250 million for low-carbon liquid fuels, including sustainable aviation fuel. But what we need is production credits for those, and I moved an amendment on that in the last sitting. What we need is mandates. We need our Defence Force to agree to start using renewable diesel. We need to put mandates on our government fleets to start using it. These are the things that are going to make a difference to bringing on these clean fuels and clean energy for our future.

Even the Trump government is spending $70 billion on a renewable diesel or low-carbon fuel plant in Montana. (Time expired)