Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There comes a point where being crazy brave just becomes being plain crazy, and that is what we are seeing from the government with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016. Only the Liberals would come to this parliament and say: we want a small business to be defined as a business that earns up to $1 billion a year. That is what this bill is asking us to do. Only the Liberals would come to this parliament and say—at the very same time that they are asking single parents to take a hit to their pockets and have their benefits cut—that we need to be giving a tax handout to some of the biggest companies in this country.

Members of the government would have you believe that this bill is only about the genuine small businesses—the small firms, the takeaway shops, the solicitors firms—that are working hard and may well deserve some assistance. But what they do not tell you, when they come up and put this bill in front of you, is that the government has a plan to give a tax cut to some of the biggest companies in this country. It is going to hit the budget to the tune of $50 billion.

That money is going to have to be found somewhere, and what we know from yesterday's moves from the government in the Senate is that it is going to come out of the pockets of some of the people who are doing it toughest in this country. It is going to come out of the pockets of single parents, who are going to lose out because of family tax benefit cuts. It is going to come out of the pockets of people who find themselves between jobs and are looking for a helping hand, but who are, instead, going to have to wait longer before they are able to access welfare payments—and it comes at a time when we know that there are many, many large companies operating in Australia that pay no tax at all. They pay no tax at all!

Faced with a choice, should we be asking Glencore Investments—which, according to The New Daily and the ABS, had a total income of $7.7 billion in the 2014-15 financial year but paid zero in tax—to pay a bit more to the public purse, so that single parents do not have to get cut and so that we do not have to pay more to go and see the doctor, instead of holding back funding from schools when they need it? No. The government does not say: we are going to go and ask some of those very big companies to contribute a bit more to the public purse, to at least pay something in tax. Are we going to go back to Origin Energy, which had an income of $12 billion in the 2014-15 financial year and paid zero tax, and say, 'Could you please pay a bit to the public purse so that we do not have to take the axe to the young, the old, the sick and the poor to balance the budget?' No. It is not interested in doing that.

Instead—in the very same week that it attacks single parents and families—it comes in in here and says: we want to progress our plan to give a $50 billion handout to Australia's biggest companies, and we will do it by waving the fig leaf of a small business tax cut. What it does not tell you is that its definition of 'small business' slowly ramps up, year after year after year, to the point where it covers every company in the country. I do not think that the Big Four banks in Australia count as small businesses. I do not understand why the government wants the Big Four banks to benefit to the tune of over $7 billion, which will come at the expense of Australian taxpayers, because that is not going to create one single extra job. All it is going to do is say to the Big Four banks, who are already making world-leading, record profits: you now have an extra $7 billion—'billion' with a 'b'—courtesy of the government, and that is going to hit the public purse.

We hear every day from this government that there are pressures on the budget. It says that it is running out of money that we need to fund the services that Australians rightly expect, like good quality health care, like being able to send your kids to a good school without having to dip your hand into your pocket, because you know the public education system is well funded. It comes in here and says: there are pressures on the budget, and we need to fix it because we need to make sure that our kids and our grandkids are not left with a debt. Well, a good place to start would be not giving $50 billion to some of the biggest companies in Australia and not giving over $7 billion to the Big Four banks.

The government has this trickle-down argument that we have heard mounted by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It has been promoted for many, many years, but it has been discredited. All it does is join in an international race to the bottom on tax rates. If we say, 'We had better cut our company tax rates because Donald Trump is doing the same' then pretty soon there is going to be no money left in the public purse for anyone—and that, can I say, is probably this government's secret aim.

It will not tell you this, but this government's aim is actually to implement the strategy the hard Right calls 'starving the beast': implement tax cuts when you get into power, give billions of dollars back to some of the biggest companies in Australia and the biggest companies in the world, and then come and wring your hands and say, 'I am sorry, there is just not enough money left for public schools, public hospitals, renewable energy or infrastructure, so we are going to have to cut those.' The people in this country do not want that.

These tax cuts are unpopular, and there is a reason for that. People in Australia want Australia to be a good place to do business, but they also know that paying a fair share of tax is the price for coming and operating in a very prosperous country—a prosperous, stable, peaceful country like Australia, with we hope has and will continue to have high standards of living for people. Well, it depends. We cannot do all of that unless we ask those who are running business here to pay a fair share of tax. I have to say, people are getting sick of being asked to put their hand in their own pockets more and more to go and see the doctor, to pay so-called voluntary fees when they are sending their kids off to school, or to pay more out of their own pockets when it comes to tax, at the same time as watching these big companies get away with murder. And then, to add insult to injury, the government comes in here and says: we want those companies to pay even less tax.

If the government were serious about looking after small business, we would not have one bill that tries to redefine a big business as a small business. We would have a separate measure for small businesses—for genuinely small businesses who might need some assistance. But the government is not serious about that. The government wants to give a big handout to their big-business mates. This parliament should be about standing up for the public interest, and that means standing up to big corporations. I have had enough of this place simply being a plaything of the biggest corporations in this country. What happens in parliament is that the big corporations send their lobbyists and they say, 'We want this,' or 'We want that,' and the government says, 'Well, we'll happily write you a blank cheque; when would you like it by?'

It should be the job of this place to stand up to those powerful interests when they come. It should be the job of this place to say that we probably have something wrong in this country when Japan makes more tax on Australian natural gas than Australia makes, according to some reports. What an absurd situation. We probably have something wrong in this country when companies can make between $7 billion and $12 billion a year in turnover and not have to pay any tax at all. Something is deeply wrong when this government says, 'None of that is a problem; in fact, let's ask companies to pay less tax.'

Everyone wants Australia to have a strong and prosperous economy, but we know that, in order to have the services that we rightly expect in a wealthy country, we need to ask people to pay some tax. We are at a turning point in this country. We have just seen a once-in-a-generation mining investment boom come and go, and people are looking around the country and saying: 'What have we got to show for it? Did we capture some of the money from the minerals that all Australians own and we only get to dig up once and then sell off? Did we capture some of that money and put it into infrastructure? Did we do what some other countries have done and take some of that money through a proper tax system and put it into a sovereign wealth fund so that we can build industries when the mining boom is over? Did we take some of that money and grow the industries of the future in science, research, innovation and education, so that we have something to sustain us when the mining boom is over? No.

What are we left with? We are left with plummeting house prices and high unemployment in some parts of the country. We are left with next to nothing to show for it. We have had a bunch of people come in from overseas, work on those projects and then leave, so we have lost the skills that could have come from working on those projects and the capacity to skill up local workers. We have done it all because governments have been so deferential to big companies that they have forgotten to act in the public interest. This bill is yet another example of that.

If you want to know why the Liberals got a thumping in the Western Australian election and if you want to know why, all of a sudden, hard-right forces like One Nation start to do well around the country, you need look no further than this bill and the fact that many people are being left behind in this country because governments have not had the guts to stand up to big companies that operate in Australia and say, 'If you are going to operate here, then you need to pay your fair share of tax so that we can build this country for the future.' They do not seem to be learning the lesson. They seem to be doing the same thing over and over again and, in fact, saying: 'How can we do it more? How can we ask you to pay even less tax when you come to this country?'

It is absolutely no wonder that there is an increasing disrespect for politicians, because if all that politicians do is write blank cheques for some of the biggest companies in this country then we are selling out the Australian people. We are at a tipping point. This might be the parliament and the government that leaves standards of living for our kids and those who come after us worse than the ones that we inherited.

The government talks a lot about making sure we fix the debt burden for children and grandchildren. Perhaps one way to do that, if that is seriously what you are interested in, is to not give $7 billion of public money back to the big banks. You tell me, government, how giving the big four banks $7 billion creates one additional job. The big four banks are not about to go overseas because of lower tax rates. They are operating in Australia and taking Australian deposits and banking here. Given that, why do they need a handout? What is that going to do for the economy? Even if you accept this ridiculous trickle-down argument that tax cuts stimulate jobs and growth, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary anywhere, give me one single example of how giving the big four banks an extra $7 billion is going to create one extra job. Everyone knows that they are not going to put that into extra jobs. It is going to go straight into profits. That is why this government's plan for giving tax cuts to those who do not need them is ridiculous. It is not only ridiculous; it is positively harmful.

If the government continues down this road, we will not have the money to fund the services that Australians rightly expect. A free bit of political advice: as a result, you are going to see yourself, government, kicked again and again at election time by the people of Australia, who know, in their hearts, that corporations are getting away with murder. Every day, they see parliament giving in and they want parliament to stand up.

The Greens will stand up for the public interest over the big business interest, and sometimes that might mean we have to cop the mining industry running some ads against us or the pokies industry coming to town and threatening a campaign in our seats. Well, so be it. Because if parliament does not stand up for the public against big corporates and their massive power, then no-one will. So I hope the government has heeded the lessons it has been given and ditches its plan to give big tax cuts to those who do not need them.

See this speech in context