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

If you had a spare $2 billion lying around, how would you spend it? Would you spend it in Australia by trying to close the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else and acknowledging that inequality is on the rise and is at a 70-year high? Would you use the $2 billion as a down payment towards lifting Newstart so that everyone who has fallen on tough times is no longer forced to live below the poverty line? Would you put $2 billion, if you had it, into schools—public schools that have struggled under successive underfunding to the point where we've had report after report telling us that, for Australia to join the rest of the pack, we're going to need to massively lift the amount that we spend on our public schools? Would you put $2 billion into renewable energy so that we can avoid the worst of climate change that the scientists have told us is coming as early as 2030 if we don't switch off coal and onto renewables?

I think most people in this country would have some pretty good ideas about how to spend $2 billion. Not that many of them would say, 'Well, if there's a spare $2 billion lying around, let's give it to companies that have got a $50 million turnover.' There aren't that many people in the country who would think that those companies count as a small business. When you are talking about St Kilda Football Club, for example, with a turnover of just under $50 million, not many people would look at that and say, 'There's a small corner store that could do with a handout.' Most people would probably say, like the Greens have been saying, that there's a very strong case for those genuinely small businesses to get some assistance. We can get some assistance, as the Greens have pushed for and we've now seen converted into law, by, for example, stopping the big duopoly supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, from having such massive market power that they can crush some small businesses.

They might say that there would be some merit in changing the law to ensure small businesses get prompter payment, including from government departments. They might say there's a case even for a tax cut, as the Greens have been arguing for a long time, for those very small businesses. But most people, when they think of a small business, don't think of a company that has a turnover of $50 million. Under the rhetoric of 'We're going to help out small business,' which most people agree with, this government is taking $2 billion from the kitty that could be going to schools or hospitals or to lifting people out of poverty or to renewable energy. Instead it's giving it to corporations that are already doing quite well.

You'd expect that from the Liberals, but what I think would surprise a lot of people is that this trickle-down economic theory, that's straight out of the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher textbook—this trickle-down theory that says, 'We keep cutting company taxes and all of a sudden wages will grow and employment will grow'—is now getting the full-throated support of the Labor Party. We are here rushing a bill through parliament today that is going to take $2 billion that could be going to reducing inequality or could be going to our public schools. Instead, it's going to be given to companies that have a $50 million turnover, and Labor is asking, 'Where do I sign?'

We expect this from the Liberals, but what we're going to see as the election gets closer and closer is Labor, in trying to curry favour with big business, signing up with the Liberals and big business on a unity ticket to ask, 'How can we implement more trickle-down economics in this country?' For those of us who have been watching this for a while, it probably doesn't come as any surprise. Whilst we know that the government and the Liberals do whatever big business asks them, we also know, as we look back over history, that it was the Labor Party, when they were in government in the eighties and nineties, that brought Reagan and Thatcher to Australia and implemented neoliberalism in Australia.

There's been a brief pause for a couple of months as Labor has looked at what's happened around the world and realised that, actually, maybe people don't like it. But that pause is evaporating the closer we get to the election, with Labor wanting more to go to big business and say, 'Don't worry, we might say lots of bad things about you but we're not going to implement any of them.' Labor then turns around and asks, 'How can we sign up to whatever the government wants?'

We're seeing it now with the TPP. As we know, there's a deal on foot with Jacinda Ardern, over the ditch, who has managed to negotiate some exceptions. But here we're seeing them going with full knowledge that under this Trans-Pacific Partnership there will not have to be local advertising for jobs and that there will be loopholes so big that you could fly planeloads of exploited overseas workers through them. It's just as we found with ChAFTA and just as we found with the other free trade deals. Now we're about to do the same. Why? Because the Labor Party is helping the government get that neoliberal agenda through as quickly as possible. And now we're seeing it with tax cuts, to the point where the opposition is so desperate to say, 'We're on a unity ticket with the government on refugees, we're on a unity ticket with the government on the TPP and now we're on a unity ticket with the government when it comes to corporate tax,' that people will be wondering what, if anything, is actually going to change?

I hope that we see the back of this government at this election, because they've shown that they don't care about the life that is left for our kids. They are quite happy to stand up here and say, 'We have no new renewables policy,' and then boast about it. They are quite happy to stand up and say, 'We think we're doing well,' as pollution goes up and up, and, 'We don't care if kids now, when they're adults, go through every summer wondering where the next bushfire's going to hit.' They don't care, because they're taking their instructions from the coal lobby. So I hope that there's going to be a change of government. But people will be asking that if, in opposition, Labor is signing up to the TPP, signing up to the government's position on corporate tax and signing up to the government's position on refugees then, when there's that change of government, is anything meaningful going to change at all? And they'd be entitled to ask that question.

There is a very real problem facing this country. With a growing population, we are going to need to secure the revenue to fund public schools and public hospitals, and to grow the clean economy. To do that, we're going to need to stand up to corporations in this country and say: 'You have to pay your fair share of tax. You have to pay your fair share of tax so that we can fund the services that people rightly expect and so that we don't go down the road of becoming a US-style unequal society.' But that's the way that we're going at the moment. We seem to be saying, 'Well, if other countries like the US think it's a good idea to cut company tax, let's do the same.' We ignore the fact that the countries where people are the best looked after, the countries where people report that they feel the best because their kids get to go to school and they've got a decent job, are ones where people pay tax because they know it's going to make life better.

We are at a fork in the road in this country at the moment. Do we want to go down the US road and say, 'We'll just keep cutting taxes until there's nothing left in the budget to fund universal services, so, if you get sick, bad luck, just hope you have enough money to look after yourself and, if you want to go to school, to college or to university, your parents had better start saving now'? Do we want to go down that road, or do we want to say, 'Provided that our tax is well spent, we want companies to pay it, because we know that the way of making a more equal society is to provide universal services, universal public health, universal public schools and even universal housing'? Let's start treating housing as a human right instead of an asset class.

If we want to do those things, we need the revenue. We're not going to keep getting the revenue if, every time the Liberals fire the gun and say, 'We want to have a bit more of a cut in income taxes,' the opposition just says, 'Where do I sign?' If we keep going down that road, if that kind of trickle-down economics ends up becoming the norm no matter who is in power, then we are all going to suffer. We are all going to suffer.

It's time for us to have a sensible discussion about tax. Talk about small businesses, and let's have the debate about how we look after small businesses. I think that's going to get near universal support from across the parliament. But don't come in here and pretend that a $50 million company is a small business.

And I plead with the opposition to rethink their willingness to fast-track so much of the government's trickle-down neoliberal agenda, because, at a certain point in time, it's not enough to just say we oppose it and say we don't want our society to become more unequal. At a certain point, it kicks in. It kicks in around the economics, and you have to have an alternative economic vision.

The Greens will say enough is enough. We're sick of this dog-eat-dog society. We want one where everyone at the top pays their fair share of tax, and we want corporations to pay their fair share of tax so that we've all got public schools and we've all got public hospitals that we can be proud of. We say no to going down the US-style route. There are many good things about the United States, but inequality, education and health are not amongst them, because they are one of the most unequal societies in the world.

Let's instead look at those countries that do it well. Let's look at those countries where no-one has to dip into their pocket for so-called voluntary school fees to send their kids to school, because everything is looked after, where no-one has to worry about out-of-pocket expenses when you get sick, because that is looked after. That is where people feel the happiest. How does it happen? It happens because they've had an honest discussion about tax, and they accept that paying a bit more tax, if it comes with the trade-off of knowing that your kids get to go to school and you don't have to dip into your pocket, is a fair trade-off. That's the discussion we should be having, rather than fast-tracking bills through parliament to give tax cuts to big companies that don't need them.

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