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

It is not urgent for this House to suspend all other business to give $2 billion to companies that have a turnover as high as $50 million. We can have a debate in this House, if you want, about what counts as a small business. That's something that the Greens would be up for, because we've been arguing for it for some time. We've been putting forward a series of measures to assist small business, including tax cuts. But what is being proposed here is something vastly different. The government now wants to redefine small business so that a business that earns up to $50 million is somehow going to count as a small business and therefore be worthy of a tax cut—and a fast-tracked tax cut at that.

We're talking about businesses like the St Kilda Football Club. It's not my team, but I'm not singling them out for that reason. The St Kilda Football Club has a turnover of just under $50 million. Does anyone seriously suggest that a big player in one of the national leagues in this country somehow counts as a small business that needs a tax cut because its viability, in some instances, is threatened? If you want to have a debate about which companies in this country are worthy of getting a tax cut then let's have that debate. But we don't need to fast-track it. I want to hear everyone from the government and the Labor Party, who are enabling the government to do this, stand up and explain why a company with a turnover of $50 million deserves a tax cut that is going to come at a cost of $2 billion a year to the budget. That is $2 billion a year less that's there to lift Newstart. That is $2 billion a year less to go to schools. That is $2 billion a year less to go to renewables.

But instead what we're seeing here is that, because we're getting closer to the election, the government is bowling up elements straight out of the trickle-down economics playbook and the Labor Party is signing up to it—and not only signing up to it but saying, 'How can we quickly get this through the parliament?' And, as sure as night follows day, the closer it gets to the election and the more that it looks like there is going to be a change of government—which I welcome because this mob has lost the right to govern—the more you are going to see Labor adopt the Liberals' trickle-down economics agenda. This is a prime example of it, because not only is Labor saying, 'Let's sign up and give tax cuts to $50-million-a-year businesses'; they're saying, 'Let's rush it through parliament so that we can avoid scrutiny.'

The trickle-down troika of Labor, Liberal and big business is at it again. Labor, Liberal and big business: the only threesome where it's everyone else in the country that gets screwed! That's what we are seeing happening here in this parliament. We are seeing today a call that it is somehow so urgent that we debate this that we have to put other matters off the agenda. I'll tell you what is urgent, because we're speaking here to the suspension motion at the moment. There are children on Nauru who are trying to kill themselves because of what this government, with the opposition's support, is doing. There are children there who have resigned themselves to dying. I'm speaking exactly about the suspension motion, because the government here, with Labor's support, is saying this is the most urgent thing we could be debating today and I'm saying it is not. There are other matters that this parliament could and should be debating.

If we're having a debate about the prioritising of the agenda, which is what this is—and I'll come to the substance of the bill when we get into the second reading debate, because it seems that Labor and Liberal are about to roll over and say, 'Let's smash this through parliament as quickly as we possibly can.' The question is what else should be on the agenda today. I will tell you what should be on the agenda today. If Labor and Liberal want to show cooperation, come in here and move suspension orders and reorder business, they should be asking why children are dying on Nauru; why it is that the AMA and thousands of doctors are saying that every day counts and that there are children that are now on the verge of death; and why we have reports that a 12-year-old girl set herself on fire. That is what is urgent. That is why we should be suspending standing orders. That is what the people want us to focus on. But no; we are back here saying that, in this bipartisan way, the best thing we can do is give companies that earn $50 million a year a tax break.

When inequality is at a 70-year high in this country and we know that wages growth is stagnating, we should be having a debate in this place about the best way to spend the $2 billion or so a year that this is going to cost. What is the best way to spend $2 billion to close the gap between the very rich and everyone else? Is it to lift Newstart? Is it to be supporting an increase to the minimum wage? Is it to be saying we need to rewrite our industrial relations laws to give people greater rights to bargain at work? What we should not be doing is fast-tracking and avoiding the usual debate and scrutiny of a tax cut to big business simply because an election is looming on the horizon.

So let's have this go through the proper process. The Treasurer could not even be bothered to speak to this suspension motion and explain why it is urgent that this all has to be done today as opposed to tomorrow or next week. The government cannot even front the parliament and say, 'Here's the reason why we need to reorder all business, stop debate about everything else and drop everything so we can focus on this.' Why? Because there's no argument. This is simply taken straight out of the Thatcher/Reagan/Trump playbook. 'We've got to cut taxes for all businesses.' They've worked out that they think they can get a wedge through and get the opposition to support it, so it's like, 'Well, let's just strike while the iron's hot,' presumably. It's all politically motivated. The Treasurer could have stood up and said, 'There's some urgent reason why it has to happen today,' but no, there's none. They're just asking for support to rip a couple of billion dollars out of Commonwealth revenue, and the Labor Party is about to give it to them.

This debate today and this forthcoming election should be about how we can secure the revenue we need to fund the services Australians expect. If we turn this into a tax cut arms race, if every time the Liberals say, 'We're going to cut taxes,' Labor jumps up and says, 'Where can I sign? Let me cut taxes,' then this country is going to run out of money to fund the services that people expect and we'll go down the road of becoming a US-style society.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting —

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