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

This government is on a mission to end progressive taxation and dismantle the welfare state. That much was obvious from the Treasurer's contribution just then, talking about the glory days that they see in their neoliberal fantasy land, where everyone will be swearing on Milton Friedman as they come into this place, where there's only going to be one tax rate—that's what they'd love, if they could get there—and where someone who's a CEO of a corporation pays the same amount of tax as someone who is on the minimum wage. That's where they want us to get to, and we know the consequences of that. The more you attack revenue, the less money there is for services that make Australia more equal.

What you haven't heard from the government in any of the speeches we've had today—in the Governor-General's speech or any of the other speeches—is about those people who are struggling on Newstart who are living in poverty at the moment. The only way to assist them to get out of poverty at the moment is (a) to create more real jobs, which this government seems unable to do, and underemployment is at a crisis rate, and (b) to lift the level of Newstart so that people aren't living in poverty while they're waiting to find a job. To do that, you need money. You need money to be able to do that. That money comes from taxes. As I said in my second reading debate contribution, the best way to put more money in people's pockets and increase the revenue base of the government to provide services is lifting wages. That's what we need to do in this country at the moment. What we shouldn't be doing, given what we know very clearly the government's agenda is, is helping it to fast-track part of its plan—and that's what this amendment does.

I understand that there are largely political motivations for the opposition moving this amendment, but I would urge them to be very careful, because some day—hopefully, very soon, especially in a finely balanced parliament—this government will, hopefully, be out on its ear and there will be a change of government. When that happens, there will need to be revenue to do things such as lifting the rate of Newstart. The more we engage in this tax cut arms race and say we are going to vote to bring forward even part of the government's plan, the less money there is in the kitty. I don't know exactly what this will cost, but based on the PBO costings so far it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that there will need to be in the order of $5 billion to $6 billion a year to deal with stage 2.

We shouldn't be having tax cuts for high-income earners at all, let alone bringing them forward. What I think needs to be understood is that, as much as this amendment and stage 2 are framed around low- and middle-income earners, what the government is doing in its bill and what the opposition is doing in its amendment to try and bring this forward is fundamentally changing all the marginal tax rates. So people who are earning $200,000, $300,000 or $1 million dollars are going to get a benefit from this amendment. In fact, the proportion of the population that are going to get the full benefit from this amendment that the opposition is moving are those on the highest incomes. It's not an amendment that will help reduce inequality. It's not an amendment targeted at low-income earners. So, for reasons very different to the government's, the Greens cannot support this amendment, because what it actually does is take a very bad thing that government is doing and bring it forward so it will happen earlier. We should, instead, be saying that we want services and wage rises instead of tax cuts and, if we can find a way of providing assistance that's targeted—for example, by increasing the low-income tax offset so it's properly targeted at low-income earners—so that you don't need to change all the marginal rates and you don't provide flow-on benefits for people earning $200,000, $300,000 or $400,000 a year, then let's look at that.

I'll be supporting the next opposition amendment to get rid of stage 3, because that's a good amendment and it's consistent with maintaining, as much as we possibly can, progressive tax in Australia. But I would urge the opposition to have a bit of a rethink about this idea of saying, 'The best way to deal with the government is to match them and bring their plans forward.' That's not the best way. That is just going to make a bad situation worse. If we want to deal with the economic challenges that have been laid out by the opposition and by the government, let's work on a plan to lift wages and let's work on a plan to lift Newstart. Let's not engage in a tax cut arms race.

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