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

Wages have been flatlining for years, and this budget will make it worse, with the Treasury saying wages will actually go backwards and then flatline even further. This is supposed to be a recovery budget, but it is, in fact, a billionaire's budget that is full of handouts for the big corporations. How can the government talk about recovery when wages are going backwards in this budget? But, as the ACTU has said, low wages are, in fact, a policy of this government. It's not an accident; it's a policy. If the government were serious about raising wages, it would remove the salary cap on public service wages; it would stop fighting the minimum wage rise and instead support one; it would protect gig economy workers and it would fight insecure work; and it would have firm workplace laws to shift the balance back from the big corporations to the side of workers and their unions.

But, instead, we will have a budget with $62 billion in corporate welfare and tax cuts for billionaires. The billionaires and the big corporations have too much power and are not paying their fair share. Their fingerprints are all over this budget. While millions lost their jobs or were stood down during the pandemic, Australia's billionaires increased their wealth by a third, with some more than doubling their wealth. This is obscene.

If the Greens were putting forward these appropriation bills, we would put in place a six per cent tax on the wealth of billionaires, and we would force the billionaires to hand over half of the profiteering increases they made to their wealth during the course of the pandemic, while everyone else was doing it tough. But, instead, we have this government who, in this budget, is pushing on with its stage 3 tax cuts, when most of the benefits will go to the already super wealthy, including the billionaires. It's a budget that has tax cuts for billionaires while wages go backwards for workers and the unemployed live in poverty. That's what this budget is.

Meanwhile, one in three big corporations in this country do not pay any tax, and that includes some of the big corporations who have been on the receiving end of handouts from this government. Big corporations have been lining up and getting all sorts of handouts from this government, including JobKeeper payments. This government, in this bill and in this budget, is allowing big corporations—who have made giant profits and handed over bonuses to their super wealthy directors—to keep public money that was meant to be for workers' wages. The Greens say, very simply: if you're making enough money to buy a private jet or pay executive bonuses, then you can pay back JobKeeper.

The PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Office, the independent body, estimates over $1 billion has gone to just 65 big corporations, who then went on to make big profits and paid dividends or gave out executive bonuses. This is just the tip of the iceberg, because the government refuses to say just how much public money went in the form of handouts to billionaires and big corporations who were making out like bandits already.

Some commentators have been pleading with the billionaires and the big corporations to give it back. But it 's not enough to just ask them to pay back JobKeeper; the government and parliament have to make them do it. Simply appealing to these billionaires' better natures won't work, because they don't have better natures. Billionaire magnate Gerry Harvey, chairman of the Harvey Norman corporation, continues to refuse to pay back JobKeeper, despite the big profits made by the company—hundreds of millions of dollars. He had literally a captive audience during the lockdown. People were shovelling money through the front door, but he had his hand out for more money from the government, which this government was only too willing to give him. Many small businesses and many workers were able to stay afloat because of JobKeeper. Many businesses that went on to turn a profit have paid some or all of the JobKeeper they received back, but not billionaire Gerry Harvey and not the Harvey Norman corporation. No, they have pocketed the JobKeeper—millions of dollars—along with big profits, without even so much as a 'thank you very much'. In fact, Gerry was out last week complaining about having to contribute to a boost to mental health spending in Victoria. This guy has no shame.

That's why I will now move this amendment, an amendment to the second reading amendment moved by Dr Chalmers. I move:

That the following words be added after paragraph (3):

"(4) the 2020-21 Budget delivered the publicly-funded JobKeeper wage subsidy, that was received by many companies that enjoyed an increase in profits during the pandemic, resulting from changes in consumer spending; and

(5) the 2021-22 Budget does not include measures requiring such corporations to repay any JobKeeper payments they received as a windfall; and

calls on the Government to require companies with an annual turnover of more than $50 million that received windfall JobKeeper payments and in the last 12 months:

(1)made increased profits; or

(2)paid increased executive bonuses; or

(3)issued increased dividends;

to repay to the Commonwealth an amount equal to the amount of JobKeeper payments they received, up to the sum of increased profits made and increased executive bonuses paid".

I commend that amendment and I say again, very simply: at a time when the budget says workers are getting a wage cut and the unemployed are living in poverty, we should not be giving handouts to billionaires. Billionaires and big corporations who made profits and bought private jets do not need handouts from the government, including JobKeeper handouts. They should pay it back. There is at least $1 billion—billion with a B—there to be reclaimed. That could go into schools and hospitals. It could go into lifting people out of poverty and making education free. We could help fund all of that. You can do a lot with $1 billion. We do not need to be lining the pockets of already profitable billionaires and big corporations.

This is the problem with the billionaires and big corporations in this country. The billionaire class see this government as their plaything. When the government doesn't do what they want, they get angry. These billionaires and big corporations believe they've paid good money to the government and deserve handouts and tax cuts in return. That's what the millions in donations from big corporations and billionaires to the Liberals—and, indeed, to the Labor Party—are actually all about. It's about them buying special treatment, ensuring that taxes are kept low for billionaires and big corporations and that budgets spend big on them. Gina Rinehart more than doubled her wealth during the pandemic and is now worth $36 billion. Between them, Twiggy, Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer increased their personal wealth by 141 per cent during the pandemic. How did you go during the pandemic, Australia? How did everyone else go? Did you increase your wealth by 141 per cent? Well, the mining billionaires did. They're now lining up for another handout, and this budget is giving it to them.

This extreme generation of wealth is obscene. We are creating in this country a class of oligarchs who have too much power—including, as we saw in the last election, the power to buy elections. Do you remember the mining tax? Gina Rinehart led the charge by the mining billionaires against the mining tax, and, as a result, it was kiboshed. Recent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office, commissioned by the Greens, found that a proper mining tax, as originally crafted, could have raised $17 billion over the next two years and $112 billion by the start of the decade. The killing of the mining tax by Gina and other mining billionaires has cost the budget $69 billion since 2012—$69 billion. We could have got dental into Medicare for everyone in this country had we stuck with the original mining tax. Instead, the miners came along and said to the government: we want you to scrap it because it means the billionaires and big corporations paying their fair share, and so, as a result, everyone is left worse off. If you were to ask people, 'What would you rather: billionaires and big corporations paying their fair share so that we can get dental into Medicare, or more handouts for Gina and Clive and Twiggy?' I know what most people in this country would answer. But the problem is they're not giving the political donations to the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, and that's why we end up where we are at the moment.

The mining billionaires got their way, and they've got their way again in this budget, with massive handouts to fossil fuel interests right across the budget. In the middle of a climate crisis, Scott Morrison is giving $1.1 billion in new money to new coal and gas. With a total of $51 billion in public money for coal and gas corporations—the biggest in recent memory—this budget will fast-track climate collapse. This budget should have invested in renewables, in clean and green manufacturing, in improving people's livelihoods and building up our essential services. With this budget, Australia could have become a renewable energy superpower, putting us on the path to generate—and, indeed, export—clean energy to the world, but instead the Liberals are giving public money to coal and gas. But sadly, again, it's not just the Liberals.

Just one day after the Treasurer handed down the budget, Labor voted with the Liberals to ensure that $5 billion in the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility could go to new coal and gas projects. All this big talk from the opposition counts for nothing when they come into this chamber and vote for public money to go to more coal and gas. It seems that Labor has now officially backflipped on its position that taxpayer funds shouldn't go towards new coal projects. The Greens are taking on this terrible government, demanding that they take action on the climate crisis and stop giving public money that should be going to schools and hospitals to coal and gas. We would like Labor's help, but we find time and time again that, when it comes to handouts to billionaires and big corporations, Labor is backing the Liberals. Labor and Liberal are in climate lock step, using public money to speed up the climate crisis. Neither Liberal nor Labor have science based 2030 targets. They both support opening up new coal and gas projects, and both want to give these dangerous projects public funding. At a time when the rest of the world is telling Australia to do more, not less, this dirty deal between Liberal and Labor is a complete betrayal of climate action. The Greens will renew our push to kick the Liberals out and put the Greens in the balance of power, because it is clear that the next government will not act on climate unless the Greens make them do it.

At the end of last week, two announcements highlighted again how this billionaires' budget is burning our future. The same day that the International Energy Agency released a landmark report on how the world could stay below the dangerous 1½ degrees of global warming, the Morrison government announced $600 million in funding for a new gas-fired power plant at Kurri Kurri in New South Wales. The IEA made clear in their report that no new investments in coal, oil and gas can be made, but the government wants to put in place this white elephant, this junk investment. Again, the power of mining billionaires and big corporations is on display, with Santos's Narrabri gas field to feed the station. The Snowy board is now chaired by former Santos executive David Knox. It stinks to high heaven. The Greens will fight this dirty, toxic, gas-fired junk investment with everything we've got, and we call on the opposition not just to complain about the lack of a business case but to state their opposition to this project and join the Greens in fighting it.

Last week around this country, thousands of young people took to the streets in school climate strikes. I joined this inspiring rally in Melbourne. I want to put clearly on the record that these students are heroes. They deserve the unwavering support of not only everyone in this place but everyone across the country, because they are doing what the Prime Minister should be doing and calling on the government to protect the Australian people. They are protecting all of us by fighting the government's destructive gas fired and coal fuelled recovery. They are protecting us by stating clearly that gas is as dirty as coal and telling us that we must do everything in our power to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground. The Greens are listening. We will continue our solidarity with young people who want a future by fighting this billionaires' budget and the big corporations that continue to steal and burn our future.

At the next election, the Greens are on track to secure the balance of power in the House and in the Senate, but it is not guaranteed. That's why we're calling on everyone in this country, particularly young people, to join our movement to fight for the future.

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