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

This budget leaves millions of people behind while giving billionaires a tax cut. By spending a quarter of a trillion dollars on tax cuts for the wealthy, Labor is betraying students, jobseekers, renters and everyone who is doing it tough.

In Melbourne right now, people are sleeping in tents in the parks and sleeping in their cars. Queues at food banks are growing. Renters are skipping meals. Meanwhile, the government says they're acting on it. Well, jobseekers who are in poverty get at best an extra $2.85 a day—that doesn't even buy you a loaf of bread—and they remain in poverty after this budget. For the people lucky enough to get Commonwealth rent assistance they might get a dollar or so a day, but rents in capital cities have grown 10 times faster than that. And 5½ million renters who have seen their rents soar get absolutely nothing. This budget and this government just do not understand how serious the crisis is facing people right now.

But the government has managed to find money—over a quarter of a trillion dollars—for tax cuts for politicians, billionaires and the very wealthy. While people on JobSeeker get stuck below the poverty line, every politician in this place gets a $9,000-a-year tax cut, along with Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and all the billionaires in this country. But while 5½ million renters get absolutely nothing, the government continues to spend $7 billion a year of public money on wealthy property investors who've already got three or more properties to go and buy their sixth, seventh and eighth, which pushes up rents and pushes up housing prices.

While the government says that they're tackling the climate crisis, there's $44 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels in this budget at a time when they should be paying more tax, helping lift people out of poverty and helping finance the clean energy transition. The government says, 'Oh well, we couldn't do more because where could we possibly find the money to lift people out of poverty?' In this budget the government is raising more from lifting student debt that students and former students have to pay than they are from the changes to the rules for the big gas corporations. The big gas corporations, in the middle of rising energy bills and a war in Ukraine, are making windfall profits. The big gas corporations brought in $90 billion in revenue in one year and, instead of making them pay their fair share of tax, the government lets them off the hook. The gas corporations, who are gouging people in this country at the moment and who often don't even pay for their gas at all—they get it for free—send their profits offshore, together with the gas, tax free. If they were made to pay their fair share of tax there'd be an extra $9 billion in the kitty that could go to funding a rent freeze, that could go on getting dental into Medicare and that could go to wiping student debt. But, instead, the government asks them to find a bit of loose change down the back of the couch. It is no wonder the big gas corporations are lining up and asking this parliament to pass their gas tax, because the gas corporations know that the government has shifted the burden away from the gas corporations and onto everyday people.

The government is spending more on wealthy property investors than they are spending on building public housing in this country. The single business line item in this budget on housing is giving handouts to wealthy property investors who've already got three, four or five houses to go and buy their sixth, seventh and eighth.

But there is a better way. The Prime Minister said during question time that if the Greens had written the budget it would be a very different budget. You bet! We would make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax and we would not be giving a $9,000 a year tax handout to Clive Palmer. By making the billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax and by not giving $7 billion a year to people who've already got multiple properties to go and buy more, we could lift everyone out of poverty in this country. By making the big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax, we could fund a rent freeze, we could get dental into Medicare, we could make child care free and we could wipe student debt. That is how you address the cost-of-living crisis in this country.

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