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

The Liberals love inequality. For ripping billions of dollars from the public purse and giving it to billionaires and the ultrawealthy, the Prime Minister gets a gold medal for greed. Whether it's tax handouts for the one per cent or subsidies for the wealthy who own 15 properties, the Liberals are trickle-down champions. But sadly there has been another gold medal performance: in gymnastics. With backflips on tax handouts and negative gearing and reverse twists on dental care and cancer treatment, Labor now joins the Liberals as a flat tax party. Someone on a minimum wage will pay the same tax rate as a CEO. You expect this from the Liberals, but it is heartbreaking from Labor. The tax cuts for billionaires package will cost the public $184 billion, but that money will go to the top. The richest one per cent will get as much from these tax cuts as the bottom 60 per cent combined. Women will only get 50c for every dollar that men pocket. These tax cuts will turbocharge inequality, cost women dearly and sell out this generation and the next.

We have to get rid of this rotten Liberal government of climate deniers and corporate shills, but now, for the many millions of people who believe in fairness, the Greens are the only hope. By voting Green you can kick the Liberals out and give us the balance of power so we can push the next government to make the tax system fair, including by putting a new tax on billionaires' obscene wealth. To make this happen we only need a few hundred votes to change, and the Greens will fight for your future.