Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the last five years, 71 big coal, oil and gas companies made $826 billion and paid just 1.9 per cent on that in tax. That's almost a trillion dollars, and the country got less than two per cent. Australia is held hostage by multinational corporations sucking our country dry and a bunch of Labor and Liberal politicians either too gutless or compromised to stand up to them. Let's not forget that these same companies have donated just under $10 million to Labor and the coalition. And in the face of such extreme wealth let's not forget what this Labor government believes is acceptable: young families having to take out after-pay debts just to afford groceries, millions struggling to pay the rent or mortgage or on the brink of homelessness, and chronically underfunded schools and hospitals.

Recently, Matt Tilley from Foodbank told the ABC that a woman had asked how long she could keep yoghurt for, that she'd picked up from Foodbank, because she was hoping to give it to her kids as a treat for Christmas. The Prime Minister said yesterday we should judge a country on how it treats the most vulnerable. So what do we make of a government that thinks it's acceptable for single mums to live on $48 a day while fossil fuel companies make a trillion dollars?

Right now, we have a government that's tough on people living in poverty, tough on renters and tough on everyday people but generous to multinational gas corporations. The Greens want to tax the super profits of coal, oil and gas, to freeze energy bills and give everyone the health, housing, education and incomes they need to live a good life. Labor's job is to explain to their electorates why they think that a trillion dollars is better off in the pockets of their corporate donors than it is in the pockets of the people that need it. (Time expired)