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

After the Greens secured a deal from Labor to introduce one-million-dollar fines for bankers who break the rules, it took Labor one day to roll over for the big banks and renege on the deal. Labor couldn't even stand up to the banks for a single day. What a sick joke.

If the banks, whose profits this year totalled $29 billion, only have to wait a day, then how long are the nearly three million Australians living in poverty going to have to wait? How long are the teachers and nurses struggling with chronically underfunded public schools and hospitals going to have to wait? How long are the 900,000 people this government is forcing to live on $48 a day on JobSeeker going to have to wait? How long are communities getting smashed by climate change, floods and other disasters going to have to wait for this government to cut the $14 billion in fossil fuel subsidies? The hypocrisy of members, in this place, lamenting poverty over Christmas while they have the power to fix it!

Bring dental into Medicare. Raise JobSeeker, the pension and other payments above the poverty line. Freeze rent increases. Scrap the stage 3 tax cuts—

Gover nment members interjecting—

I hear that yelling there. You should be ashamed of yourselves. No, this so-called party of the workers—really, the party for bankers—is happy to make the vast majority of us wait forever, while banks only have to wait a day.