Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the Government's plan for $254 billion Stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires and politicians while flagging austerity measures in the upcoming Budget; and

(2) calls on the Government to scrap their unfair Stage 3 tax cuts in the upcoming Budget and instead deliver real cost of living relief by getting dental and mental health into Medicare, making childcare free, and addressing the housing and rental crisis, including by doubling rent assistance.

It's a sad fact, with the way things are set up now in Australia, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and tragically, in times of crisis, this intensifies—the gap widens and the pain increases. And we are in crisis. Right now, renters in Brisbane are paying around 24 per cent more than 12 months ago, while real wages have dropped back to 2010 levels and the share of national income going to wages is the lowest ever recorded. Mortgage holders in Ryan are paying about $300 per week more—that's per week, not per month—on their mortgages since last year. Even the price of groceries has gone up more than inflation, rising by about 10 per cent in the last year. That's not to mention the exponential rise in energy costs. This is causing untold pain for so many.

But how's the other the end of town doing? We've just learned that 2022 was the best year on record for corporate profits—an absolute profit bonanza. There was more than $5 billion profit in six months for the Commonwealth Bank, courtesy of much higher interest rates for mortgage holders. Coles and Woolies have also been doing quite well. Woolworths posted almost $1 billion in profit last year, up 14 per cent. Coles's profits went up by 17 per cent. Santos's profits increased by an eye-watering 221 per cent in 2022, profiteering from both a war and the climate crisis. Woodside tripled their profits. This is not okay. This is simply outrageous while so many Australians are struggling to put food on the table, to pay their bills and to pay their rent or mortgage.

Qantas just posted a record half-yearly profit of $1.43 billion. Are they going to use that money to help workers—the ones that they illegally fired—or to perhaps payback some of the JobKeeper money they took during the pandemic? Of course not. They're planning to spend that money on stock buybacks to pump up their own share price. What's the government doing about this, you might ask? The government is choosing to spend our money on $250 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. Does Clive Palmer really need an extra $9,000 a year or should that money go towards tackling this cost-of-living crisis? The government is choosing to continue to give $12 billion per year in fossil fuel tax concessions. The government is choosing to continue to give $12 billion per year in tax concessions to property investors instead of tackling the housing crisis. The government is apparently happy to see ordinary Australians exploited so these companies can post record profits. Interestingly, most of these companies are major donors to the Labor Party. In the last financial year alone, Labor got nearly $1 million from the fossil fuel industry, nearly $1.2 million from the property industry and $5.2 million from the banks—not okay.

While people are sacrificing meals to pay for their rising rents and mortgages, this government, instead of actually addressing the housing crisis, wants to gamble $10 billion on the stock market, paying fund managers millions of dollars in the process, to maybe build a few thousand homes per year if that gamble pays off. This is completely inadequate. This response will make the housing crisis substantially worse. Their plan does absolutely nothing to address rising rents in the private market, absolutely nothing to address rising rates for mortgage holders and absolutely nothing for hundreds of thousands of Australians stuck on the social housing waitlist and at extreme risk of homelessness. Is this good policy? Is this good economic management? Is this looking after ordinary Australians? I say no. It's making things worse. So how did we get here, Australia? How did we get to this point where our government is preferencing huge for-profit corporations over ordinary Australians? We got here from decades of policies that reinforced this divide, and that has poisoned the well.

Obviously a major overhaul is needed for our very survival, and it needs to start with demolishing the corporate capture of our government.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ryan for bringing forward this motion. She is quite right. It is time to have a look at our taxation system, and I've certainly called for that. I do, however, believe in trust in government. We went to the last election promising that the stage 3 tax cuts would go ahead. We actively campaigned on it, and people should be able to trust us in that commitment. I do agree with you that those tax cuts are poorly targeted—absolutely. They're targeted to the wealthy. Although many people on those sorts of incomes are not necessarily what I would call wealthy. If you live in Sydney, many people have mortgages of a million dollars or more, transport costs are huge and education costs are huge, so I think we need to be very careful about some of the language that's used around aspiration and people's want to improve themselves and the tax cuts.

The member for Ryan is quite right. The previous decade has seen complete negligence in governance by successive coalition governments with stagnant wages, flattening productivity, weak business investment, skills shortages and complete energy policy chaos—thanks to the Greens—all deeply affecting the economy and Australian households. It's important to note that the rise of inflation and interest rates began well before our government came to power, and we are working now to provide the relief and assistance that we can to Australian households. Access to things like cheaper child care, cheaper medicines, cheaper education and vocational education—in many cases, free—is thanks to our government and our new policies.

Whilst we stick to our promises, I fully support review of the entire taxation system and I can tell you that housing is at the centre of that. I still believe in the Australian dream, but it's a dream that is slowly fading into the distance. It breaks my heart every weekend to see young people going to property auctions and being outbid by property investors and wealthy people. Good on them—they've got money to spend—but we have given outrageous advantages to property investors. I see my own children go to auctions every weekend and lose out to investors, and that is disgraceful.

We have walked away from the Australian dream of homeownership, which I think is incredibly important for social stability and for people to provide for themselves in their old age. We know that the biggest increase in homelessness and in difficulties in paying rent and mortgages is among older women. It must be absolutely tragic to reach your 60s knowing that you have no stable roof over your head. As a paediatrician I see many families whose children have to change schools all the time, as they have to move from one rental property to another.

Governments have walked away from providing housing for the Australian population, and whatever we are doing now is tinkering at the edges unless we change the taxation system. It is my unwavering belief that that system has to change. The $25 billion to $30 billion every year given to property investors, giving them an advantage over first home buyers and poorer people trying to get a roof over their heads, has to change. There is absolutely no question about it.

The superannuation changes that we mooted recently have led to squeals of opposition from, in particular, the shadow Treasurer—the favoured son of the bunyip aristocracy screaming about those minor changes to superannuation. It just shows you that it's almost impossible to have a sensible discussion about taxation in this country. No-one's happy to pay tax, but tax pays for the things that I've called for: increases in Medicare funding, better aged care, a better public education system. It really is time we had a sensible debate in this country about taxation; fiddling at the edges is not going to cut it. We need to change the system. I fully support discussions about our taxation system. I also support trust in government. And, whatever we do, we should have a discussion with the Australian people about it.

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

One of probably the greatest untruths the Labor Party tell about themselves when it comes to taxing big multinational corporations or repealing the stage 3 tax cuts is that, somehow, doing any of that would be electorally unpopular. But I can guarantee that the vast majority of Australians, when given the choice of making big multinational corporations pay their fair share in tax to fund the essential services we all need, or repealing the $254 billion stage 3 tax cuts to put that money towards dental into Medicare or universal free child care or more mental health into Medicare—that would be overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people.

Let's not forget that, coming into this election, the Labor Party's national primary vote went backwards on one of the most mediocre, milquetoast platforms we've seen. And, frankly, the Labor Party has already abandoned many of the principles it once represented.

Let's be clear, again, about the stage 3 tax cuts, because the last time I spoke in parliament about them I talked about the massive cost-of-living crisis facing Australia, and it has only gotten worse. How governments allocate resources ultimately declares to the public their priorities about where they think money needs to go and who deserves it. Right now we have pensioners in this country choosing between paying the rent or paying the grocery bills, and this government thinks that, rather than increasing the pension to above the poverty line, Gina Rinehart needs an extra $9,000 a year off her tax. There are single parents right now who are on the brink of homelessness, including in my electorate, because they can't afford the rent, and this government thinks Clive Palmer needs an extra $9,000 a year off his tax. There are 640,000 people right now, households, who are in desperate need of social and affordable housing, and this government thinks that we should spend $254 billion, a quarter of a trillion dollars, on handing every politician in this place an extra $9,000 a year off their tax rather than make the investment we actually need to tackle the housing crisis. Those are the priorities that the government have put to the electorate. That's where they think the money needs to go.

Let's be clear about tackling the housing crisis. Earlier the Prime Minister said in the parliament that the $5 billion figure the Greens have proposed as an amendment to the government's housing bill was plucked out of thin air—except that he had failed to contemplate that even his own government body, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, had said that we need at least $15 billion of investment every year in social and affordable housing to tackle the housing crisis. To put that into context, the federal government want to cap housing spending at $500 million per year at most, at the same time as wanting to spend over $20 billion a year on tax cuts for people earning over $200,000 a year. There are people in my electorate right now who come every day to the free food pantry we've set up out the front of my office to get canned tuna, chickpeas and tomatoes. Some will come occasionally. One lady, having collected every day for two weeks, came back with some tea and said, 'I've taken from it so much these last two weeks that I thought I should give a little bit back.' When I compare the solidarity, kindness and generosity of people like her with the decisions that are made in this place to take from people like that and to put it into the hands of people who do not need that money, it makes my blood boil. The frustration is that the only meek response we hear from the government is, 'We promised we wouldn't repeal the stage 3 tax cuts.'

Let's consider that in the context of this super tax debate. We welcome the decision to lower the threshold on tax concessions for super, but it is true that the government, prior to the election, said that they wouldn't touch super. When circumstances change, governments also need to change their decisions. It makes sense, in the context of a historic world cost-of-living and inflation crisis, that we don't give $9,000 a year to people earning over $200,000 a year, and instead, put that money towards lifting the millions of people right now who are doing it tough out of poverty and financial stress. The Senate has the numbers to do that. The government could bring a bill right now to repeal the stage three tax cuts, and the Greens would support it. You have the numbers. The only thing holding back this country from unleashing a quarter of a trillion dollars and putting it towards building public and social housing, bringing dental into Medicare and introducing universal free child care is the fact that the Labor Party don't have the guts to make the sort of proposal that we know will release millions of people out of unnecessary financial stress.

That is the proposal that the Greens will put to the government today: bring a proposal to the Senate, we'll vote for it and we'll unleash $254 billion for the people who actually need it.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ryan for bringing this motion forward for discussion. It's always worth having a conversation about how we manage our budget in a fair and responsible way. It allows us to fulfil the role of good government. Good government is focused on the things we all share, like public health and education, community infrastructure, defence and our environment. Good government is focused on the wellbeing of people who experience disadvantage and exclusion because that is core to our egalitarian values and our humanity. Good government is definitely serious about sustainability, which is both a matter of planning for the future and of delivering intergenerational fairness.

This motion talks about the need to improve the universal public health system, early childhood education and access to affordable housing. The Albanese Labor government has already taken some key steps in all of these areas. We've delivered the largest cut to the maximum price of medicines on the PBS in its history, we're making child care cheaper for 96 per cent of families and we've dedicated $10 billion to support affordable housing through the Housing Australia Future Fund. The motion also argues in favour of a tax system that is fairly calibrated to support those kinds of investments in our shared wellbeing, and on that I absolutely agree. That's why the Albanese Labor government is acting to ensure multinational corporations pay a fair share of tax in Australia, as they should, and we're making some commonsense changes to the unsustainable tax concessions that have applied to the earnings derived from superannuation accounts in excess of $3 million.

In substance, the government is achieving what the member for Ryan believes should occur. We're providing new investment in public health, child care and affordable housing. We've been prepared to identify fair and responsible sources of revenue to fund the things we share, to reduce disadvantage and to create a better future. But I say respectfully to the member for Ryan is that genuine and constructive conversations don't proceed in the way that we heard from the member just previously, and they don't start with a proposition that is intentionally narrow and selective in order to fit a specific political story. The terms of the motion include a vague and, I presume, intentionally scary reference to austerity measures, which is based on nothing as far as what's detailed in the motion. There's no acknowledgement of government initiatives that are aimed precisely at areas of health, child care and housing, which is what this government's done. It's clear that what is intended here—and we saw it most clearly from the member who just spoke—is a finger-wagging exercise, not a conversation—a finger-wagging exercise dripping in righteousness, a holier-than-thou finger-wagging exercise. That's politics. The Greens have a line to run. The line has always been and will be that whatever Labor does is not good enough, and this motion runs that line. There's some political good sense in that, but it's not necessarily in the name of a constructive conversation.

I come back to the question of how we deliver what the Australian community is entitled to expect: government that is open, focused, responsive and stable and that gets on with the task of addressing present and future challenges in a way that's driven by the twin principles of fairness and sustainability. We've just emerged from nine years characterised by incompetence and dishonesty. We've just emerged from nine years of inaction that's taken us in completely the opposite direction from fairness and sustainability.

Until recently, people under the age of 27 had only experienced, as voters, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government—a government that saw wages fall to the lowest share of national income in our history while company profits rose to the highest share of national income in our history; a government that was in denial about climate change and didn't deliver a single energy policy; a government that was only interested in budget repair if the burden of that task could be placed on the backs of the poor through unlawful measures like robodebt. All Australians deserve a much better standard of public service and policy leadership than that, especially young Australians.

In nine months, this government has already delivered a number of key commitments: legislating a carbon emission reduction target; creating a National Anti-Corruption Commission; providing 10 days of family and domestic violence leave; achieving an increase in the minimum wage that benefited 2.7 million workers; delivering the largest reduction in the maximum price of medicines on the PBS; and giving certainty to thousands of asylum seekers stuck in the terrible and pointless limbo of the temporary protection visa system. After nine years of nothing, we've had nine months of steady, responsible and positive reform in the national interest. That's been achieved by working with all those in parliament who take a constructive approach, including the Greens. So, while I understand the 'what have the Romans done for us lately' flavour of the motion, the reality is the Albanese government is delivering positive and sustainable reform through a fair and responsible approach to the budget.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.