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

Who should your politicians serve—the young nurse who just wants to be able to buy a home and raise a family one day or the CEO of the massive gas corporation whose company pays no tax, the immigrant barber who's hustling for their small business to succeed so they can look after their parents or the owner of 50 investment properties who makes money driving up house prices, the plumber who's just saving up for a decent holiday with his mates or the billionaire head of a fund management company who makes millions in his sleep? The major parties struggle to answer this question. I don't. Ninety-nine per cent of us are doing our very best just trying to get ahead to live a decent life. That's who our politicians should serve. That's who they're supposed to serve. But, instead, they're serving the wealthiest one per cent. This one per cent just take the wealth produced by this country and use it to buy more wealth. They take our natural resources, they buy up the housing, they buy up our public services and infrastructure and they get rewarded with tax breaks. Meanwhile, things get harder for the rest of us. It is time to tax that top one per cent and bring fairness back.