Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is a picture of a parrot. It's a Western ground parrot. What do parrots have to do with tax cuts? They have everything to do with tax cuts. There was an excellent article by Lisa Cox in The Guardian today, entitled 'Foreign donations prop up Australia's endangered parrot response'. It is shameful that a German charity has had to contribute $200,000 for the protection and recovery of an endangered parrot in this country, because it is so underfunded in our threatened-species division. Three out of the most endangered birds in this country are in my home state of Tasmania, and the Greens recently uncovered at estimates that the department couldn't even tell us the last time they counted these birds, because the recovery plan hasn't even been funded. The Threatened Species Commissioner hadn't even been to King Island, where two of the three most endangered and likely-to-become-extinct birds in this country reside. We don't even know if they exist, because no funding has gone into this. We have a species extinction crisis in this country. We, shamefully, lead the world in species extinction.

My point is an important one. When we levy taxes, we raise revenue. That revenue is spent by governments on what it considers priorities. Funding has been slashed to the Department of the Environment and Energy, especially to the threatened-species unit. Here we find that German charities are having to pay for recovery plans for our most threatened species. It's disgusting. Where's the money for the public good of looking after our biodiversity and our species? It's not there. Yet we have before us in this Senate, any minute now, legislation for $144 billion in personal tax cuts. That is the government's priority in the sad and sordid tale of this 45th Parliament. Their piece de resistance, their legislation they are going to take to the election, is to give some Australians—mostly wealthy Australians—a tax cut. Nearly 60 per cent of Australians aren't going to get any tax cut at all. Nearly half of the tax cut benefits will go to the most wealthy 10 per cent of Australians. That's this government's priority. It's not funding services, threatened-species recovery plans, schools or hospitals. It is to give a tax cut to their rich mates, which will further add to inequality—arguably one of the biggest challenges of our time. We should run a ruler over everything we do in this place to see whether it adds to inequality or whether it can actually help reduce inequality. These tax cuts, by any measure, will not reduce inequality; they will make things worse. They will make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

If you don't earn an income in this country or you earn a low income because you're a part-time worker or a student or you're unfortunate enough that you have to be on Newstart or other benefits, you get nothing. You get absolutely nothing in this government's plan. So this motion before us today is absolutely correct. This government's tax plan will add to inequality. It will rip the guts out of our progressive tax system. A progressive tax system is one of the best tools we have for tackling inequality and raising revenue to pay for the services that we need.

The Greens will not support this package later today, an arms race in tax cuts. We want to see services properly funded in this country. You cannot take $144 billion of revenue and not expect services to be cut in the future. The western ground parrot is a good example of something that has already had services cut. We actually need to raise more revenue now, not less. Taking $144 billion out is an election bribe—that's what it is: it's a bribe. It's a trick to get votes and to keep the Liberal Party in power. I hope that the Australian people see it for what it is. I'm very much looking forward to both the second reading stage and the committee stage of this bill when it comes before the Senate.