Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Across every part of this nation there are essential services, from housing to education to the NDIS, that are chronically underfunded. Millions of Australians are struggling. Thousands—in fact, tens of thousands—go to sleep every night wondering when next they will have a roof over their heads. My office is swamped by calls and emails and messages from those in the disability community who need access to the NDIS, who need good service and yet do not get it because there are not enough staff at the agency. I hear from people struggling to get by on Newstart, because it has not been raised since the year that I was born, some 24 years ago. We must ask ourselves the question: why is this so? As we so often hear, Australia is one of the most wealthy nations in the world, and yet there is such poverty; there is such suffering; there is such a struggle for so many. The answer to that question is that it's because big corporations and big businesses and wealthy individuals do not pay their fair share of tax. They do not contribute fairly to those services that are needed to support people and promote community. Consequently, we must ask ourselves the question: why is that so? How do they get away with it?

If The Daily Telegraph, if Andrew Bolt, manages to dig up one case of a welfare recipient who is seen to have done something wrong then, bang, it triggers a welfare review. So why is it that so many corporations, so many individuals, get away with paying less than their fair share? It is because they donate to those within this chamber. It is because they syphon off their wealth and funnel it into the back pockets of the Liberal Party and the Labor Party and the National Party to make sure that we here in this place craft for them not a taxing contribution system but a tax avoidance system, a system by which they are able to accrue our national wealth for their personal gain, see it come to them as a great golden horde and sell the Australian people the fantasy, the outright lie, that our wealth, by their virtue, might someday trickle back to us. That corruptive influence, that toxic relationship between the big end of town and Australia's democracy is on full display today as we are asked to contemplate the idea of gifting another $60 billion to Australia's biggest corporations. It's an absolute disgrace—a gift given, a ransom paid for the price of re-election.

It does not need to be this way. The Australian people demand that we here do better, that we speak out against this toxic relationship, that we break it down, that we return to the service of the Australian people, that we stop the endless flows of money. It is possible. We know the way, and yet the legislature refuses to act. I have lost count of the times that my Greens colleagues and I have put forward legislation to this place that would have ended that relationship, that would have stopped the flow of big money. I have lost count of the number of times that my colleague Rachel Siewert has made the argument to this chamber that if there is a cent to spare then it must go to those living below the poverty line in the welfare trap, in the poverty trap, in the desperation trap that is Newstart, and yet this chamber does nothing. One side seeks to make it easier for the billionaires, for the industry titans, for the Rupert Murdochs and Gina Rineharts of this country. They seek to give them even more. They seek to rationalise, to naturalise their greed, while the other side of the chamber mumbles mutely. 'Should we have an increase to Newstart?' we ask. 'Ah, let's review it,' say the once great Australian Labor Party. It is a disgrace.

I speak against this bill tonight on behalf of the millions of struggling Australians who need the attention of this chamber, who deserve the attention of this chamber, so much more than those this bill seeks to help. I speak tonight on behalf of the people who are not able to make the business dinners, to give the donations and to offer the free media network time that seems to be so necessary if they are to get the attention of either side of this place. I speak for them. The Australian Greens speak for them. As long as there is one of us in this place, they will have a voice in our democracy. I thank the chamber for its time.