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

Okay. I have 10 minutes to talk about the environment, but I will say it was certainly worth being in the chamber to witness this late-night adjournment debate in person.

Tonight's Morrison government budget, the final one for this 46th Parliament, has made housing in this country more expensive, has locked in tax cuts for the wealthy and has provided more funding for coal and gas projects rather than acting on the climate crisis. This Liberal budget contains more than $37.6 billion for coal, oil and gas companies, gives $13 billion of public money to property investors and has no money to build affordable public housing in this country. The Greens want government to invest to build a million affordable public homes.

Scott Morrison's budget makes housing more expensive, locks in tax cuts for the wealthy and funds more oil and gas projects. This budget of election bribes will not keep you safe from the climate crisis and it won't put a secure roof over your head. It doesn't have a cent of new money for building new affordable housing, and it continues to pour more petrol on the climate crisis even as floods threaten the Northern Rivers for the second time in a month. Scott Morrison's plan is to give more than $38 billion in handouts to coal, oil and gas corporations to fuel the climate crisis, and apparently Labor backs him in. There is $1.6 billion for renewables, $2 billion for disaster recovery and more than $38 billion in subsidies to coal, oil and gas. It's an insult to every flood victim that the Prime Minister is spending on coal, oil and gas more than 10 times what he is on protecting us from future major climatic events.

Scott Morrison's budget spends $13 billion on unfair tax breaks that will push up the cost of housing and lock people out of the housing markets—handouts that, once again, Labor will wave through. A temporary cut for fuel excise may not even make its way to people's pockets. There's every chance that world oil prices or profiteering from oil corporations will wipe out any gains to motorists overnight at very substantial cost to the budget.

We need to permanently boost the pension by almost $250 a fortnight, not $250 per election. To tackle cost-of-living pressures, the budget should have wiped out student debt, got dental into Medicare and built a million affordable public homes that people could rent for 25 per cent of their income or buy for $300,000. That is the Greens' plan. That would have been much fairer, better and cheaper than proceeding with stage 3 tax cuts and temporarily cutting fuel excise. This budget shows more than ever that we need to kick this government out and get the Greens in balance of power in the next parliament to push the next government to tackle cost-of-living pressures by taxing billionaires, getting Denticare into Medicare, wiping out student debt and building affordable homes.

This budget is a budget for billionaires and big corporations, not for people who are struggling. Under this budget, the cost of living will increase and wages won't catch up. There are heroic assumptions for wages growth to keep inflation at bay and to cover cost-of-living expenses. The structural holes in our economy will keep widening the gap between rich and poor under this government. A $420 payment won't go far for a family that's stuck spending half their income on housing, and the $250 payment will lift a pensioner out of poverty for one pay packet and then send them back the next.

We need a budget that ensures the billionaires and the big corporations pay their fair share so we can invest in getting Denticare into Medicare and ensuring that everyone has a livable home. This government will never deliver the budget that the Australian people deserve, and, without pressure, Labor's not going to support the structural changes needed by everyone who is struggling. With the Greens in balance of power, we will tax the billionaires and big corporations. The 2023 Labor-Greens budget will be one that builds a more equal Australia.

Tonight I want to say thank you to all those people who have supported me over my last 10 years in the Senate. It's been nearly 10 years for me; the anniversary is coming up in a few weeks time. I'm confident that the people of Tasmania will recognise the good work that the Greens do in this place and will recognise that we have a good chance of holding the balance of power in the next government, that this is a climate emergency and that, more than ever, they need to vote for the environment and for real climate action. This is the last week of parliament and perhaps the last adjournment debate for the 46th Parliament, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who have supported me over the last 10 years and the Tasmanians who voted for me in 2013 and 2016. I am up for election this time around, and I would ask those people who have supported the Greens and me and my team: if you like what you've seen, please continue to vote Green. We're needed more than ever in this place.

As a party, last week at the Hobart town hall we celebrated 50 years of green politics in Tasmania. We're very proud of our heritage. On 23 March 1972, a group of people moved a motion at a very rowdy town hall meeting in Hobart to start the United Tasmania Group, the world's first green political party. That political party spawned a green political movement that has now gone around the world. From that very humble beginning on an island on the bottom of the world, Tasmania exported green politics to the globe. We now have Greens holding the balance of power in Germany, including the position of vice-chancellor. We have a Left-Green Prime Minister in Iceland. We have greens in nearly every country around the world.

I am incredibly honoured and privileged to have been twice preselected by my party and elected by the Tasmanian people to this place. I feel I have been honest in holding to the contract that I made with my party and with the voters of Tasmania. I have worked as hard as I could over the last decade to protect our oceans, to put the environment first and to do everything I possibly could to tackle climate change. I've also been fortunate enough to have had the Greens Treasury and finance portfolio for nearly half the time that I've been in this place. We have achieved great things as a political party, working across party lines over many years. I would ask the voters of Tasmania to back that 10 years of experience. There's plenty more work that I would like to do in this place. I just want to once again thank the people of Tasmania, who have given me this amazing opportunity.