Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Division. The Prime Minister is fond of this word. He uses it a lot. The Prime Minister doesn't like division, which is unfortunate because he sees division everywhere. Antigenocide protests? Divisive. The Greens political party? Divisive. Grace Tame? Divisive—and difficult. For Mr Albanese, division is a threat to something called 'social cohesion', another thing he loves to talk about.

For the Prime Minister, social cohesion is what happens when you do nothing to stop a genocide. Social cohesion is what you get when you send the police out to bash protesters. Social cohesion is what springs forth when you demonise innocent Australian children stuck in Syrian camps. In a very narrow reading, the PM is correct: Australia is increasingly divided, and our social bonds are eroding.

But it's not because of a few university students in keffiyehs. Australians are turning on each other because they are angry. They are angry that life is getting harder and crueller. They're angry that, no matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead. They're angry that they can't afford the rent or the mortgage; that they're being ripped off by the banks, the supermarkets and the energy companies; and that they can't find a doctor who bulk-bills or a dentist who doesn't charge the Earth. Most of all, they're angry that, no matter which party is in power, life gets steadily harder and meaner for them and their families, while a privileged few get richer and more powerful.

Australians are at each other's throats because that's what happens when inequality soars and people fear for their futures. It's in this environment that the far right thrives. The prejudices that power the Right are always with us. Some people live with hate and ignorance in their hearts. When members of a society understand that they have common interests and are represented by governments that work for those interests, those prejudices lack the fertile ground they need to take root in society.

When people's material conditions decline, as they have in Australia, they begin to become alienated from each other, and the idea of a common interest becomes harder to imagine. Solidarity gives way to exclusion. Community gives way to brutal individualism. That's when the cheap, cynical rhetoric of right-wing populism can take hold in people's imaginations. We've seen it in the US, we've seen it in Europe, we've seen it in the UK and we're now seeing it here. This is how societies end.

Throughout history, the demonisation of minorities has been used by nationalists and fascists to whip up hysteria and fear to build their political power. Today in Australia, we are seeing history repeat. The dark forces of the far right, harnessed and funded by the billionaires and corporate elites—as they always are—are blaming immigrants for house prices, whipping up hatred of the Muslim community and First Nations people, and trying to wind back decades of progress on climate action and the rights of disabled people. These ideas can only gain purchase in an environment of social and economic instability—precisely the conditions that decades of Labor and coalition policy have created. It's the failure of governments to ensure that everyone can afford a safe and secure home, that everyone can see their GP or get their teeth fixed without going into debt or that the weekly shop doesn't blow the household budget that creates the conditions of fear and uncertainty that allows poisonous ideas like hatred of immigrants, antisemitism or Islamophobia to flourish. For decades, Labor and the coalition have colluded to drive up property prices, to keep income support payments below the poverty line, to suppress wages, to privatise our national assets and to financialise every aspect of our lives.

Under this Labor government, one in seven people in Australia lives in poverty. There's not a single rental home in the country that is affordable for someone living on income support. Australian households are spending twice as much of their income on their mortgage as they did five years ago. Public schools are still underfunded across the country, with no plan to get them to the minimum level required, and Labor's aged-care reforms have seen the waiting lists for assessments blow out, out-of-pocket costs soar and more barriers to accessing in-home supports raised. In regional parts of the country—like Gladstone, where I'm from—getting an appointment at a bulk-billing GP, if your town has one, can take months, while systemic underfunding of the public health system means people are travelling hundreds of kilometres for basic hospital treatment and care.

How can all this be? Australia is one of the richest countries in the world. How can we be so wealthy while millions of people live week to week and make so many sacrifices just to stay afloat? Because most of that wealth accumulates in the investment accounts and offshore tax havens of a small untouchable class of elites. The facts are stark: one in three big corporations pays no tax; Australia has 161 billionaires holding more wealth than the bottom 40 per cent of this country combined; the major parties are giving more than $180 billion in tax handouts to wealthy property investors over the coming decade; and Australia's big four banks make a profit of more than $200,000 from the average home loan. That's unearned income draining straight from Australian pay cheques to pay for corporate bonuses and superyachts.

Why do the big corporations and billionaires have it so good? Because they own the major parties. Over the last 10 years Labor and the Liberals have taken a quarter of a billion dollars in corporate donations, while the boards of banks, mining companies and corporate lobbying firms are stuffed with former Labor, Liberal and National members of parliament. It's an elite club of privilege and power, and you're not in it. The Greens believe in the power of government to make peoples' lives better. That's what it should do. But, under Labor and the coalition, people are losing their faith in government, and they're losing their faith in each other. That has opened the door to right-wing extremism.

You should be able to afford to buy or rent a good home on an average salary. You shouldn't have to worry about affording the food in your trolley. You should be able to get your teeth fixed when you need it. You should be able to afford child care, send your kids to a great and fully free public school and get the education that you need for free. The Greens think all of this is possible. By taxing big corporations and billionaires, ending the handouts to property speculators and making corporate price gouging illegal, we can make housing more affordable and accessible, lower the cost of living and pay for the services everyone needs to have a good life. Better is possible, and it is worth fighting for.