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

WA's housing crisis is cooked. People are sleeping in their cars. Young people are locked out of homeownership. Meanwhile, property investors, billionaires and the big corporations are doing just fine. They benefit from a system of rules that makes the rich richer, and everybody else just has to struggle in this rigged system. People are sick of it. They are sick of having to struggle day to day to get by. We have a system in this moment that rewards the hoarding of wealth while ordinary people struggle to put a roof over their heads. It's disgusting.

Ahead of tonight's federal budget, we are going to hear a lot about NDIS cuts and a lot about how the government can't put dental care into Medicare because there just isn't enough to go around. But what's frustrating me is we are not hearing them talk about actually making the gas companies, those exporters that are making so much money, or the ultrawealthy one per cent pay their fair share. They will get off scot-free.

Why is this government making these choices? It really does make you think. Why would they fail in this moment to support people day to day while billionaires are seeing their wealth increase every single day by $600,000? Australians are sick of this system. We know that it is rigged. The budget is an opportunity to choose the 99 per cent, to put the 99 per cent first rather than the one per cent. It's an opportunity to finally tax wealth, not work. Will Labor take it? (Time expired)