Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a matter of public interest. How we function as a just society is fundamental to our Australian democracy. How we support those who are socially vulnerable demonstrates the integrity of our policies. The coalition government's budget policies contain, however, no trace—none—of this integrity. This budget is not a real solution for all Australians; it is not even a partial solution to a phoney economic crisis. It is not a solution at all. It is a plan of cuts, a plan that rips up the Australian social contract, and a plan that takes up a reactionary axe and hacks apart, piece by piece, Australia's commitment to give each of us a fair go. The fair go way of life that we know so well in Australia is now under threat. And those Australians—most Australians—without power, privilege or prosperity are being brutalised. New taxes are being imposed, pensions are being cut and vital services are being slashed.

This budget has made the coalition government's position very clear, and that is: they do not like people. They know that their budget hurts people, they know that it does not need to and they do not care. This 2014 budget is ideology masquerading as serious financial policy. But this disguise has fooled no-one. It is a callous attack on our most vulnerable Australian citizens. And these are Australian citizens who do not have the luxury of simply tightening their belts—citizens on the margins; fellow citizens of ours who will, inevitably, become lost in an underfunded services system, causing irreparable damage to their long-term health, wellbeing, education and productivity.

These Australian citizens have been writing to me and calling me ever since this callous Abbott government budget was announced, and their appeals are simple, their complaints are justified, and their fear is real. I want to share with the Senate some of the words of these Australian citizens. 'The Abbott government was elected on a series of lies and has an agenda that was not presented to the people of Australia prior to the election.' 'It is a budget which will cause long-lasting and profound damages to our society and our nation as a whole.' 'Changes to the university fee payments and HECS are frightening.' 'I want my children to go to university or at least to feel confident that they can if they choose to go; this is in jeopardy now.' 'My son has no voice, but I do and I am writing to ask you to consider carefully this blatant attempt to force low-income families into poverty and hunger.' 'We need a society that helps one another, not condemns those that need the help the most.' I think those comments from some of the Australian citizens who have written to me—and I am sure there are many that the coalition senators have had sent to them as well—say a lot about how the Australian community fears and regards this Abbott government budget.

If it was hidden in easy promises, vacant slogans and 'unity tickets' before the election, it is now crystal clear that this government has utterly embraced an empty neoliberal cliche when it comes to the incentivising of the rich and the poor to contribute to our country. Deep in their bones, entwined in their DNA, this right wing government is convinced that rich Australians and big corporate members of the Australian community deserve tax cuts and superannuation lurks, while the rest of Australia—those on medium and low incomes—are served with increased taxes, reduced services and gutted superannuation contributions. This budget is the archetypal conservative blueprint for maintaining the status quo, increasing wealth and prosperity for those who have plenty already, concentrating power and influence with the powerful and the influential, and turbocharging social inequality in this country.

To give one clear example: the previous Labor government put in place a significant reform package that addressed loopholes in the tax system which allowed multinational profit-shifting. Those Labor reforms were to close that loophole, and they have been working—until now. Although they paid lip-service to the gathering global momentum on multinational profit-shifting at the G20, this government does not mean what it says—as always. And, as always, we must ignore their words, slogans and promises, and look to the actions of the coalition. As always, their actions will tell a different tale from their words and their slogans.

According to my friend and colleague Dr Andrew Leigh, this government's only action on multinational profit-shifting has been to reverse a cumulative $1.1 billion in multinational profit-shifting restriction measures announced by Labor. So, in the middle of a confected budget emergency, the government has given up on $1.1 billion—$1.1 billion that has to come from somewhere else or from someone else. And this hard-right government has been very clear about who that 'someone else' will be. There will be worse services for people with less money. In fact, they will make those worse services even more expensive, if not cut them entirely, and make sure that those Australians on low incomes pay more tax and get a smaller pension and less superannuation. That is simply not fair.

Not many people win out of this Abbott government budget—but, at least, for the coalition the right people win. The winners are members of our community who are already being looked after with those corporate tax cuts. Big companies send their profits offshore, pay millions of dollars for a paperclip in Ireland, and then, for their financial sins, pay less corporate tax on profits here in Australia that they could not shift. There is $1.1 billion that could be added to the tax revenue base in this country and invested in our health-care system, in our education system, in our welfare system.

Under the coalition's budget an elderly man, now with reduced superannuation, who is struggling to get through the rest of his life with dignity and some measure of health and happiness will pay more to see his doctor. He will also have a reduced age pension—but not until he can access the age pension. If a 69-year-old man who has worked all his life in hard, labour-intensive work—his body giving up—needs to access a Centrelink age pension, he will not be entitled to one under this budget because the government has lifted the pension age. What will a young woman with a child who is absolutely unable to earn or learn in the short-term because of her circumstances do? She will not be helped by revenue from the hundreds of millions of dollars already shifted offshore by major multinationals, that $1.1 billion. She and the hundreds of thousands of Australians working, learning and striving to make something of themselves will be sold short by this cruel Abbott government budget.

To Australians like this elderly man and this young woman, to Australians like most of us here, the opportunity cost of reversing Labor's tax revenue measures is writ large in the brutal attacks on Medicare and pensions and increases in higher education fees. Even legal aid—a fundamental, if not forgotten, government program that provides to all Australians some measure of access to justice within our legal system—will be cut. Meanwhile, the door is open for tax revenue to flow offshore.

I also note—with despair but not surprise—that the government is using this budget to attack the environment from all sides. With one hand, in their now familiar manner, they compromise every promise they made before the election to protect the environment by ripping billions of dollars out of their environmental policies. With the other hand, they are laying down the red carpet for big polluters to cut and gouge profits out of Australia's national assets by neutering effective legal and community opposition. Before the election, the government promised to spend $2.55 billion on its so-called Emissions Reduction Fund—part of Direct Action—over the next four years. But surprise, surprise, the government have budgeted only $1.15 billion, less than half of that amount, showing that it was at heart a tokenistic policy. Before the election, the government repeatedly promised to keep the Australian Renewable Energy Agency; but after the election, they are of course doing their best to get rid of it. Also in the government's sights are the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund, the National Low Emissions Coal Initiative, energy efficiency programs, the National Solar Schools Program, Energy Efficiency Information Grants and Low Carbon Communities. And then, completing a pincer move that Hannibal would be proud of, as efforts to improve the environment are underfunded or deleted, the government go for the advocates and the environmental NGOs by undermining the former and removing the tax charity status of the latter.

Now that the government has clarified its position that a sustainable and healthy environment is an obstacle to its progress—not the best hope for our future—it is launching its final offensive on the remaining thin green lines of protection for the environment, the last lines of protection left. Even though the Productivity Commission has found that funding is warranted for the Environmental Defenders Offices given 'the public interest element of many environmental disputes', this government is removing support for them and the important work that they do. They also want to prevent concerned Australian citizens from getting a modicum of tax relief from donations they might make to organisations with a mission to protect natural assets that they may love.

This budget seeks to fabricate an Australia that is very different from the one we know and love, not an Australia that we all want to be a part of. It is cruel, it is heartless and it is hurtful. This budget lays out an Australia that is devoid of any policy integrity—a 'winner takes everything' Australia, for which they have no mandate. They were voted in on what they said—and what they said was worthless. This budget is deceptive, ideological, anti-government and anti-Australian. It is the direct result of the government's empty campaign at the last election. As an opposition they had no policies, only promises. And now, as a government, with their promises in ashes, they have got nothing—and we know it. The Australian people know it. They know that this budget is cruel. They know that it is heartless. They know that it rips up the Australian way of a 'fair go' for all and they do not support that kind of Australia.