Hi everyone. I'm Adam Bandt Leader of the Greens and I'm here
with Nick McKim our economic justice spokesperson. We're
coming to you from First Nations country here in this
place called Canberra and we acknowledge the Traditional
Owners and that we're looking through this budget here on Stolen Land
and and we've been looking through this budget that the
treasurer has just delivered and I can tell you one thing.
it makes me incredibly angry. This is a budget for
billionaires and big corporations that is going to
entrench inequality and fast track climate collapse. This
budget could have been so many good things. This budget could
have been the opportunity for us to make our country a more
equal place and to address the climate crisis that we're
facing and instead when we're going into this budget with one
in three big corporations paying no tax and billionaires
having increased their wealth during the pandemic by over
30%, instead of making the big corporations and billionaires
pay their fair share so that we can then get dental into
Medicare, have free education and lift people out of poverty
This budget does exactly the opposite. There's $50 billion
dollars in handouts that's billion with a 'B' to coal, oil and
gas, including $1.1 billion in new money for new coal and gas
projects in the middle of a climate crisis. This government
has found $50 billion dollars to not only fund existing coal and
gas corporations, but to allow new coal and gas projects to
be opened up, paid for in part by the public and that is going
to fast track the climate collapse, but they haven't
forgotten the other big corporate and billionaire mates
as well. As I said, coming out of a pandemic where one and a
half million people lost their incomes, billionaires massively
increased their wealth. This budget gives $62 billion dollars
a year to big corporations and billionaires to allow them to
continue to get richer and post record profits, but meanwhile,
wages will go backwards for the next 2 years. In other words,
this budget is premised on people's wages going backwards
for two years and flat lining after that based on job seekers
continuing to live in poverty. But there's $62 billion dollars
a year for big corporations and billionaires. I mean there's
probably a lot more, you know, that we haven't got to yet and
that we're going to find out as we go through the detail, but
it clearly is a budget that delivers for the people who
donate to the Liberal and the Labor Party. It sure does Adam
We're heading towards the cliff of climate
catastrophe and not only is the government got its foot nowhere
near the breaks. It's actually jammed its right foot even
harder on the accelerator by increasing the public
subsidies that are going into the big fossil fuel
corporations, many of whom as Adam's pointed out, are donors to
the LNP. Adam's right, a fantasy budget if you're a billionaire
or a big corporate. If you're an ordinary person who can't
find work because there's not enough jobs there for everyone
who wants one if you're underemployed and we know
millions of Australians are underemployed, you've got flat
lining wages – in real terms and in fact, wages will go
backwards in real terms over the next 2 years, according to
the forecasts in this budget. So ordinary people miss out
nature still gets trashed the climate crisis accelerates.
This is a budget where if you're making your money by
trashing the joint you're going to be very very happy. If
you're an ordinary Australian trying to get by or a young
person trying to get into the housing market you're going to
be very disappointed. Yeah. Basically the budget basically
gives the middle finger to young people. There is nothing
in this budget for young people, except more money for
corporations that are going to cook for the future. There's no
new money for building new public housing or doing
anything that's going to make housing more affordable for
young people. In fact, the government's going to continue
to give about $8 billion dollars a year to people who've already
got two three or four homes to continue to subsidize them to
go and buy another couple and then write it off as a tax
courtesy of the public purse. So they're going to keep putting
money in to make housing more expensive, but nothing to build
more public housing or make housing more affordable for
young people. The budget bakes in a 10% cut to education
funding so those that double cost of degrees that many
people are going to have been hit with is going to really
kick in and is really going to bite hard and universities
and education generally is going to have less money to do
the things they need to do. And the tragedy of it all
is that at the same time as they're giving out $62 billion
dollars a year to billionaires and big corporations, they say,
oh, there's not enough money to get dental into Medicare or to
have free education. It's all about priorities and we've
learned about the Government's tonight. We sure have.