Senator BOB BROWN (Leader of the Australian Greens) (1:04 PM) —I ask that the Greens support for Senator Murray’s amendments be recorded. I seek leave to move Greens amendments (1) to (28) on sheet 5480 together.

Leave granted.

Senator BOB BROWN —I move:

This is a hugely important matter, as far as the Greens are concerned. The government and the opposition are supporting a package of $30.8 billion in tax cuts over the coming years, in a country which desperately needs investment in areas which are not going to be funded at the same time. I have already raised here, in the second reading debate, the plight of pensioners in Australia. I find it close to unbelievable that this first Labor budget has overlooked the 1.2 million pensioners in Australia who are living below the poverty line. Their income is around $270 a week. Let those of us who are on well over $1,000 a week reflect on that. Their income is about $270 a week and they were totally overlooked in the budget except for a repeat of the Howard government’s $500 payment and some support for paying service bills. As far as their income is concerned, it was, once again, essentially ignored. I cannot allow that to pass and nor will the Greens allow that to pass. It is simply wrong.

One would have expected that a socially oriented Labor government would have not only been ensuring that pensioners got an increase but also had that as part of the election presentation last year. This must be the thinking of both big parties, because the Howard government neglected pensioners too. They have essentially had no great increase in their pensions compared to the cost of living since 1993—for the whole of the 11 years that those budgets were brought in. There was some adjustment for the GST, and that was about it. Pensioners stayed stuck at about the level of increasing costs, while parliamentarians’ salaries, for example, increased by something like 85 per cent from the levels of the mid-1990s. It is incredible that we are here with the first major initiative by the government in the area of social structure being legislation which is going to accelerate the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in Australia.

The minister seems concerned about the word ‘rich’, so let’s talk about the ‘wealthy’ if that is easier. But the fact is we have seen a growth in the gap between the haves and have-nots in this country through the Howard years and we are now seeing a continuation of the economic rationalist policies which say that those people at the top deserve even greater rewards. Listening to the debate this morning, the tenor from the government at least is in line with that quote that the minister read out of the Governor of the Reserve Bank saying—looking at the long horizon, nothing to do with this legislation before us—that there may be room for tax cuts. That is a very generalised statement, because there are a lot of clouds on that long horizon. We are elected here to make sure our society works justly. This is unjust legislation. There is no argument that this can be seen as just. Certainly it extends tax cuts across the board but, as Senator Murray pointed out, they are absolutely loaded to give much greater advantage to people who are on high incomes than to people on low incomes—and pensioners get left out altogether. We cannot and will not accept that. I can tell the government that over the coming years we will be pointing back to this moment, this great lost opportunity to redress something of the imbalance that grew over the Howard years.

What about the need for carers in this country? They live on a pittance. They provide enormous services to those of us who want to see people who are ill, disabled or disadvantaged looked after. They provide the nation with billions of dollars of voluntary service, those people who care for fellow Australians, and yet the budget bypassed them, essentially. The government did not move to recognise that they too are citizens who deserve time off, who deserve to be able to enjoy the freedom of life that so many people, who are going to have massive amounts of money go into their pockets because of these tax cuts, take for granted. There is a failure of understanding here. There is a failure of understanding the difference between the plight of people in our society who are struggling on a pension or caring for others and the unprecedented advantage that the wealthy—and that includes all us members of parliament—have in Australia in 2008. There has never been anything like it before in history. But this government is doing much like the Howard government would have done were it still occupying the government benches. The policies are look-alikes, and it is the Greens who are going to continue to argue—the Democrats have a wonderful track record on this—for social justice in this country with a capital S and a capital J, because it is not in this legislation. This is unjust legislation.

We are not talking about peanuts. As Senator Murray said, put it together with the last Howard tax cuts and we are talking about $57 billion of what should be collected revenue, if not for the pensioners and carers of this country, for hospitals, for remote and rural health services, for public education, for fast and efficient public transport, and for dealing with climate change. Look at the proposal from Senator Milne on behalf of the Greens to retrofit all houses in Australia, starting with the poorest people first, and adding insulation and renewable energy. Cut their power bills. There is more for poor Australians in that proposal than there is in this legislation. But this legislation means the funding is not there to take on that option coming from the Greens which not only advantages us now but will advantage our grandchildren. Argue that about this legislation, if you will.

Then we see, at the other end of the spectrum from the poorer people I have been talking about, these merchants taking home millions of dollars—some of them tens of millions of dollars—each year for their contribution to the country. It is excruciating. Even Republican candidate John McCain has said in the last few days we should stop this. There has to be government intervention on these massive takings of moneys from society by people at the top end of the corporate sector. It does not come out of thin air; it comes out of other people’s pockets. Pay people well for their service. Pay people well for their innovation. Pay people well for their contribution to the nation and to the world. But this has become a massive rort. We, as parliamentarians, have to look at it. That is our responsibility.

If the Republican candidate for the US election says, ‘I’m going to look at that,’ why aren’t the Labor Party looking at this in this country? Because they have lost their way as a party of social justice. So here we are, the Greens, following the Democrats’ worthy amendments, saying: for people on over $75,000 a week, the taxation system is very advantageous as it is. We’re not going to support these further megamillion dollar tax breaks. We will not support them; we will oppose them. We will take the government on in any forum to argue this, and I hope we do not hear down the line, in the coming three years, that the government cannot afford this amount for some struggling Australian group or institution who need proper government support. I will be reminding them about this day in this chamber. This proposal is unfair, unwarranted and unjust. This is simply an echo of the Howard government years. I have put forward these amendments seriously. They are what the Labor Party should be doing, and I ask, even at this late moment, that Labor reconsider.