PM Abbott ignores budget alternatives

2015-02-02

Senator Christine Milne

The 2014 Federal Budget is history. That cruel document that tried to make Australia a meaner, harder place to live has been firmly rejected by the community and the Senate.

There are only five Parliamentary sitting weeks between now and the tabling of the 2015 Federal Budget, and it's clear to everyone across the political spectrum that the Coalition's second attempt at effectively running the country will need to be drastically different.

First, they need to change the premise. The community hasn't fallen for the “budget emergency” trick. There is no budget emergency and there is no justification for these hits to the young, the poor, the elderly and the sick. What's real is the failure to raise revenue.

The government needs to change the plan, and change it completely. The so-called backdowns we've seen so far on university cuts and healthcare are just different shades of lipstick on the same old pig. Exemptions and adjustments here and there have not altered the fundamental fact that Australians do not want these budget measures to pass.

It is pure arrogance for Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey to push ahead with their cruel agenda, through regulation if not legislation, while repeating claims that there are no alternatives. The challenge is that the alternatives require a huge shift from this government: they must end their protection racket for the big end of town and start raising revenue from those who can afford to pay.

Applying a 'public insurance' levy on the big four banks that are too big to fail would raise $16.8 billion over the forward estimates. A levy of only $2 per tonne on thermal coal exports would rake in $1.7 billion. Taxing discretionary trusts, aside from those set up by farmers, at the same rate as corporations would reduce tax avoidance and raise $3.6 billion. Abolishing tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry, excluding those for agricultural purposes, would save $10.05 billion.

Undoing some of the Coalition's biggest mistakes of 2014 would also be of huge benefit to the federal budget. Rather than giving $2.5 billion to big polluters under the impotent Direct Action plan, the carbon price Tony Abbott repealed was due to deliver $18 billion in revenue. Instead of dumping the Mining Tax, fixing it to resemble the original tax on mining super-profits would have been capable of raising another $18.6 billion.

These alternatives, independently costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office just last year, are being resolutely ignored by the Treasurer. That's because these revenue-raisers make it very clear that Mr Hockey's cruel cuts are unnecessary. Before considering any version of the Coalition's measures that would make life harder for people, the Greens want the big miners, bankers and polluters to pay their fair share.

Everyday people, and we in the Senate on their behalf, are still asking why this government can't afford to help sick people go to the doctor, but it can afford to help its business mates with billions in tax breaks, subsidies and rebates. How is it that the Coalition is crying poor over welfare payments to people struggling with disabilities, joblessness and single-parenthood, but it can afford billions in corporate welfare to companies raking in record profits?

The community is suffering because the government is busy protecting the profits of its mates at the big end of town. The government is on the nose because it is refusing to listen to the community and instead is lecturing voters, telling them they don't know what's good for them.

It's time to think big picture. Time to acknowledge that Australia can afford to be a healthy, innovative, caring nation. It's time to stop talking about cutting services and making life harder for people and instead start acting to raise revenue and tackle corporate tax evasion and minimisation. It was wrong for Joe Hockey to abandon action on multinational tax avoidance in MYEFO and persist with his attacks on the poor.

Stuck in his Opposition mindset, Tony Abbott has made the failure of his budget everyone else's fault. If anyone's stuck on complaints, not resolution, it's the Prime Minister who plays victim to an unyielding Senate, ignoring the fact it is not the role of the Senate to yield to the agenda of the ruling party.

A government should be committed to running the country for the benefit of all, not ruining it for all but the very wealthy one per cent. Both the premise and the plan of the Abbott government's first budget were wrong. In 2015 they have to get it right.