By Adam Bandt
13 November 2021
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet.
Given this is a virtual national conference, we meet on the lands of a number of traditional owners and we pay respect to their elders, past, present and emerging.
Some are represented here, as they are represented in Parliament, and I acknowledge our fierce First Nations representatives, Lydia Thorpe and Dorinda Cox, as well as the Blak Greens caucus.
I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to all the work being done by the Blak Greens, to decolonise our platform and language, and to recognise that land rights are at the forefront of the climate fight and that First Nations people demand a Truth, a Voice, and a Treaty.
2022 Election
The next election is close and we have two jobs. Kick the Liberals out, and put the Greens in the balance of power.
The Liberals have taken the country backwards. They’re not trying to fix the climate crisis, they’re trying to make it worse. They’re not trying to fix inequality, they’re trying to make it worse too.
But if you want things to be better, we can’t rely on Labor. The only thing Labor alone can be relied on for is disappointment. Heading toward the election, Labor is falling over themselves to agree with the Liberals.
Liberal and Labor both want more coal and gas. Liberal and Labor both take too many big donations from big corporations. And in return they both give big corporations too much special treatment.
Now, big corporations have too much power and pay too little tax.
Early next year, we will have an election. We can kick the Liberals out and put the Greens in the balance of power.
So we can push the next government to phase out coal and gas. So we can push the next government to make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax and make dental and mental healthcare free. For all.
From coast to coast
Thanks to the efforts of so many Greens, over many years, we are now poised to be in a position of real power after the election.
We can be in the balance of power in both houses of Parliament. And we are seeking to become the biggest third party in the Senate in history. We have an incredible team seeking to be elected, or re-elected, in the Senate.
In Tasmania, Peter Whish-Wilson, who has fought for our oceans and forests, is campaigning hard to return to the Senate.
In South Australia, Barbra Pocock, who has spent her life fighting for the rights of women, is top of the ticket, and will make a powerful addition to our Senate team.
From Gladstone, Penny Allman-Payne, a teacher and unionist, will be a powerful advocate in Canberra.
In NSW, David Shoebridge, fresh from kickstarting the ICAC into Gladys Berejiklian, is well placed to be elected to the Federal Parliament.
They would join Lidia Thorpe, Gunnai-Gunditjmara woman, whose strong advocacy has her well placed to be re-elected for a second term in Victoria.
And of course, Dorinda Cox, Yamatji Noongar woman, another powerful force from the West, is running a great campaign to be re-elected, after filling the vacancy created by the retirement of Rachel Seiwert.
They will join Nick, Larissa, Sarah, Mehreen, Jordan and Janet to make a formidable and powerful team.
In the Lower House, where it is very hard to break through, we are also giving it a real shot to increase our numbers.
Max Chandler-Mather’s campaign in Griffith has already had over 11,000 conversations with voters, already exceeding the efforts of the 2019 campaign where they achieved a swing of 6.7%.
This huge movement for change has so far mobilised over 400 volunteers to knock on thousands of doors, deliver 2 electorate-wide community bulletins and fight alongside locals on key community issues.
Over the border in the Northern Rivers seat of Richmond, much loved local comedian Mandy Nolan has a higher profile than the incumbent of 17 years.
Voters across Richmond, where rental prices are through the roof and there are no rentals available, are backing our plan to put the Greens in balance of power and push the next government to make housing more affordable.
In Macnamara, our candidate - an environmental lawyer and young mum Steph Hodgins-May - has seen a huge surge in volunteering from climate strikers and their parents.
It seems the last 4 years of climate fraud from both Labor and Liberal have made climate activism mainstream in Macnamara, putting the local member on notice: he can't say one thing in St Kilda and another in Canberra and expect people not to notice.
In the ACT, voters have already seen the power of electing Greens to the balance of power.
With the Greens in shared power in the ACT, we’ve banned developer donations and established an ACT integrity commission.
Now we’re on track to grow our vote in Canberra.
In the Liberal-heartland seats of Ryan and Brisbane in Queensland, and Kooyong and Higgins in Victoria, the mood for change is undoubtable. Voters are abandoning Scott Morrison and his climate-wrecking Liberals and our candidates are doing an amazing job to give voters a real alternative.
And in Perth, where public meetings have been happening in person, there’s a growing urgency for action on the climate crisis.
Climate
To take action on climate, we need to kick the Liberals out. They’re putting our future, and the future of the entire world, at risk.
Australia’s efforts in Glasgow were humiliating. As the rest of the world planned to get rid of coal, Angus Taylor and Scott Morrison went there to sell more fossil fuels. It was like trying to sell cigarettes in a cancer ward.
Morrison’s plan on a pamphlet was a joke. Over 50% of the emissions reduction come from technologies which either don't exist or don’t work. It’s not a plan to keep people safe. It’s a plan to protect coal and gas corporations.
Strip away the press conference rhetoric, and Labor basically backs it. Labor backs more coal and gas. Labor backs more public funding for coal and gas. Labor backs the dodgy, failed solutions like carbon capture and storage. Labor backs the coal and gas corporations sending profits offshore tax free. Labor backed Adani. Labor backs the Beetaloo. Labor backs the gas expansion in WA. Labor might say some of the right things, but they want more coal and gas.
The Greens are now the only party who will say "no more coal and gas".
The Greens are the only party that will side with the science and say we need to act this decade, not push the problem out to 2050, by which time it will be too late.
We will set a target of 75% by 2030. And we will create hundreds of thousands of jobs rolling out renewables.
We need to make this election a choice.
A choice between a safe future and more heatwaves, fires and floods. A choice between no more coal and gas, or public handouts to tax dodging coal and gas corporations. A choice between acting now, or pushing out the problem to 2050.
Billionaires
Liberal and Labor aren’t just making the climate crisis worse, they’re making inequality worse too.
Right now, 1 in 3 big corporations don’t pay any tax.
The Greens believe that big corporations making big profits should pay tax. In balance of power, the Greens will push to make big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax.
There will be a billionaires’ tax on billionaires’ obscene wealth, which grew faster during the pandemic than the wealth of billionaires in any other country. We will push for a ‘tycoons tax’ on the super-profits made by big corporations.
We will axe the handouts to the coal and gas corporations, because corporations who are mining and burning coal and gas need to be phased out, not publicly funded to make the climate crisis worse.
And today, I would like to announce the next part of our plan to make the big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax and stop sending all their profits offshore.
The Greens will crack down on multinational tax avoidance.
Big corporations have too much power. They seem to write their own rules. Nowhere is this more evident than in tax. Right now, we’re all being ripped off by multinational corporations who hide their profits in tax havens, shell companies and use accounting tricks to get away with paying their fair share of tax.
One example is ExxonMobil Australia. Over the last six years, it’s booked $56B in total income. But, each and every year, they reduced their taxable income to $0, mostly through a web of deductible payments to other arms of the same company.
One of the world’s oil and gas giants has been paying 0% company income tax in Australia. What a joke. These schemes are widely used to avoid or reduce tax in Australia. Apple does it. Santos does it. And Virgin does it. It’s a rort. It’s dodgy. But it’s lawful.
We must close the loopholes and stop the cash train departing our country. The tax law might be complicated, but the morality is pretty simple. When a nurse is paying more tax than a multinational, something is deeply wrong.
Multinationals making huge profits and sending them offshore should pay tax.
The Greens will push to end the rorts. In balance of power, we will push to close the loopholes that allow money shifting offshore, by forcing companies to pay based on their global debt to equity ratio.
We will push to increase transparency, by forcing companies to publish what they pay, and ban secret settlements with the ATO. And we will improve monitoring and enforcement, by establishing a public register of beneficial owners.
Our policy would claw back around $4.5 billion, according to the PBO. We’re being robbed and we need to get this cash back. And we will back the minimum 25% global tax rate for multinational companies.
They will fight us, in court and in public, but people are fed up with being forced to pay more for schools and healthcare while billionaire corporations pay no tax.
People would prefer to have free mental and dental health care rather than billionaire corporations sending massive profits to offshore shareholders.
But to make the big corporations and billionaires pay tax, we need to get into the balance of power.
We can do this
We can do this. We can do this by getting in a position of real power after the next election.
The next election is going to be close. For months the polling has put the Greens in proximity to the balance of power. In fact, if just a few hundred people changed their vote from the last election, the Greens would be in the balance of power already.
But while the polls point to pushing Morrison out, Labor would need a swing they’ve only got once in the last 20 years if they’re to win majority government.
So this election, we’ll be saying to voters: don't waste your vote on a Liberal or Labor party that can’t win a majority in their own right. Vote for the powerful party, the Greens, and get yourself one of the most powerful MPs and Senators in the country!
In the balance of power, we can push the next government to go further and faster on the climate crisis. To make the billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax. And to make dental and mental health care free, as part of Medicare.
Last time we were in balance of power, we made dental care for kids part of medicare. We brought down pollution and passed the Clean Energy Act.
Now, we are ready for the next election. We are ready to fight for affordable housing. To fight to outlaw insecure work and to ensure everyone who wants one can get a secure well paid job.
We are ready to fight for our future. For all of us.