2016-09-22
Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, has today strongly criticised the Treasury Secretary John Fraser for seemingly ignoring two of the biggest issues facing Australia today, climate change and the housing crisis, when pulling together the Treasury Corporate Plan.
Senator Whish-Wilson said, “Any objective and dispassionate assessment of the economic challenges facing Australia would include climate change and the fact that most young people simply can’t buy a home anymore. But both of these massive challenges are completely absent from the Treasury Corporate Plan.
“This is politicisation of the Treasury writ large. Treasury are deliberately ignoring major economic challenges because these issues embarrass their political masters.
“Climate change and climate change policy will fundamentally alter the Australian economic landscape. The G20 are currently examining the risks of these through their Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Treasury not taking these issues seriously is placing a blindfold on Australia as it faces the future.
“Just over a year ago John Fraser said that it was unequivocal that Melbourne and Sydney faced a housing bubble, yet somehow housing fails to get a mention in the Treasury Corporate Plan. The Liberals are embarrassed by their defence of unconscionable negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks that benefit private investors and strip young people of the ability to buy homes to live in. Treasury is more interested in helping its bosses avoid embarrassment over negative gearing than it is in the risk of locking a generation out of home ownership,” he concluded.