With the PM away in Tonga at the Pacific Islands Forum, and the Liberals talking about defunding signature ALP policies so wealthy people can pay less tax, Greens leader Adam Bandt took to the National Press Club stage last week to suggest a very different way of dealing with the nation’s financial problems.
Mr Bandt pointed out that since 2022, the price of food in Australia has risen 10.5 per cent on average, rent 31 per cent, and mortgages $1,667 each month. More than three million Australians are now living in poverty. ‘People are drowning,’ he said.
At the same time (and ever since COVID), the wealth of the richest billionaires has massively increased, while big banks and supermarkets continue to rake in unprecedented earnings as a result of price gouging and profiteering.
Amazingly, trickle-down economics is continuing to show no signs of being an actual thing. In the absence of revolution, what can be done? How about a tax on excessive profits of companies with an annual turnover of $100 million plus? Mr Bandt suggests that this and other reforms could raise $296 billion.
He said the Australian economy is presently ‘rigged by design’ in favour of big corporations, by both major parties.
‘Labor has lost themselves’
The Greens leader says Labor have resisted doing anything to break up the supermarket duopoly, and relied too much on the RBA to address inflation, ‘using everyday people as cannon fodder’ instead of taking on the big corporations who caused the crisis and were then rewarded by interest rate rises.
In his Press Club speech, Mr Bandt next moved on to taxation. ‘Despite billions in revenue, one in three big corporations does not pay tax,’ he said, with that number rising to two out of three when it comes to coal and gas corporations.
He gave the example of Danielle, the nurse from Allan Fels’ price gouging inquiry, who was paying more tax than Exxon, Santos, Virgin or Amcor.
‘Big gas corporations are parasitic leeches,’ said Mr Bandt. ‘They suck out gas, public subsidies and profits, leaving nothing but dangerous pollution and a degraded host, sending revenue offshore and paying little, if any tax.
‘Labor, like the Liberals, is now a fully owned subsidiary of the coal and gas corporations. That’s why Labor has approved 23 coal and gas projects since coming to power in the middle of a climate crisis.’
Adam Bandt said that he and his merry band of men and women in the Greens would be announcing a series of ‘Robin Hood reforms’ between now and the 2025 election aimed at securing long held prizes including bringing dental into Medicare, free university and TAFE education for all, the decriminalisation of climate protests, and ending tax handouts for wealthy property investors, all to be funded presumably by putting the hard word on the most profitable corporations.
Goodbye fossils?
As to whether fossil fuel companies would take their toys and go elsewhere if forced to pay a reasonable amount of tax, it’s worth remembering that petroleum executives made similar threats in Norway before the government there imposed a 78 per cent tax rate.
Those threats proved empty, and Norway now has a sovereign wealth fund worth almost $2.5 trillion Australian dollars.
Exxon, likewise, operates in countries including Norway, the Netherlands and the UK, all regions where they pay significant tax, although in Australia they are by some calculations the biggest tax avoider of all. Recent Australia Institute research shows that federal taxes on Exxon, Woodside, Shell and Chevron combined contribute less to the Commonwealth government than beer excise.
Is there any reason to think Exxon would abandon this country if they had to share some of their profits with the people of Australia? Unfortunately none of this was explored in the hysterical mainstream media reaction to Adam Bandt’s speech, if it was reported at all.
For me, the problem with Bandt’s argument lies more with the internal contradiction of calling for more money to be raised from an industry which Greens policy (and mainstream science) says needs to be wound down ASAP for the survival of life on Earth.
Meanwhile, since Anthony Albanese returned from Tonga (the land of hot mics, rising sea levels and embarrassing outfits), he’s announced new cost of living band aids ‘to help Australians doing it tough’. Commonwealth Rent Assistance is to increase by another 10 per cent, with more medicines to be available via 60 day prescriptions.
Still no word from Albo on going after those dastardly multinational corporations though.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
