Category: Australian News

The Greens have called on the government to strengthen their proposed superannuation plan to meaningfully address wealth inequality and fund measures to address the cost of living crisis by preventing people from accessing any superannuation tax concessions above $1.9m, the current level of the transfer balance cap originally set by then Treasurer Scott Morrison.

Costings by the PBO show that the Greens’ plan would raise $54.6 billion over the next decade, which could be a down payment on raising income support above the poverty line or pay for an immediate doubling of Commonwealth Rent Assistance.

Senator Nick McKim, Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson said:

“Labor’s minimalistic plan is not enough to curb wealth inequality, especially if they do not ditch the Stage 3 tax cuts.

“Fiddling at the margins on superannuation tax concessions while proceeding with Stage 3 tax cuts is just a money-go-round scheme for the rich.

“Labor is basically proposing to rob Peter to pay Peter.

“The transfer balance cap – introduced by Scott Morrison – makes it clear that people do not need public handouts once they have $1.9m in superannuation.

“The Greens want Labor to eliminate all superannuation tax concessions above $1.9m.

“If Labor gets real about tackling inequality, we can raise serious money to help address the cost of living crisis, like ending handouts to the top 1% to fund an increase in income support or doubling rent assistance.

“Our plan would only affect the top 1%, but it would start earlier, and tax twice as many people twice as hard as Labor’s.

“Instead of waiting until 2025, our proposal would take effect from 1 July this year.

“We also urge Labor to direct revenue from curbing these concessions towards helping those who need it most.

Senator Janet Rice, Greens spokesperson for Community affairs said:

“People with more than $1.9m of superannuation don’t also need massive tax breaks. People are doing it really tough and we need to make sure government help is going to the people who need it most.

“There are more people sleeping rough every night in this country than there are people impacted by Labor’s super plan. This money could be a down payment on increasing social security payments above the poverty line.”

The Australian Government will deploy a rapid assessment team to survey cyclone damage at the request of the Government of Vanuatu.

The 12-person team and an initial assistance package will be transported to Vanuatu on a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) aircraft as soon as weather conditions allow.

The team includes officers from federal, state and territory partners with a range of disaster, health, infrastructure, power and humanitarian assessment capabilities.

The rapid assessment team will survey the impact of Tropical Cyclone Judy, and Tropical Cyclone Kevin.

RAAF aircraft will also assist the Government of Vanuatu with aerial damage assessments.

Australia’s initial package of assistance includes shelters, water purification supplies and other essential items for impacted communities.

The Australian Government is working closely with partners such as France and New Zealand to support the Government of Vanuatu’s response.

Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Richard Marles MP said:

“The Australian Defence Force as a part of the whole-of-government effort is coordinating closely with the Pacific family to provide the best support possible to the Ni-Vanuatu people.”

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong said:

“We are providing rapid assistance to support those who have been affected by this disaster.

“We are committed to working with the Govt and people of Vanuatu to support the recovery.”

Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Hon Pat Conroy MP said:

“Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu at this difficult time. Australia stands with the Pacific family during this crisis – now and into the future.

“The deployment of this rapid assessment team builds on our longstanding disaster preparedness and humanitarian assistance activities in Vanuatu and across the region.”

Minister for Emergency Management, Senator the Hon Murray Watt said:

“Australia is proud to be sharing the experience and expertise of our emergency responders to support Vanuatu.

“I thank the Australian personnel who are stepping up to assist the Pacific family in this time of need.”

A primary concern for people living out bush is the lack of face-to-face banking services in regional Australia. This has been a primary concern of One Nation’s now for more than 20 years.

The national inquiry into banks closing their services in rural areas is uncovering crucial issues that need urgent attention. A recent hearing in Sale revealed a shocking lack of consultation between banks and community members before deciding to shut down their branches.

The disconnect between the head offices of large corporations in major cities and the realities of regional communities is becoming a significant issue. The Senate inquiry heard the concerns of these communities across regional Australia and has heard of innovative solutions to keep banking services in rural areas open.

A Postal Bank would fit Australia’s gap in regional banking services quite neatly and has been implemented successfully in Japan and New Zealand.

The Postal Bank would convert current Australia Post branches into a proper national bank run by the government, providing face-to-face banking services to regional Australians. The benefits of the Postal Bank are many.

Regional and metropolitan councils around Australia are now signing up for the campaign to introduce an Australia Post Bank because of the benefits they see for their communities.

A local bank branch that knows the area and the people was the key to the success of the original Commonwealth Bank, which did incredible things to build Australia before it was dismantled after pressure from private banks. We need a proper banking service in regional Australia that provides face-to-face services to the people.

Many Australian politicians have now realised the damage these bank closures are doing to the bush. A serious and urgent re-think is required or many areas of rural Australia may no longer be viable communities

The Senate inquiry is not a witch hunt into banks, as some have suggested. It is a necessary inquiry to address the lack of face-to-face banking services in regional Australia. The Postal Bank proposal is a viable solution that needs to be explored further. Like so many other issues, we need broad political buy-in from parliament for the proposal to gain traction.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will travel to India from 8 –11 March at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister’s visit to Ahmedabad, Mumbai and New Delhi will further deepen our strategic, economic and people to people ties with India, a close friend and partner to Australia.

Prime Minister Albanese will join Prime Minister Modi for the Australia-India Annual Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi. The Prime Ministers will discuss trade and investment, renewable energy, technology, defence and security cooperation. The visit will also highlight our strong educational and cultural ties.

Prime Minister Albanese will be accompanied by Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell and Resources Minister Madeleine King. Minister Farrell and Minister King will also lead a delegation of senior Australian business leaders on this visit.

The business delegation will participate in the Australia-India CEO Forum in Mumbai, discussing trade and investment opportunities opened up by the recent Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement and future areas of business to business collaboration with their Indian counterparts.

Prime Minister Albanese will also join Prime Minister Modi at the Fourth Test Match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Ahmedabad. A shared passion for cricket is a hallmark of our long-standing friendship, a relationship that has been enriched by generations of Indian Australians.

This will be the first visit by an Australian Prime Minister to India since 2017.                                                                                

Prime Minister Albanese said:

“This will be my first visit to India as Prime Minister and I look forward to reinforcing the strong bond between our two countries.”

“Our relationship with India is strong but it can be stronger. It is underpinned by our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which underscores a joint commitment to working together to enhance our defence, economic, and technological interests.”

“A stronger India-Australia partnership is good for the stability of our region.  It also means more opportunities and more trade and investment, strengthening our economies and directly benefiting our people.”

 “As we look to the future, India will continue to be an important partner and close friend to Australia. I look forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Australia mid-year for the Quad Leaders’ Summit and to visiting India again in September for the G20 Leaders’ Summit.”

Deputy Greens Leader and International Aid & Global Justice spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has welcomed the Australian Government’s decision to co-sponsor Vanuatu’s UN bid to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the rights of present and future generations to be protected from climate change. 

The Greens, along with civil society groups, have been pushing Australia to step up and co-sponsor the resolution.

Senator Faruqi said:

“The Government’s decision to co-sponsor  Vanuatu’s initiative is a positive signal to  Pacific nations that Australia is starting to listen to them and their campaign for climate justice.

“Now, Australia has to back this up with strong, credible climate policy at home: a transition to renewables and no new coal and gas. Shamefully, Labor’s safeguard mechanism policy is pro-coal and gas.

“The Government’s decision is reportedly based on a recognition that the climate crisis is the single greatest threat to our Pacific neighbours. At the same time, the Government is nonetheless willing to make the climate crisis worse by opening new coal and gas.”

“Wealthy, colonial countries of the Global North, including Australia, bear overwhelming responsibility for causing and driving the climate crisis. Australia must advocate for global climate justice and critically, must stop making the climate crisis worse by opening new coal and gas.”

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Animal Welfare, has criticised  efforts by the live sheep export industry to pressure Labor into backflipping on their election promise to ban live sheep exports, as reported today.

Senator Faruqi said:

“Labor went to the last two federal elections with a policy to end live sheep export, a measure that polling repeatedly shows is supported by a clear majority of people.”

“The Government must stare down this brazen attempt by a cruel and brutal industry to bully it into backflipping on that promise.”

“The industry’s claims that it has reformed and can now be trusted is rubbish. Sheep continue to die in large numbers on live export ships and suffer oppressive heat stress.”

“We know even the most basic transparency measures, such as independent observers, are not being followed, making a mockery of any of their animal welfare claims. The Government is being taken for a ride by this cruel industry.

“The industry is right on one thing though: Animal welfare campaigners won’t stop at just the live sheep industry. Live animal export should be shut down entirely, as New Zealand is doing. It is simply incompatible with animal welfare.”

The Greens call for immediate Tasmanian devil population surveys in temdudheker/Woolnorth and on pilitika/Robbins Island, after very sad and shocking revelations today that devil facial tumour disease – responsible for wiping out 95% of the Tasmanian devil population – has been detected in an area of the state’s north west previously considered disease-free.

Greens Senator for lutruwita/Tasmania, Peter Whish-Wilson said:

“This news is absolutely devastating. Tassie devils are only just clawing their way back from this horrendous disease, whilst also battling a myriad of other pressures such as becoming roadkill, land clearing, mining and logging.

“The Greens call for Tasmanian devil health surveys to be conducted urgently in and around the remaining temdudheker/Woolnorth populations and on the critical pilitika/Robbins Island, to help better inform conservation management plans. 

“This shocking news adds urgency to acting on roadkill mitigation measures, such as reducing speed limits in the area, as agreed upon in the recent Circular Head Council meeting. 

“My colleague Dr Rosalie Woodruff MP and I will be writing to the Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek today to bring this sad news to her attention. We will also seek urgent assistance for health and population surveys as part of the devil’s federal recovery plan and stress the need for increased focus on devil protection and conservation in this critical area.

“The Federal Government has responsibilities under the EPBC Act to help devils recover, but hasn’t committed a cent towards the devil’s recovery in the last five years and this needs to change. 

“Abandoning the Tasmanian devil now, after so much time, money and love has been poured into keeping the treasured species alive and healthy, is a cruel death sentence.”

ABS figures released today show that further interest rate rises are unnecessary.

“The RBA should not continue to raise interest rates when inflation is slowing,” Greens economic justice spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.

“The last nine rate hikes have already smashed renters and mortgage holders. Any further rises will just send even more people to the wall.”

“We also learned today that 2022 was the best year on record for corporate profits.”

“Corporate profiteering has driven inflation up and piled on the cost of living pain.”

“Meanwhile, the share going to workers was the lowest ever in 2022. Yet those who are struggling the most are expected to fix the problem by copping higher rents and mortgage payments.”

“The figures show a shameful reality: the rich are getting richer while workers are getting the smallest slice of the pie since records began more than six decades ago.”

“We don’t need more rate rises. Jim Chalmers needs to stop sitting on his hands while the RBA punishes households.

“He should freeze rents, introduce a corporate super profits tax, and start providing genuine cost of living relief like putting dental into Medicare, wiping student debt and raising the jobseeker rate.”

Greens’ Treasury spokesperson Senator Nick McKim has responded to the release of the Tax Expenditure and Insights Statement and the government’s proposed changes to superannuation tax concessions.

“The big question the government is yet to answer is, what will these reforms be used to fund? Labor’s Stage 3 tax cuts are the elephant in the room.”

“Modest changes to superannuation tax concessions to help pay for a $9,000 tax cut is just a money-go-round scheme for the rich.”

“Jim Chalmers is proposing to rob Peter to pay Peter.”

“Any budget that includes the Stage 3 tax cuts makes us a less equal society.”

“The Tax Expenditure and Insights Statement shows just how much tax breaks already favour the rich.”

“The Stage 3 tax cuts are only going to make this worse.”

“Labor cannot claim to be a party of the working class while they’re implementing a quarter of a trillion dollars in tax cuts, three-quarters of which go to the top 20% of income earners.”

The elites are well and truly in charge of the Voice agenda, with a recent declaration they plan to use the Voice to seize power. Many Aboriginals you chat with on the street would tell you their dreams are about a better future for their family and kids, not the elitist Voices of parliament.

Dividing Australia along racial lines has long been a goal of extremist elites who try to tell Australians how to run their lives.

Now the extremist elites have let slip how their vision of how the Voice will work.

They declared from their lofty positions on high, “The Indigenous voice “will have a lot of power” and will not passively wait to be consulted,”

“There is a misconception that it will have no power and it will have no influence. I mean we can debate that for ages but of course, it will have a lot of power. It will have a lot of power because it’s a constitutional voice that is mandated by the Australian people and that gives it a lot of power,

“It will make the representations. So it’s not a consultative body in that it is sitting there waiting passively for the Commonwealth to consult it or bureaucrats to consult it.”

These revelations should send a shudder down the spine of every decent Australian. The Voice will have power, will interfere in government and will be an activist body (code: home for extremists like Lidia Thorpe).

The words used by the elitists who are pursuing the Voice are the worst-case scenario for Australia.

These people have now placed on record their desire to usurp Australian democracy and that spells disaster for the way we live and everything we stand for.

Source: Professor Davis and Ms Anderson, co-chairs of the ‘Uluru Dialogue’ quoted in – The Australian 28/02/2023