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The Morrison Government is investing more than $2 billion to deliver a more advanced self-defence capability for our Royal Australian Navy (RAN), which will provide our Australian Defence Force (ADF) with the most advanced technology to protect against anti-ship missile threats.

The purchase of the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) Block 2 capability for our ADF, is a key pillar in shaping, deterring and if necessary, responding to protect Australia’s interests in a strategically complex environment.

The ESSM Block 2 is a highly advanced surface to air missile, capable of defeating modern advanced air and missile threats. The ESSM Block 2 incorporates an advanced active radar missile seeker and has a range in excess of 50km.

The first tranche of these weapons have already arrived in Australia for initial integration and testing purposes. The ESSM Block 2 will be embarked in the RAN’s Surface Combatant Force, including the Anzac Class frigates and Hobart Class destroyers.

This investment will directly support Australian jobs through Defence industry supplying components for ESSM Block 2 production internationally.

Suppliers to ESSM Block 2 production include BAE Systems Australia, L3 Harris, and G H Varley, with production and supporting roles based in Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Newcastle.

Australian industry will continue to support increasing rates of missile production, and further opportunities for Australian industry involvement are being pursued in missile component manufacture and integration.

Delivery of the ESSM Block 2 is facilitated by Australia’s participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Sea Sparrow Consortium.

Australia’s participation in the Consortium provides Navy with access to important technical information, strengthens the relationship with NATO and shares the cost associated with developing a very effective capability for defeating anti-ship missiles.

As Consortium partners, Defence and Australian industry have completed a significant amount of work to develop the ESSM Block 2 to date.

The Greens say the Aspen Medical scandal confirms the Morrison Government as the dodgiest and most irresponsible in Australian history.

Greens deputy leader and spokesperson on democracy Senator Larissa Waters said:

“At a time when the cost of living and rents are soaring, when many Australians are having to choose between buying school books for their kids or putting food on the table, we learn of yet another Morrison Government favour for its corporate mates.

“Keeping people safe during the pandemic was a critical government role. Robust and transparent procurement of PPE was essential, yet the government handed more than one billion dollars to a Liberal-linked company with zero experience in large-scale procurement with no tender process. Minister Hunt even wrote them a letter of endorsement!  

“The government has form with this kind of reckless spending and disregard for due process. Malcolm Turnbull ignored transparency rules and gifted $444 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, entrusting protection of one of Australia’s most precious assets to a fledgling organisation with only a handful of staff. 

“When Peter Dutton needed someone to run his inhumane refugee prisons, he awarded $423 million without tender to the Paladin Group, an inexperienced firm with almost no money and a head office at a beach shack on Kangaroo Island.

“This government is addicted to outsourcing critical services, which makes everything more expensive and less transparent. They have hollowed out the Australian Public Service and waste billions on private companies and consultants instead – who just happen to be generous political donors. 

“Instead of favours for donors, the Greens would invest in future pandemic preparedness with an independent National Centre for Disease Control making critical health decisions. We would build capacity to manufacture locally, and pay healthcare workers properly so we have a bigger workforce pool.

“We’d also restore the APS by lifting staffing to match 2012 levels, raising APS wages by 4% per annum over the next four years, and limiting outsourcing to labour hire firms and big consultancy firms.

“And we’ll continue our fight to restore public faith in our democracy by closing the revolving door between parliament and big business, banning dirty donations from dodgy industries, capping all other donations, implementing enforceable ministerial standards and establishing a robust and independent National Integrity Commission.”

“Scott Morrison has presided over more rorting than any Prime Minister before him. He has shown a complete disregard for transparency, due process and good investment of public funds. This is a government more interested in supporting its mates and buying elections, than in investing in a better future.

“It is the most secretive, unaccountable government in history and I cannot wait to see the back of them in three weeks’ time.”

The Greens have pledged $1.14 billion in extra federal funding for WA chronically underfunded hospitals.

This investment would be funded by repairing the broken ‘resource super profits tax’ (the PRRT), forcing big corporations to pay royalties on the gas they currently access for free.

The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), introduced in 1987, is meant to ensure that the public gets a fair share of the unearned revenue (rent) enjoyed by companies by virtue of having exclusive access to Commonwealth resources. 

Yet the majority of coal and gas corporations currently offshore their profits tax free.

By charging royalties on gas extracted in Commonwealth waters and wiping the obscene backlog of ‘tax credits’ used to avoid paying tax, we can raise over $92 billion over the next decade. 

The Greens will legislate to amend the PRRT, ensuring it does what it was designed to do – tax the big corporations fairly on their wealth so that we can fund the things we need to create a safer future for all of us, including but not limited to:

• Properly funding WA’s hospital system 
• Building 118,900 homes in Western Australia over the next twenty years
• Create hundreds of thousands of secure and well paid jobs in the renewable energy sector in WA 
• Getting dental and mental health care into Medicare.

Repairing the broken PRRT is a key part of the Greens’ comprehensive plan to create a better life for all of us, by making the billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax. 

The Australian Tax Office has referred to the gas industry as “systemic non-payers” of tax and acknowledged that despite earning tens of billions in income each year, the ATO expects no significant tax revenue to come from gas companies until “the mid-2030s”.

Instead of raising revenue from their rich mates, governments at all levels have cut services for the rest of us – like public health, education and social services.

In March, the AMA (WA) 2022 Public Hospital Report Card showed “the WA Government’s chronic underfunding of health has created the vulnerabilities that have plagued the system in recent years,” with health operational budgets “still in serial decline.” 

Australian Greens leader, Adam Bandt said:

“In just one year, 27 big gas corporations brought in $77b in income but paid no tax. 

“When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, something is seriously wrong.

“The Greens will make big gas corporations pay their fair share of tax to help get dental into Medicare.

“Australia’s natural resources belong to the people, but Liberal and Labor are giving away our gas for free, losing billions of dollars that should be funding hospitals and schools.

“The people of WA currently contribute more tax through car registrations than the multi-billion dollar gas industry pays for gas. 

“WA is being taken to the cleaners by big coal and gas corporations, and Australians are being ripped off.

“No other business gets their raw materials for free, but Woodside, Chevron and Exxon get free gas from this tax rort and then make obscene profits that they send offshore.

“Mining and burning coal and gas isn’t just driving the climate crisis, these big corporations are driving the cost of living crisis too.”

Senator Dorinda Cox, Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia said:

“For decades, both Liberal and Labor governments have given billionaires and corporations massive tax handouts and tax breaks. 

“You know something is seriously wrong when billionaires like Gina Reinhart and Clive Palmer have more than doubled their wealth during a pandemic – and when our state gets more revenue from car registrations than we do from the multi-billion dollar gas industry. 

“While they get away with making huge profits, West Australians are missing out.

“Often, when we need healthcare, it is at a vulnerable time in our lives. By making oil and gas pay their fair share, we can properly invest in our hospital system, so that more West Australians can get the health care they need, when they need it.

“Taxing the billionaires and making them pay their fair share of tax would mean investments in a world-class hospital system in WA.

“We can deliver this, along with a home for all, thousands of well paid secure jobs in a renewables economy, and get dental into Medicare – all by making the billionaires and the big corporations pay their fair share.”

The Greens welcome the comprehensive In One Generation report from the National Women’s Safety Alliance today, and are proud to support its 20 priority actions. The Greens are calling on all other parties to match their commitment to fully fund frontline services, eliminate violence against women and deliver economic security.

Greens deputy leader and spokesperson on women Senator Larissa Waters said:

“The National Women’s Safety alliance has shown that ending violence against women within one generation is possible, if there is genuine commitment and funding to make it a reality. 

“There have sadly been 18 women killed by violence already this year. It’s a national crisis and we need to treat it like one.

“The Greens are proud that our election policy platform backs the policy asks laid out by the In One Generation campaign and we call upon all other parties to commit to those policies too.  

“The Greens have been fighting hard for progress on all these issues for decades alongside victim-survivors, activists and women’s organisations.

“Our policy to end gendered violence calls for a self-determined National Plan for First Nations Women and Girls, $1 billion per year to fully fund frontline and prevention services for the life of the plan, $477 million for consent education, $10,000 Survivor Grants, and stronger, consistent national laws governing domestic, family and sexual violence.

“We will reform the family law system and double legal assistance funding so women can get the advice and representation they need to protect themselves and their children.”

“We will help build a strong and trauma-informed workforce, and ensure frontline services, banks, teachers, healthcare workers, police and judges recognise and understand the dynamics of abusive relationships and how to help people affected by them”

“First Nations women, women from culturally diverse backgrounds, women in regional areas, older women, LGBTIQ+ women, and women with a disability are even more likely to experience violence and economic insecurity, and must be involved in the development and implementation of all policy responses.

“We will ensure that victim-survivors’ guide all decisions made under the National Plan, and we will invest in behaviour change and recovery programs to help victim-survivors rebuild their lives.”

“We have introduced legislation for ten days paid DV leave, pay transparency, and full implementation of the Respect@Work recommendations, including a positive duty on employers.

“We will build 1 million publicly owned houses and protect renters so every Australian can have access to a safe home.  We will increase the supply of crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing violence, and support Safe at Home programs.

“We have a comprehensive plan for free universal childcare, and fully costed proposals to expand paid parental leave to 26 weeks, facilitate more equitable sharing of care roles, lifting wages, closing the gender pay gap and increasing workforce participation.

“Ending violence against women within one generation is possible. But the Morrison Government has shown a complete unwillingness to take the action needed to make it happen.  That’s why Australian women need to vote them out and put the Greens in balance of power this election.”

Learn More:

Greens policies: End Gendered Violence & Gender Inequality

An Albanese Labor Government will freeze deeming rates at their current levels for two years, protecting around 900,000 pensioners and social security recipients from increases in interest rates.

Pensioners and older Australians are bearing the brunt of Scott Morrison’s cost of living crisis. It is the responsibility of any government to ease these pressures where they can.

But the coalition’s record shows they cannot be trusted to deliver for older Australians and pensioners.

Scott Morrison cut the pension for around 370,000 pensioners, scrapped pensioner concessions, and he tried to raise the pension age to 70.

Deeming rates are important because they are part of the income test that determines access to the pension and social security payments, the part pension and the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. 

Between March 2015 to July 2019, interest rates fell four times but the government didn’t adjust the deeming rates once. 

Pensioners know that the Liberals and Nationals can’t be trusted on deeming rates. 

After almost a decade of this Liberal-National Government, the costs of essentials are out of control, real wages are falling, and now interest rates are rising by a quarter of a per cent.

The reality is that cost of living pressures have reached crisis levels on Scott Morrison’s watch. Now, he is having to do a patch-up job.

Labor has a plan for a better future beyond the election, which is designed to grow the economy without adding to inflationary pressures; ease cost of living pressures; get real wages growing again; and to get economic bang for buck from a Budget heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal-National debt.

Only Labor can be trusted to manage the economy in the best interests of all Australians, including older Australians and pensioners.