This budget is a cynical attempt to buy votes instead of planning for the nation\u2019s looming challenges. What we needed was a plan to tackle the climate emergency through a real investment in renewables and a managed transition away from coal and other fossil fuels. What we needed was a plan to tackle growing inequality and to fund our essential services. Instead Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have stuck their heads in the sand and delivered a few election bribes.
\n\u201cJosh Frydenberg said in his speech that we owe our children budget discipline. We owe our children a plan for their future, and that should mean tackling climate change through a managed transition away from fossil fuels to a clean, green, jobs-rich renewable economy. By any measure this budget fails to do that,\u201d said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.
\n\u201cIf the Liberals cared as much about addressing our climate catastrophe as they do with looking after their corporate donors, we might not be in this mess. Instead, just six weeks before an election that will be fought over action on climate change, the Treasurer only uttered the words once in his speech.
\n\u201cIt is shameful that this government has only committed a pittance on their national electric vehicle strategy and to modernise our hopelessly outdated electricity network. It\u2019s verging on criminal that they\u2019ve only budgeted $189 million over the forwards on the centrepiece of their climate change policy when we\u2019re facing a climate crisis.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is a mean-spirited budget that perfectly reflects the Coalition\u2019s worldview. It funds tax cuts for the rich by reducing funding for the public services that are essential for everyone but them. It gives billions of dollars more to overfunded private schools than to the public schools that educate most of our children. The Liberals blame immigrants for our overcrowded cities while spending on defence goes up infrastructure goes down.
\n\u201cOne thing that this budget makes absolutely clear is that we don\u2019t lack the financial resources to solve the problems we face as a nation. What we lack is the political vision,\u201d Di Natale said.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s get real: there wouldn\u2019t have been a surplus without the bump in commodities prices, and that\u2019s not in keeping with the long-term trends. This budget doesn\u2019t put us on a trajectory to sustainable growth, it\u2019s just a pea-and-shell game designed to buy some votes,\u201d Greens Treasury Spokesperson Peter Whish-Wilson said.
\n\u201cThe tax cut and surplus in this budget are worth $64.5 billion, which is enough to fully fund TAFE and free university education for all Australians, increase Newstart, build 500,000 new affordable homes, provide Medicare-funded dental care and invest $10 billion to fight climate change and still have billions to spare.
\n\u201cBut the giveaway to their wealthy donors doesn\u2019t stop with the personal income tax cuts. This budget could find an extra $1.8 billion in additional fossil fuel subsidies for rich miners like Gina Rinehart but nothing to boost stagnant wages.
\n\u201cThe Government\u2019s infrastructure spend is not a plan, it\u2019s a scheme to funnel pork to marginal Coalition seats without any concrete vision for transforming our cities and regions so they can thrive. Announcing five feasibility studies on top of the existing three is hardly a groundbreaking plan for fast regional rail,\u201d Whish-Wilson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This budget is a cynical attempt to buy votes instead of planning for the nation\u2019s looming challenges. What we needed was a plan to tackle the climate emergency through a real investment in renewables and a managed transition away from coal and other fossil fuels. What we needed was a plan to tackle growing inequality … Continue reading “Federal Budget a cynical mess: Greens”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}