The Government’s latest attempt to turn the Australian Renewable Energy Agency into a fossil fuel bank will be met once again by the Greens who say their disallowance motion still has the constitution and the Senate on its side.

The Greens will move to disallow those parts of the regulations that seek to turn ARENA into a fossil-fuel funder.

The Greens have labelled it ‘Labor’s great leap rightwards’ as the ALP drops progressive policies like negative gearing and public dental while moving to support the Liberal’s radical right-wing flat tax policy. 

New costings by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office revealed this week show an incredible gender and income bias in the benefit of proposed stage 3 tax cuts (full tables below):

Costings by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office reveal an incredible gender and income bias in the benefit of proposed stage 3 tax cuts.

New costings by the Parliamentary Budget Office reveal the extreme inequality of stage 3 tax cuts, which give as much to the top 1% of income earners as the bottom 60%.

The cuts have been calculated at costing the budget bottom line a staggering $184.2 billion over ten years, enough to fund putting dental into Medicare, start building high speed rail from Brisbane to Melbourne and the construction of 1 million affordable homes.

Key points from the PBO costing:

The Greens have released new research showing up to 260,000 single parents, students and jobseekers in locked-down states of NSW, Victoria and SA who are barred from emergency lockdown payments could lose hundreds of dollars a week and slip below the poverty line.

The Greens are calling on the Morrison government to reinstate JobSeeker at $1,100 a fortnight and reintroduce JobKeeper.

Quotes attributable to Greens Leader Adam Bandt:

The Greens have slammed Labor's reported capitulation on Stage 3 Tax Cuts, saying the resolution to back the Liberals and not repeal the unfair tax breaks for Australia's rich will turbocharge economic inequality and the money would be better spent on social services instead.

With the next election on a knife-edge, Adam Bandt MP says the Greens in balance of power will push for Stage 3 tax cuts to be repealed and a new tax to be imposed on billionaires.

Quotes attributable to Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP:

The National Vaccine Strategy should be adapted to reflect the changing nature of the pandemic, which is increasingly putting young people and casual workers at risk, the Greens have said.

The Greens also welcome the decision by the Therapeutic Goods Administration to provisionally approve the use of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged between 12 to 15 years old. This decision was made following careful evaluation of the available data supporting safety and efficacy.

Quotes attributable to the Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP:

In response to new research showing $4.6 billion in JobKeeper went to businesses that increased their turnover through the first wave of the Covid pandemic, the Greens have urged other parties to support Greens’ legislation to force JobKeeper profiteers to pay back public money they didn’t need.

The Greens’ Coronavirus Economic Response Package Amendment (Ending JobKeeper Profiteering) Bill 2021 is currently before the Senate.

Quotes attributable to Greens Leader Adam Bandt:

Australia’s biggest thermal coal and LNG customer, Japan, has announced new 2030 targets for their electricity sector, slashing the amount of coal and gas they intend to use, with a 41% cut in thermal coal and 46% cut in gas over the next 10 years.

Given Australia’s high reliance on Japan, these new targets could see the Australian thermal coal industry slashed by almost 20% by 2030, putting the lie to Liberal and Labor’s claims that coal will continue to be mined and exported for decades to come.