Budget Reply Speech Part II - A Greens Budget to promote an environmentally sustainable economy

Note: This is not a party political broadcast on behalf of The Greens! It is how I think The Greens should attack the appalling policies of Labor and the Coalition and how we should sell our own excellent policies. If you like it, please pass it on.

Cheers

Keith


For over half a century this country has been poorly served by the major political parties. They have showed no vision. They have showed no leadership. They have shown no courage. Their only focus has been on back pocket politics to stay in power.

There has been no Sydney Harbour Bridge. No Snowy Mountains scheme. No Warragamba dam. Visionary infrastructure has been sacrificed to short term opportunism. Pro active decisions on the future of our economy have been replaced with knee jerk reactions to the external forces that have decimated real jobs in our real economy leaving us relying on the fickle nature of the Finance and IT industry, tourism and the vagaries of the consumer society.

The Greens are the only political party with a true economic vision for the world. A vision that sees sustainable communities living within sustainable countries in a sustainable world. A vision that sees waste and pollution as an obscure entry in a 22nd century Wikipedia and a vision that sees true democracy at work without the corrupting influence of the corporate world driving us on a make believe journey of limitless economic growth on a planet of limited resources.


To make our economy environmentally sustainable, a Green’s budget would have three key initiatives:

1. The first would be a house by house and workplace by workplace educational program to audit energy usage and waste production and promote efficiency savings. Such an educational program would reduce our greenhouse gases, improve water efficiency, reduce waste and reduce pollution. Such a program will also produce immediate financial savings to all households and all businesses.
2. The second would be the mobilisation of our countries vast resources, technical know how and skilled labour to ensure we have 100% renewable power generation in the shortest possible time. This would require in excess of one hundred thousand direct and indirect Green jobs in its planning, manufacturing, installation and maintenance. And many of these jobs will be located in regional and rural Australia where renewable energy is most accessible and employment needs are the greatest.
3. The third would be a fast tracked doubling of our public transport and rail freight capacity. Passenger capacity on all our countries buses, trams, trains and ferries would be doubled, removing hundreds of thousands of cars from the roads. Rail freight capacity would be doubled and infrastructure expanded to take thousands of trucks off the roads and onto rail, where they should have always been.
   
   

These three key initiatives will produce vast employment opportunities throughout Australia, provide the market demand to generate local manufacture and innovation and show leadership to the world on the fundamental change in culture that is required for us to achieve environmental sustainability.

And how will these initiatives be paid for? They will be paid for by the plunderers and polluters of our planet:

1. All tax breaks and incentives given to industries that contribute to global warming will be removed. Including all fossil fuel industries, vehicle manufacturing, cement production and others
2. Royalties would be increased on all natural resources.
3. Carbon taxes would be imposed on power generation and fuel usage
   Import taxes would be imposed on all products manufactured in countries that do not pursue an environmentally sustainable economy.
4. Pollution taxes would be levied on those companies whose products pollute our land, water and air.
5. And all road improvement projects would be stopped other than those where safety cannot be improved by less costly means.

For decades Australian governments have been castrated by the corporate world. Corporate donations, corporate corruption and corporate cronies have crippled our political system. Their pervasive influence and political power is now such that they are even dictating how we should reduce our greenhouse gas production with that most bizarre and ridiculous of all technologies, carbon capture and storage.

Australia does not need a journey to a Clayton’s Climate Change Solution promoted by those very industries that have denied the science and delayed and defied any sensible solution.

Australia does need a journey to an environmentally sustainable economy driven by new industries. And that is what a Greens’ budget would give the country.

Thank you