The ‘Pandora papers’ disclosed today reveal that Australia is a weak link in the fight against international tax avoidance, with accounting firms and real estate agents excluded from having to report to financial regulators over many suspicious transactions, giving these Australian firms a competitive advantage when orchestrating money laundering schemes for the super-rich.

Australia is one of only six countries in the world where accountants, lawyers and real estate agents are not required to report under anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.

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 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next election on a knife-edge, Adam Bandt MP says the Greens in balance of power will push for Stage 3 tax cuts to be repealed and a new tax to be imposed on billionaires.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 Australian Greens have used their Budget in Reply speech to announce a new tax on extreme profiteering by billionaires during the pandemic.  
The new tax, which only applies to the 122 richest Australians, will raise $29 billion. It will be taxed on the amount their wealth increased between March 2020 and March 2021.

Tonight’s Budget is a pre-election sweetener that fails to make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax, while growing inequality and fast-tracking climate collapse.

While on the surface the budget may appear to do away with the Liberals’ years of austerity politics, it continues the myth that largesse to the super-wealthy will trickle down to everyday people.

In the wake of detail-free indication from the Treasurer that he is embracing continued stimulus, the Greens have expressed concern that Josh Frydenberg doesn’t know the difference between job-creating economic stimulus and corporate welfare.